SOURCE: “Splicing the Trivial with the Sublime,” in The Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 15, No. 4, July-August, 1995, p. 9.

In the following review, Rehder assesses the theoretical aspects of Six Walks in the Fictional Woods and praises the thematic diversity of Apocalypse Postponed.

Umberto Eco's book Lector in fabula, which corresponds only in part to the English version The Role of the Reader (Indiana University, 1979), is more than a book title. It triggers an allusion and it names a research program. The allusion is to “lupus in fabula,” the ever-present wolf in the (Italian) folktale. Summoning the wolf means “speaking of the devil,” a phrase for the person who turns up unexpectedly the moment his name is mentioned. Substituting the lector for the wolf conjures up the image of a reader who appears in the text that he or she is reading. And so “speaking of the reader” became something of a...