Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reviewing strategies and the normalization of uncertain texts

  • Original Article
  • Published:
American Journal of Cultural Sociology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Reviewers help ease cultural products’ testing transition from the stage of production to that of circulation. Given their intermediate position between stages, reviewers have to deal with uncertainty when valuating new cultural products. How do reviewers in a transnational setting make sense of a novel product that challenges existing aesthetic boundaries, has commercial success, and is made by a little-known creator? Along with the strategies of description, accommodation, and rejection, this paper argues that reviewers’ most effective, long-term strategy to normalize the uncertainty of a brand-new product is to come up with an aesthetic label for it, either by rescuing one (recycling) or by proposing a new one (neo-labeling). These two strategies of resignification help to normalize the product’s aesthetic uncertainty. This paper studies reviewers’ initial valuation of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. They applied the above-mentioned strategies to read the text, especially as they could not agree on its aesthetics. A key strategy consisted in recycling the little-known label magical realism. In the long-run, magical realism turned into the normal label applied to the novel worldwide. This paper offers insights into actors’ perception of uncertain cultural products and the standardization of heterogeneous interpretations of such products.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Source Santana-Acuña (2020, p. 207)

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. García Márquez quoted in Santana-Acuña (2020, p. 130).

  2. The concept of aesthetic liberation builds on McAdam’s (1982) cognitive liberation. Aesthetic liberation refers to a group of creators that during a specific period becomes aware of their collective agency and purposively intervenes in large-scale cultural processes. A group of writers experienced such liberation with the rise of the New Latin American Novel in the 1960s.

  3. The paperback revolution is traditionally associated with the proliferation of well-printed and affordable books on many subjects in post-World War II England. Such revolution, which remains understudied in Latin America, reached readers there in the 1960s.

  4. After the novel sold out its first print run and since initial reviewers were enthusiastic, by May 1968 the publisher had released six new print runs, changed the book’s cover, and redesigned the back cover, adding strong blurbs by leading writers Fuentes, Cortázar, and Vargas Llosa, who praised the novel as a major literary achievement.

References

  • Alat [Alfonso La Torre]. 1967. García Márquez: forjamos la gran novela de América, 11. Expreso, 8 Sept.

  • Alexander, J. 2010. Iconic consciousness: The material feeling of meaning. Thesis Eleven 103 (1): 10–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, M., and A. Lincoln. 2004. Critical discourse and the cultural consecration of American films. Social Forces 82 (3): 871–894.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alone [H. Díaz Arrieta]. 1969 [1968]. Cien años de soledad. Coral 9: 33–34.

  • Análisis. 1967 Historia mágica del continente, 50–52. 18 Sept.

  • Anonymous. 1967/1968. Los novelistas y sus críticos (en el XIII Congreso Interamericano de Literatura). Papeles. Revista del Ateneo de Caracas 5: 70–103.

  • Arciniega, R. 1968. Novela al tope del mástil, 7. El Sol de León, 27 May.

  • Arenas, R. 1969 [1968]. Cien años de soledad en la ciudad de los espejismos. Coral 9: 35–39.

  • Atlas. 1967. The total novel, 59–62. November.

  • Ayax [R. García-Peña]. [1968] Rastro de los hechos. El Tiempo. Location: García Márquez Papers, Harry Ransom Center, osb 7.

  • Baumann, S. 2007. A general theory of artistic legitimation: How art worlds are like social movements. Poetics 35 (1): 47–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. 2008a. Art worlds. Berkeley and London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. 2008b. Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benzecry, C. 2015. Restabilizing attachment to cultural objects: Aesthetics, emotions and biography. British Journal of Sociology 66 (4): 779–800.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bielby, W., and D. Bielby. 1994. “All hits are flukes”: Institutionalized decision making and the rhetoric of network prime-time program development. American Journal of Sociology 99 (5): 1287–1313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bloom, H., ed. 2003. Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloom, H., ed. 2009. Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1990. Les conditions sociales de la circulation internationale des idées. Cahiers d’histoire des littératures romanes 1–2: 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1992. Les règles de l’art: Genèse et structure du champ littéraire. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1993. The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 2012. La distinction: critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bryson, B. 1996. “Anything but heavy metal”: Symbolic exclusion and musical dislikes. American Sociological Review 61 (5): 884–899.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burgos Cantor, R. 1967. Cien años de soledad, 17. El Espectador, 24 Sept.

  • Calderón, A. 1967. Cien años para Macondo, 29. Ercilla, 20 Sept.

