How valid is the author's interpretation?

[lobelia321]

The other day I posted some thoughts on an author's authority of interpretation over her own fic. Several people replied, and I found myself getting so excited by the whole thread that I decided to make a new post with all my responses and further musings.

Because, as I have discovered, I actually feel quite passionate about this!

WARNING: major late-night unrevised ramblings behind cut, and lots of 'em.



Why I believe that the author's interpretation is no more valid than anybody else's

I was going to post a po-mo rant, quoting Michel Foucault's 'What is an Author?' and Roland Barthes' 'The Death of the Author' (and yes, you can tell I'm preparing teaching, can't you? I just collated photocopies of these for the Visual Theories module I'm co-teaching) -- but upon re-reading these texts, I realised that they actually seem a trifle dated now and that I don't quite believe the things they say in the way they say them. I appear to have moved on since last I looked so I will, instead, post my own personal ranty thoughts on this matter. Informed, to be sure, by Michel and Roland, may their souls rest in peace.

There is a common belief that the meaning of a text lies in what is commonly regarded as the source of the text: its author. I do not share this belief. Nor do I entirely believe that the author is, in fact, the source of the text -- or at least not the sole source.

I am defining 'author' here as something different from the rl individual who sits at her desk and types characters into her keyboard. I follow the categorisations of narratologists here (yes! my not-yet-begun book!). The author is also not identical with the narrator of a story (just as the narrator is not necessarily identical with the pov character of a story). I might have to get back to this point but first what I really want to say.

We tend to proceed on the assumption that an author precedes her text. Author begets fic, so to speak. But you could also reverse this and argue that it is in fact the text that precedes the author. You cannot have an author without a text. Even if you click on a fic and the author's name is missing at the top, you will assume that this story *has* an author. The existence of the text does, so to speak, beget the necessity for an author.

Intuitively, my experience chimes in to some extent with my theoretical position on this. I frequently have the sense that something is writing *through me*, that I'm the vehicle for the story. I think this is why people like to talk about their muses, because there is the sense of being spoken by the text, rather than speaking the text (creatively adapting Jacques Lacan here who said something like 'we do not speak language; language speaks us' -- which is also in a way true, because language exists before we are born and we accede to it in childhood - at least I seem to remember that this was Lacan and not some other theory monger).

As for interpretation: The author is the fic's first reader, and its first interpreter. But she is not the only interpreter and not her interpretation is not privileged above anyone else's. It might matter what her intentions are but how do we divine those intentions? Firstly, by reading the fic. I am of the opinion that if it's not in the fic, it's not part of that story's intention. If the author says separately, in chat or in email or to you in person, 'I meant to say this and this...' then that is her opinion. Either her intention manifests itself in the story, or it does not in which case the author's intention has failed. Not necessarily the story: the fic may still be very enjoyable -- even if it does something different from what the author intended. The author may, of course, feel that the fic has failed if it doesn't convey what she has meant it to. I myself am always delighted when readers find things in my fics that I haven't consciously put in there -- and they nearly always do.

ETA: bugger it all, this is not entirely true. Sometimes people read something in a fic of mine that I do not like to be there. *sound of house of cards toppling* But not really. My theoretical point still holds.

We are complex humans. Half the time I can't even articulate what exactly I mean or want in day-to-day parlance. This is partly what When We Are Human was [meant to be! *g*] about: the impossibility of pinning down what a person (in the fic: Karl) truly wants, thinks and intends. And in writing fic that is doubly true. Words and narratives are so multi-layered and resonant.

So I guess what is important to me is the story's meaning and the story's intention, not the author's. And that makes itself known to me through the words in the story, not the words provided by way of explanation by the author when asked.

This is not to say that an author's interpretation cannot be very fascinating. But so can another reader's.

I'll respond to everyone in turn now:

azewewish said:
An author can tell you *intention*, but not interpretation.
Yes, absolutely. Which prompted the above.

mdbfan replied to azewewish:
I'm not sure I agree with this...I've always thought that it's the
author's job to get across the meaning they intend, and if people
consistently misinterpret it in a way the author really doesn't
intend or like, it needs to be rewritten more clearly.
Okay, I see the point but I still don't agree with it. It is not the author's "job" to get across an "intended" "meaning". All of these terms are problematic. What is the author's job? *sighs* I don't know. But I like to think that when I write, that I have no "job". To me, writing is partly about freedom (Jack Sparrow: "not what a ship is made of, but what a ship is"). I guess I think my primary responsibility is to the story but that's not really my "job".

