But these errors are not merely theoretical subtleties. They are on the very basic level of reading comprehension. Errors on this level in a college upper division course is shocking, and all the more perplexing given that fact that the lectures explicitly defined and explained the narrative voice and epistemology of the novel. These passives are extremely unhelpful. Never,never, never base your reading of a text on a presumed uniform interpretation and affect of the text.
Readers read differently.
You cannot predict any given reader's response. This doesn't, however, mean that any reading of a text at all is valid. And completely erroneous. Ford's narrative is relentlessly informative. We see the planning stages and are privy to the cognitive dissonance Ford suffers and the vicissitudes of his internal processes of coping with his own reality.