  • Callon, M., Y. Millo, and F. Muniesa, eds. 2007. Market devices. London: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callon, M., C. Méadel, and V. Rabeharisoa. 2002. The economy of qualities. Economy and Society 31 (2): 194–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campos, J. 1968. García Márquez: fábula y realidad. Ínsula 258 (May): 11–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casanova, P. 1999. La république mondiale des lettres. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Childress, C., and N. Friedkin. 2012. Cultural reception and production: The social construction of meaning in book clubs. American Sociological Review 77 (1): 45–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Childress, C. 2017. Under the cover: The creation, production, and reception of a novel. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Childress, C., C. Rawlings, and B. Moeran. 2017. Publishers, authors, and texts: The process of cultural consecration in prize evaluation. Poetics 60: 48–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chong, P. 2020. Inside the critics’ circle: Book reviewing in uncertain times. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cochoy, F., J. Deville, and L. McFall. 2017. Markets and the arts of attachment. London: Taylor & Francis.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, R., and M. Guillén. 2012. Mutual halo effects in cultural production: The case of modernist architecture. Theory and Society 41 (6): 527–556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coneo, J.M. 1967. Cartas al director: inventario de muertos. Magazine Dominical, El Espectador, 3 Sept.

  • Damrosch, D. 2018. How to read world literature. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, P. 1977. Market structure, the creative process, and popular culture: Toward an organizational reinterpretation of mass-culture theory. The Journal of Popular Culture 11 (2): 436–452.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, P. 1987. Classification in art. American Sociological Review 52 (4): 440–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, P., and W. Powell. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • El Espectador. 1967. Esa novela no la leo. 21 Sept.

  • English, J. 2005. The economy of prestige: Prizes, awards, and the circulation of cultural value. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Espeland, W., and M. Stevens. 1998. Commensuration as a social process. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 313–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Esteva, G. 1967. Un galeón en 1967. El Gallo Ilustrado 266: 22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fell, C. 1968. Cent années de solitude, vii. Le Monde, 23 March.

  • Foster, P., S. Borgatti, and C. Jones. 2011. Gatekeeper search and selection strategies: Relational and network governance in a cultural market. Poetics 39 (4): 247–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franco, J. 1967. Stranger in paradise, 1054. Times Literary Supplement, 9 Nov.

  • Franssen, T., and G. Kuipers. 2013. Coping with uncertainty, abundance and strife: Decision-making processes of Dutch acquisition editors in the global market for translations. Poetics 41 (1): 48–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, S. 2014. The hidden tastemakers: Comedy scouts as cultural brokers at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Poetics 44: 22–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuentes, C. 1976. La nueva novela hispanoamericana. México: Joaquín Mortiz.

    Google Scholar 

  • García Ascot, J. 1967. Cien años de soledad’ una novela de Gabriel García Márquez solo comparable a ‘Moby Dick. La Cultura en México 281: vi–vii.

    Google Scholar 

  • García Márquez, G. 1998. Voz de autor. Cien años de Soledad. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

    Google Scholar 

  • García Olaya, F. 1967. Gabriel García Márquez o Todos los caminos conducen a Macondo, 17. El catolicismo, 27 Aug.

  • Gimferrer, P. 1967. Sobre Cien años de soledad, 125. Destino, 14 Oct.

  • Glynn, M.A., and M. Lounsbury. 2005. From the critics’ corner: Logic blending, discursive change and authenticity in a cultural production system. Journal of Management Studies 42 (5): 1031–1055.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez, E. 1968. Cien años de soledad. Novela de García Márquez. Enfoque Internacional II:1 (January): 38.

  • González, M.P. 1968. Apostillas a una novela insólita, 3. Papel Literario, El Nacional, 2 Jan.

  • Greenland, F. 2019. Material culture and the problem of agency. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 7: 412–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griswold, W. 1987. The fabrication of meaning: Literary interpretation in the United States, Great Britain, and the West Indies. American Journal of Sociology 92 (5): 1077–1117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griswold, W. 1993. Recent moves in the sociology of literature. Annual Review of Sociology 19: 455–467.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griswold, W. 2000. Bearing witness: Readers, writers, and the novel in Nigeria. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Griswold, W., G. Mangione, and T. McDonnell. 2013. Objects, words, and bodies in space: Bringing materiality into cultural analysis. Qualitative Sociology 36 (4): 343–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harss, L. 1967a. Into the mainstream: Conversations with Latin-American writers. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harss, L. 1967b. Para tomar impulso. Gabriel García Márquez: Los funerales de la Mamá Grande. Primera Plana 251: 59.