"Meaning" is another difficult one: is meaning a kernel of truth to be extracted from the layers of the fic like a nugget of gold buried within an onion? Or is meaning something that every reader brings to the story, because the reader completes the triangle of author-fic-reader. It is only when a reader reads a story, that the story becomes meaningful. A story just sitting there means nothing; it's got to be read by somebody. (And the author is, as I said, also the story's first reader.) I think there are many meanings in each story, even in a drabble and yes, even in a bad!fic. Because these points have nothing to do with quality -- they apply across the board.

And finally, "intended" meaning. This ties in with my points on intention above. We can only infer intention from the text. If the author says, "But I intended x not y", then we can infer her intentions from her words. But her words do not necessarily explain or relate in any direct way to her story. We can nod and say, "Oh really? You intended x? Well, too bad, I see y." This is irrespective of whether we love y or hate y.

sheldrake said:
Once you publish a story, once it's in the public domain, then your relationship to it changes.
Absolutely. Once it's out there, the fic has to stand on its own two feet. The umbilical has been cut and the fic has grown up and is responsible for itself. (Eeek, mpreg metaphors!)

cherry_glitter said:
How far does this go? I agree that readers bring their own interpretation and perspective to a story, but at some point shouldn't they be able to go to you, the author, and ask you what it means? You did (presumably) have a purpose and intention in writing it in the first place
See my points on intention above. But the 'how far does it go' is interesting. I'm just trying to think of counter-arguments to my position, and I agree that some theorists have gone too far and wanted to do away with the author altogether. Barthes called him (and yes: him -- all those old codgers apparently thought that women never write, hah) 'the inscriptor' and Foucault spoke of an 'author-function', not an author. As an author myself, I do want to hold onto the notion that there is a unified being who creates these stories, who is identifiable by her style and many of whose personal experiences have flowed into her fics. That has no bearing on interpretation, though.

There is no "should" about being able to come to the author and ask what it means. Mostly, readers tend to ask the author what the fic means if the fic itself is confusing or opaque or deliberately mysterious. I have had dozens of conversations with azewewish about the meanings of "Fun&Games" and have often disagreed with her interpretations of her own series but it is true that I do enjoy hearing her view and am always impressed by the way she thinks characters and plot through. That still leaves me free to interpret the story in my own way, though.

I guess as a reader I like to retain my freedom as well. I don't like to bow down to the authority of the author who supposedly knows best. No, in my capacity of reader, *I* know best.

If it were otherwise, what would be the point of writing a story? Authors could just deliver their "intended meanings", e.g. in a plot outline or explanation of concepts, and that would be it. The story is separate and distinct from intentions.

freyafloyd said:
I think this is where there is a bit of a divergence between slash
an published fiction. In a slash fandom, the reader has greater access to the author than they do to a real author. The different level of access gives us a different understanding of the fics.

Now this I found a very interesting point which, as far as I've read, nobody has theorised about. It does make an enormous difference, and embodies the whole pleasure I, at any rate, glean from fanfic, the whole community-aspect of it (I've bored on about this in a previous post on 'the four feet of fandom'). And it is true: when I read fanfic the author, especially if I know her well, looms much, much larger than when I read published fiction. The author looms, I have to say, even larger than when I read published novels by rl friends of mine. Perhaps the very format of the published book creates a distance between reader and author. In fandom, the venue of chatting is shared with the venue of fic posting, and we are constantly talking about each other's fics to each other as well. I will ponder this further.

If a finished piece of writing is the tip of the iceberg of an author's understanding of the character's lives and history, in slash we have access to the author to find out more about the characters. We do not have this with real fiction, so we interpret merely on what we read within the book.
And I'm disagreeing again. *g* I like the 'tip of an iceberg' analogy because it chimes in with how I've written fics. But I have chosen not to put the rest of the iceberg in the fic (and just let the iceberg inform the fic in unsaid ways).

An individual understands themself better than anyone else does, and an author understands their own work better than anyone else does.
No. I certainly am not together enough to understand myself most of the time. I struggle with figuring out my own motivations. Ditto with my work.

Maybe what is at stake here is the process of creation as being different from the process of interpretation. It is true that what I value in fics (another thing I've ranted about elsewhere) is an author being in total control of her story, and I, too, like to be in control of my characters, my plot, my backstory, my words. But once I have finished producing my text, that control ceases. As a reader, I like stories where I have a strong sense of authorial control -- but I get that sense from the story, not from the author.


