Limiting Interpretive Possibilities in Beckett and Calvina

Advances in literary studies have expanded the multitude of interpretations
possible of a single work, perhaps too far. Positive progress from here requires
constructing a way to avoid the chaos of an interpretive free- for-all without reverting to
the debunked, totali zing systems of old. Limiting Interpretive Possibilities finds in Italo
Calvina's If on a winter's night a traveler and Samuel Beckett's Molloy, Malone Dies,
and The Unnamable the model for a combinatorial literature that respects the key,
inalienable elements of author, reader, work, and universe. Any reading that fits into this
framework is a "possible" interpretation of the work, while readings that deny one or
more of these elements are " impossible." Ultimately, a literary work has room for all its
possible interpretations, which co-exist in a combinatorial manner that accounts for even
interpretations that have yet to emerge, ensuring that no new way of reading will
fundamentally alter the original work.