  • Haskell, F. 1980. Rediscoveries in art: Some aspects of taste, fashion, and collecting in England and France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heilbron, J. 1999. Towards a sociology of translation. European Journal of Social Theory 2 (4): 429–444.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heinich, N. 1991. La gloire de Van Gogh: Essai d’anthropologie de l’admiration. Paris: Minuit.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heinich, N. 1999. L’épreuve de la grandeur: Prix littéraires et reconnaissance. Paris: La Découverte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, P. 1972. Processing fads and fashions: An organization-set analysis of cultural industry systems. American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 639–659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holgín, A. 1967. Cien años de soledad, 137–138. Razón y Fábula (September-October).

  • Hsu, G. 2006. Jacks of all trades and masters of none: Audiences’ reactions to spanning genres in feature film production. Administrative Science Quarterly 51 (3): 420–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hutter, M. 2011. Infinite surprises: On the stabilization of value in the creative industries. In The worth of goods Valuation and pricing in the economy, ed. J. Beckert and P. Aspers, 201–220. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Janssen, S. 1997. Reviewing as social practice: Institutional constraints on critics’ attention for contemporary fiction. Poetics 24 (5): 275–297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jauss, H. 1982. Toward an aesthetic of reception. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, C., T. Dowd, and C. Ridgeway. 2006. Legitimacy as a social process. Annual Review of Sociology 32: 53–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karpik, L. 2010. Valuing the unique: The economics of singularities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Karush, M. 2016. Musicians in transit: Argentina and the globalization of popular music. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Koolen, C., K. van Dalen-Oskam, A. van Cranenburgh, and E. Nagelhout. 2020. Literary quality in the eye of the Dutch reader: The national reader survey. Poetics 79: 101439.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Labrecque, L., J. vor dem Esche, C. Mathwick, T. Novak, and C. Hofacker. 2013. Consumer power: Evolution in the digital age. Journal of Interactive Marketing 27 (4): 257–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, Michèle. 2009. How professors think: Inside the curious world of academic judgment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, Michèle. 2012. Toward a comparative sociology of evaluative and valuation practices. Annual Review of Sociology 38: 201–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lena, J. 2012. Banding together: How communities create genres in popular music. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lena, J., and R. Peterson. 2008. Classification as culture: Types and trajectories of music genres. American Sociological Review 73 (5): 697–718.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lleras, A. 1969 [1967]. Cien años de soledad. Coral 9: 8–9.

  • Llorca, C. 1968. Las novelas de García Márquez, 14. Diario SP, 20 March.

  • Long, E. 2003. Book clubs: Women and the uses of reading in everyday life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • López-Calvo, I., and G. Bell-Villada (eds.) (forthcoming) The Oxford handbook of Gabriel García Márquez. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Lynch, D., and E. Ender. 2018. Introduction—Time for reading. PMLA 133 (5): 1073–1082.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maguire, J., and J. Matthews. 2012. Are we all cultural intermediaries now? An introduction to cultural intermediaries in context. European Journal of Cultural Studies 15 (5): 551–562.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marling, W. 2016. Gatekeepers: The emergence of world literature and the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, G. 2008. The ‘Boom’ of Spanish-American fiction and the 1960s revolutions (1958–75). In A companion to Latin American literature and culture, ed. S. Castro-Klarén, 478–494. Wiley-Blackwell: Malden and Oxford.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, G. 2009. Gabriel García Márquez: A life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martínez, T.E. 1967. América: La gran novela. Primera Plana 234: 54–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdam, D. 1982. Political process and the development of black insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonnell, T., C. Bail, and I. Tavory. 2017. A theory of resonance. Sociological Theory 35 (1): 1–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFall, L. 2014. The problem of cultural intermediaries in the economy of qualities. In The cultural intermediaries reader, ed. J. Smith Maguire and J. Matthews, 42–51. London: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Menger, P.-M. 2009. Le travail créateur: S’accomplir dans l’incertain. Paris: Seuil-Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montero Castro, R. 1967/1968. A propósito de ‘Cien años de soledad.’ Papeles. Revista del Ateneo de Caracas 5 (November-December 1967/January 1968): 134–136.

  • Orbegozo, M. 1967. Para llegar a la fama, necesitó ‘Cien años de soledad’, 14–15. El comercio gráfico, 9 Sept.

  • Oviedo, J.M. 1967. Macondo: territorio mágico y americano, 1, 3. Magazine Dominical, El Espectador, 15 Oct.

  • Pardo Llada, J. 1967. Mirador. Occidente, 25 July.