I think the reader should try and see what the writer was trying to say, rather than get caught up in their own response or the response of their culture.
I disagree. It is true that meanings are not arbitrary or limitless (so I'm less of a pomoist than I once was! heh); they are steered by a story. I can't read a fic about Dom fucking Lij and think, "Oh, Orli's kissing Viggo." But whacko end of [non]-interpretation aside, I think readers can pull out of stories pretty much what they like. And they tend to do that, too. It's what people enjoy, I think. And it's the only way I can explain lurkers who never make contact with authors but just enjoy the stories.

And the response of the culture! We share this culture with the author, after all! In fanfic more than anywhere! An author is a product of her culture as much as a reader is. Culture always and inevitably informs all of our responses. We're not monads.

eyebrowofdoom replied to freyafloyd:
My authorial intention vis a vis interpretation is not a sacrosanct, self-contained and final whole, because I don't consider (social) reality itself to be susceptible to definitive interpretation -- so my
interpretation is conditional by nature and incapable of trumping per se another person's.
Absolutelam (to quote that Lucky Man chappie).

While certain basic facts of the subject matter should not be in dispute and these should direct a reasonable reader toward a certain range of conclusions, I actually want meaning in my fiction to be slippery and conditional in the same way that meaning in actual human relationships is
Yes, as I said above. The fic *guides* meaning but does not circumscribe it.

If what one wants primarily to do is get across a static contention in an unambiguous way, one should be writing an argumentative non-fiction essay, not fiction, because the object of fiction is to give the reader pleasure.
Yes! As I said above: if it's just about the author's intention, we need go no further than plot outlines.

msilverstar said:
I would say that the author is more than just another voice, but not the final authority on all aspects.
The author is more than just another voice because in our culture an author (or "author-function") is *accorded* that authority.

We reveal more than we consciously know about ourselves when we write.
Oh absolutely. As I said above about not knowing my own intentions.


*wipes brow*

God, I planned to spend ten minutes on this, and now it's 1.50 am! *screams* I got carried away, folks. *falls off swivel chair in exhaustion*

Comments

I've been under a rock

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

Damn. Wish I'd gotten involved in this discussion the first time round.

I think the author can know what they were trying to do, but has no way of enforcing that view on anyone else. Thus, there is their intention, but no "right" way of reading the story. Obviously no one else can have that same authorial intention about the story, only their own reading.

And this just makes me think of my fic "Leaving It", where the whole of my intended storyline was, I think, not actually read by anyone. But everyone seemed to enjoy it, so that's fine. Just because everyone didn't quite read the story I was trying to write doesn't diminish the value of the story they did read.

...If that makes sense and doesn't sound unbelievably wanky and vain.

*hides*

Re: I've been under a rock

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Well,
I have since thought further on the matter. I think that as-author I have slightly different views on this than as-reader. And maybe the dilemma arises from the circumstance that out of the theories out there, none (that I have read) seems to account for the differences in perception between authors and readers. Most of the theorists write as readers and hence their suspicion of the author. We-as-authors are perhaps less enamoured of views that proclaim our 'death'.

So I can see absolutely what you are saying. Despite all my theoretical falutin', I do feel bad when people don't seem to "get it", and I am delighted when someone picks up on something I tried to say (I am also happy when they find things I like that I didn't put there, and unhappy when they fing things I don't like that I also didn't put there -- at least consciously).

When they don't "get it", I either think "huh, stupid audience" (the modernist, avant-garde, author-in-garret as way ahead of the common mob attitude) or "oh dear, the fic doesn't work here" (don't know where to slot this one - perhaps into writing-workshop work-hard-to-get-better we-all-need-concrit rubric).

[ukcalico.livejournal.com]

Ooooooooh interesting. Have written extensive reply. Emailing you to avoid lj-headaches. Check inbox! and timestamp! =)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Go back to this page http://www.livejournal.com/users/lobelia321/177515.html?view=1134955#t1134955 and scroll down: I've replied to all of your comments.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Darn it- due to RL crap I seem to have missed out on the first part of this very interesting discussion.

I've always resisted standard interpretations of anything. Cliff notes are the invention of the devil. *g* Even as a kid, I wondered how anyone could definitively say: "Steinbeck meant this and this when he wrote this. And the turtle clearly is a metaphor for that." That may be, but first of all, who knows what an author really means to say- even an authorial interpretation can change over time.

