the author is not dead yet

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.