Prospecting

An important transitional book usefully summarizing the past and thoughtfully mapping out the future of a significant critic''s theoretical project.--''Modern Philology.'' There is a much greater emphasis on the reader''s function as `performer'' of the text in ''Prospecting'' than in Iser''s other books. The two brilliant chapters on Beckett''s fiction and drama are crucial here...Literature becomes `play'' and `game'' and the reader becomes a performer of himself. This idea of performance becomes central to Iser''s new theory. Art does not present life; it performs it.--''Yearbook of English Studies.''