Secondly, I really believe that all of us to some extent bring our own prejudices and experiences to every book we read, every piece of art we look at, every piece of music we hear. That's why the "classics" are always fresh. Every generation, and every individual within that generation is going to have a slightly different view.

Also, and maybe I'm somewhat unusual in this, I don't want to have total control of what I write. I want to create believable characters who then go out and live their lives. Clearly, everything I write comes from something in me, but I'm often not completely conscious of what that something is, and am sometimes surprised at the obscure details and pages and pages of dialogue that appear on the page almost as if by magic.

I guess I don't approach a fictional story with a "message" or any specific intention that I want to impress upon the reader. It's a story I needed to get out, things I've wondered about and thought about channeled through my plot and characters.

I love it when readers find things that I never intended (so far at least), because I often write scenes and dialogued that I hadn't planned out at all and sometimes I surprise myself with where a story goes. This is probably not at all the way to go with fics that are either short or tightly plotted. It may be more of a reflection of the way I live my life- nothing is plotted out very carefully in advance in RL either; I tend to fall into things and be fairly impulsive, and don't have any plans to change that!

I do wonder about the influence of feedback. That was one of my reasons for not posting a WIP for a long time. I do love the feedback; I eat it up like candy and ruminate over it for hours, but I wonder how many of my reader's intentions are going to make their way into my fic down the road. And is this a bad thing?

I could go on and on, but it's bedtime. Will ponder further while at the beach the next few days. Some fantastic ideas you're bringing up!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

who knows what an author really means to say- even an authorial interpretation can change over time.

Yes! That's just it! I do not know the answer to this, so I am amazed at how sanguine and confident some people seem at ascribing certainty to the author. Because that is really the question: how can we know? And I believe we cannot know. Not just because we don't have enough info but epistemologically. So meaning must be looked for elsewhere.

I'm not even going to get into your point about the classics. I will be here all day. *g* (Gads, another post takes shape...)

Also, and maybe I'm somewhat unusual in this, I don't want to have total control of what I write.
This is why I love feedback. I get new readings of my own story, and it is invigorating. My attitude to my fics is once they are out there I lose hold of them somewhat. The fic becomes in a sense detached from me. It does its own thing out there.

I wonder how many of my reader's intentions are going to make their way into my fic down the road. And is this a bad thing?
This is now veering off the point of authorial authority and heh, merits another post....but yes, it is something I think about all the time. My first posted WIP was boring!Orli and because that was such a throwaway thing I shamelessly lapped up everybody's comments and incorporated them into subsequent installments (the first few chapters are all dedicated to various inspirees -- aren't you one of them, even?). With Desert Prince it's different; I know the story but I do take account of fb - e.g. if comments tend to go in one direction while I *know* the story will soon go in another, it will make me think about whether I need to clarify my own direction or whether, alternatively, I need to present the turn-about in a more surprise/shock manner.

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

It's the Intentionalist Fallacy! Lit Theory flashbacks, here.

I've thought about all this when we were doing this at uni, which is why when I read Proper Novels I tend to view the author as kind of a distracting necessity ("Yes, i can see what you mean, dear, but what you actually wrote tells me something completely different. Sorry.")

However, I hadn't considered the slash/fandom aspect of it, because it is true that the role of the autor shifts when the reader becomes closer to them. It is undoubtedly harder to detach a text from an author; I have read fics that were unclear, perhaps, or not written as well as they could have been, but if you have any sort of online relationship with the author, even if they've only sent you some nice feedback once, you're much more inclined to skip over these things and think "Oh well, she must have meant...".

But then again, I do not think this means that slash/fanfic/online fiction is part of a Brave New World of fiction. I think it means we are too close to it. It's like pressing your face against the monitor; you don't see the picture, just the pixels. Even when we get meta about fandom itself, we still can't assess it properly in a social, aesthetic or economic context because we are part of those things. We helped construct those contexts. So it's impossible to read fic objectively, as you would a novel, because we are part of the framework within which it must be considered (of course, this is so *not* how Barthes would see it, he'd be spinning in his grave and calling me a Marxist or spit, a New Historicist. But then doesn't this expose flaws in his theories anyway, or at least show they are just that, because alas, we are only human and we like other humans and want humans attached and involved in stuff, instead of works of art floating around the place unattached to anything?)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am so ridiculous that I immediately thought of a new name for myself in response to your 'intentionalist fallacy' but haven't yet quite hit upon a suitably punnish one. Intentional phallacist? Phallic intentionalist? Phallic fallacy? It is an indicator of the absurd state of my mind that reading the word 'fallacy' spawns this kind of devil stream of associations...

