ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that conversation is the primordial form of human communication. Reading can become an echo chamber in which we bend texts to our own beliefs, values, and desires, or, if we cannot, reject them. The field of literary criticism has long been vexed by the issue of who literary texts are addressed to and which readers count as "competent" to read them. Literary criticism has dealt poorly with these issues. It has too often pretended that literary works are addressed to some "universal reader" or "competent reader", where "competent" often means having been trained in whatever is at the time the dominant trend in English departments. The fact that books make readers engage in both sides of a conversation is one of the reasons why literacy has very often not been all that liberating. Writing leads back to voice and to turn-taking conversations.