  • Peterson, R. 1997. Creating country music: Fabricating authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, D. 2013. Shaping jazz: Cities, labels, and the global emergence of an art form. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pinto, I. 1967. América, novela con novelistas, 15. Expreso, 30 Aug.

  • Poniatowska, E. 1967. Microcosmos, 5. Novedades, 15 Nov.

  • Pupo-Walker, E., and R. González Echevarría, eds. 1996. The Cambridge history of Latin American literature. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rama, Á. 1967. Introducción a Cien años de soledad. Marcha 1368 (2 September): 31.

  • Rama, Á. 1982. La novela en América Latina: Panoramas 1920–1980. Bogotá: Procultura.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ravasi, D., V. Rindova, and I. Stigliani. 2011. Valuing products as cultural symbols: A conceptual framework and empirical illustration. In The worth of goods: Valuation and pricing in the economy, ed. J. Beckert and P. Aspers, 297–316. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez Monegal, E. 1967. Diario de Caracas. Mundo Nuevo 17 (November): 4–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, E. 2003. Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossman, G. 2012. Climbing the charts: What radio airplay tells us about the diffusion of innovation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Santana, M. 2000. Foreigners in the homeland: The Spanish American new novel in Spain, 1962-1974. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses.

  • Santana-Acuña, Á. 2014. How a literary work becomes a classic: The case of One Hundred Years of Solitude. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 2 (1): 97–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Santana-Acuña, Á. 2020. Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude was written and became a global classic. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sapiro, G. 2016. How do literary works cross borders (or not)? Journal of World Literature 1 (1): 81–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sassoon, D. 2001. Mona Lisa: The history of the world’s most famous painting. London: HarperCollins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sgourev, S. 2013. How Paris gave rise to cubism (and Picasso): Ambiguity and fragmentation in radical innovation. Organization Science 24 (6): 1601–1617.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shrum, W. 1991. Critics and publics: Cultural mediation in highbrow and popular performing arts. American Journal of Sociology 97 (2): 347–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simón Martínez, P. 1969. Recopilación de textos sobre Gabriel García Márquez. Havana: Centro de Investigaciones Literarias, Casa de las Américas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siskind, M. 2014. Cosmopolitan desires: Global modernity and world literature in Latin America. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Swanson, P., ed. 2010. The Cambridge companion to Gabriel García Márquez. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, J. 2010. Merchants of culture: The publishing business in the twenty-first century. Cambridge and Malden: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thumala Olave, M.A. 2018. Reading matters: Towards a cultural sociology of reading. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 6 (3): 417–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thumala Olave, M.A. 2020. Book love. A cultural sociological interpretation of the attachment to books. Poetics 81: 101440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Timmermans, S., and S. Epstein. 2010. A world of standards but not a standard world: Toward a sociology of standards and standardization. Annual Review of Sociology 36 (1): 69–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toro Martínez, J. 1968. Macondo a secas, C-1. El Nacional, 1 Feb.

  • Unesco. 1967. Statistical yearbook/Annuaire statistique. Paris: Unesco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valdés, M., and M. Valdés. 1990. Approaches to teaching García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Modern Language Association of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valente, I. 1969 [1968]. García Márquez: Cien años de soledad. Coral 9: 7–8.

  • Van Rees, C.J. 1987. How reviewers reach consensus on the value of literary works. Poetics 16 (3–4): 275–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vargas, G. 1967. Autor de una obra que hará ruido. Encuentro Liberal 1 (29 April): 21–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vargas Llosa, M. 1969 [1967]. Cien años de soledad: Amadís de América. Coral 9: 18–22.

  • Verboord, M., G. Kuipers, and S. Janssen. 2015. Institutional recognition in the transnational literary field, 1955–2005. Cultural Sociology 9 (3): 447–465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zalamea, J. 1967. Carta abierta de Jorge Zalamea a Álvaro Bejarano. Occidente, 4 Sept.

  • Zamora, L., and W. Faris, eds. 1995. Magical realism: Theory, history, community. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zelizer, V. 1997. The social meaning of money. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge helpful comments from Angélica Thumala Olave, Jenny Rodríguez-Peña, Juan Moreno Blanco, and AJCS reviewers on earlier drafts of this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Avenue, Walla Walla, WA, 99362, USA

    Álvaro Santana-Acuña

Authors
  1. Álvaro Santana-Acuña
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Álvaro Santana-Acuña.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Santana-Acuña, Á. Reviewing strategies and the normalization of uncertain texts. Am J Cult Sociol 9, 269–292 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-021-00128-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-021-00128-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation