From the excerpted section I totally see why that's the question, and yet that's not quite how I parsed it in the essay.
The author makes the point that readers are more likely to reject the author's imposed world/structure/facts. The hypothesis is that we (readers) think reading is interactive, but I wonder if it's more postmodern ("inviting the reader to participate") than that.
In my opinion, there's crappy "gotcha" analysis like cinema sins which is mostly cheap entertainment. It doesn't really encourage one to engage deeply with the original work like Bret's posts do.
Regardless, I thought the author was discussing this type of readership/fandom
The author makes the point that readers are more likely to reject the author's imposed world/structure/facts. The hypothesis is that we (readers) think reading is interactive, but I wonder if it's more postmodern ("inviting the reader to participate") than that.
I love Bret's work, but I sort of imagine this is the kind of analysis that a modern author might find frustrating: https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondo...
In my opinion, there's crappy "gotcha" analysis like cinema sins which is mostly cheap entertainment. It doesn't really encourage one to engage deeply with the original work like Bret's posts do.
Regardless, I thought the author was discussing this type of readership/fandom