the author is not dead yet

[calimac]

peake says the author is dead, even if it's him. That is, once books go out into the world, the authors have had their say and should let critical misreadings go unremarked.

As a partisan of Le Guin, who has been known to issue revisions of essays when her opinion has changed, I really disagree. And I speak as a critic myself (as peake is), not as a "creative" author. Of course it's unedifying when authors get into brawls with reviewers who think the book failed, but there's no harm and much usefulness when authors decide to take the time to clarify themselves. Some of the most valuable insights into Tolkien's mind come in those of his letters expounding to readers on his intent.

It's important not to take this external evidence as a crutch in determining whether the author successfully communicated the intent in the book itself (this is where I think it's a legitimate objection to cite the intentional fallacy). It's also legitimate to be skeptical about whether authors are being straightforward in stating their intent, or even if they really understand their own minds. But all good interpretations are grounded in - they start with - the best available understanding of the author's purpose, and either expound on it or raise objections.

Otherwise you get wackball misinterpretations that are really only worthwhile as studies of the state of the critic's mind, and of no more significance to the book than an evaluation for its suitability as a doorstop. Finding hidden verbal codes and allegories in authors whose minds just don't work that way are frequent offenders.

Robert Eaglestone's Reading The Lord of the Rings begins with an essay by Michael Drout arguing that critics shouldn't take Tolkien's statement of intent at face value. A fair objection, but they still serve as a reality check. Drout incidentally complains about interpretations of Tolkien by folk etymology (meanings based on what a word happens to sound like to the critic, like "Nazgûl" = "Nazi-ghoul" or "Gondor" = province of Ethiopia), but that is what you get when critics fail to pay attention to the author’s intent.

In other essays, this book offers a glorious bouquet of truly mindboggling critical misreadings of Tolkien, though you'll have to read my essay on "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2005" in the forthcoming Tolkien Studies 5 to find out what I think they are. There are also some very good pieces, one of them being rozk's brisk and entertaining potting of a large variety of Tolclones, most of them novels I could never summon the stamina to finish reading.

But even if a published novel should be left alone by its author, a non-fiction work, like peake's review & essay collection, is not a pronunciation from on high but a contribution to the conversation. Are not all of us in our LJ posts and other writings, even our spoken comments, authors of non-fiction? And do we not expand and amplify on our remarks all the time? That's a large part of what conversation consists of. I see no reason that our words in a book should be treated any differently.

Comments

Notes From the Woodstock Album

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Think of any flaws in the production as scars on fine leather.
Proof of origin.

George Lucas. If I redo it enough I can get it "right"

Messing with content erases the evolution and origin of the creator.
A bad thing.

Re: Notes From the Woodstock Album

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Earlier versions, once released, should not be retroactively erased. But revisions are permissible.

Re: Notes From the Woodstock Album

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Earlier versions, once released, should not be retroactively erased. But revisions are permissible.

Yay internet.
Yay printed word.
Yay paper trail.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I think we can agree that the author(s?) of Gilgamesh truly *is* dead.

[peake.livejournal.com]

Ah but if I am to continue the conversation it will be in other essays and reviews. I am not going to respond to reviews because (a) that would be petty, (b) who is to say that what seems to me a 'misinterpretation' of what I said is actually wrong? Some of them seem productive in their own right and take the discussion in new directions.

No, my book was what I had to say at that time and on those points. Any further contributions make will be, and should be, elsewhere.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

who is to say that what seems to me a 'misinterpretation' of what I said is actually wrong?

You are, or should be. Whether it's wrong as a fact or judgment is one thing; whether it's wrong about what you said or meant is quite another.

I don't take an absolutist view of relativism.

[peake.livejournal.com]

All writing is two-way. The reader is as much involved in the creative process as the writer. When I write a piece I try as hard as I can to make my meaning clear, but then I cast it on the winds and all sorts of things can affect the way it is heard by the audience. Everybody brings their own unique circumstances to the reading of a text. There is no such thing as a definitive text, because it is made up of words which are in and of themselves open to interpretation (if there were to be absolute precision in use of words, then there would not be a single word in the dictionary that had more than one definition).

If someone got what I said factually wrong, that would be one thing. But interpretation is quite another, and if I read a review and say: "That's not quite what I thought I was saying, but it opens up an interesting new avenue" then I am delighted. Most of the time, of course, things fall somewhere between these two.

And note, I am not talking about people who disagree with me. I am talking about people who agree with me but in ways that are curiously diverse from a strict interpretation of what I meant.

And we still come down to the simple, practical point: that book is out there. I am not going to change it, I am not going to have an opportunity to change it. It now lives on its own, stands or falls on its own. There will certainly be other essays and reviews, there may (I hope) be other books, but as far as this particular volume is concerned, I the author am dead.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If they do get something factually wrong, your response is a continuation of the conversation.

If they say something that you hadn't thought of but is provocative and interesting and inspires you to say something else, that too is a continuation of the conversation.

If you're having a conversation in e-mail or blog comments, the words you write are, or should be, still there even after you go on to say something else, even as the words you write in a book are still there.

Either way, the author is not dead.

I've seen literary papers delivered on the works of a living author as if that author were dead, with the author right there in the room. Now that's creepy.

I forget who (Paul Carter? Brian Attebery?) commented that we do an injustice when we reprint 1930s-50s SF stories out of the magazines in glistening solitude in anthologies. Read in original context, they seem like contributions to a continuing conversation that's rapidly developing the nature of SF.

[peake.livejournal.com]

First of all, I will not respond to reviews. If the reviewer makes an obvious and glaring howler I might correct it, but that is as far as I would go. If the review simply takes the idea in new and unexpected directions, I would rather just let it go.

There is a difference between correction and conversation. I may well follow up on the ideas spurred by creative misreadings of my work, but I will do them in other places and the people who scared up those particular hares may not actually see them. The people who read the book on its own almost certainly will not see the continuing conversation.

As I say, my involvement with What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction as an artefact is now over. The author of that book is dead.

[blzblack.livejournal.com]

I arrived via Sartorias. I agree. Poor readers can take circumstantial evidence as crucial evidence and then pillory the author. I see no problem--and, in fact, enjoy reading--authorial clarification.

Of course, the opposite problem can rear its head as well.