I tend to view the author as kind of a distracting necessity
Yes. And no. OK, I do this with the author but I think I do not do it with the 'author-function'. I need my Jane Austen and I need my Homer! And my Shakespeare! I totally don't hold with all those revisionist who tinker about with Will and Homey's oeuvre and re-ascribe. But I have never been interested in reading a biography of Ms Austen.

I think it means we are too close to it. It's like pressing your face against the monitor; you don't see the picture, just the pixels.
Yes, I like that formulation. I, for one, have gone totally bush. Still, I struggle to disentangle myself and get a sense of the picture from above, and to rise above the pixels. But there is no precedent, there's nothing to read on it (everything academic I've read on fanfic is woefully rudimentary), so I'm just sort of trying to think it through.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Yes!

Which is not a massively articulate response, but still. Aprt from anything else, what speaks through me as a writer are my assumptions and my culture, which I'm, most of the time, too steeped in to be aware that I'm expressing. So, they're no part of my intention, but a valid part of the interpretation that (in particular) someone from outside my culture might place on what I write. And their assumptions and their personal culture brings them to a different set of interpretations, too. Is there a cultural equivalent of "idiolect", by the way? Rather than the individual language of a person, the individual culture of that person?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Cultiolect? Or, heh, fandomelect? Sociolect?

And absolutely with the steeped. We are part of our culture and our culture is part of our fic, but it is somehow not right to say that our culture is our 'intention'.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

And in addition, and someone else brought this up too, we are also part of a very specific culture: the culture of fandom.

[ex-zarah5186.livejournal.com]

Interesting, interesting, interesting!

Okay. This might get slightly confused because I mostly have to figure out what I want to say as I go along. So, excuse any and all possible tangents, please.


There are so many parts of your post that I find myself nodding along with. I know what you mean by that feeling that you sometimes get when writing, that the text is speaking to you. We tend to call it inspiration, don't we? Without it, writing is incredibly hard, single sentences can take ages to formulate, and then we'll suddenly stumble over a word and the whole next scene is there and all we have to do is type it in.

Ever get confused when you look over something you supposedly wrote, yet you don't have the faintest idea where it came from, are filled with sheer amazement that you wrote this. I do, sometimes, and I'm fairly certain that I'm not the only one.

So yes. Text speaking through the author makes a lot of sense to me. (Which kind of makes me wonder about the participation of the author here. If the text spoke through the author, then the difference between a good and a bad author might partly be a matter of how well they can respond to what their inspiration tells them. Er. Something like that.)


I've actually long since broken up with the thought that I'm the best interpreter of my stories because I know I'm not. I can't count the times other people pointed out things about a story of mine and it clicked and I had this bright, shining 'hell yes' in my head while, at the same time, knowing that I would have missed that nuance.

Another aspect here is that the interpretation changes with the interpreter, and there is no such thing as the one true interpretation (liek, OMG!!!1 -- sorry. couldn't help myself.). Intention yes, interpretation no. It depends on the reader, always.

I think this is also why feedback is such an integral part of our fandom. Sure, I love it when people tell me they liked something I wrote, but even more, I love reading their interpretations of what I wrote because it helps me realize things that are there and that I never would have been aware of.


::blinks:: I'm not sure I made my point clear; I'm not even sure I had a point. But yeah. Comment of Doom endeth here.

It's too early for me to be writing comments.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ever get confused when you look over something you supposedly wrote, yet you don't have the faintest idea where it came from, are filled with sheer amazement that you wrote this.
Oh yes, and these are my favourite stories and parts of stories. I re-read them almost as if they were written by someone else. And on one level, they are: they are written by me in the past, and that person that I was 2 months ago does not exist any longer in the present. And when I turn reader, even if it is reader of my own fic, I am also someone else from the person I was when I was author.

Actually, I need to qualify. Sometimes I find it unpleasant to read fic of mine and to be amazed. I think, how is this a part of me, it seems alien, and I often also think, if I like what I am reading: how can I ever attain this again? I will never be able to write anything this good. And then I feel despondent. So it has two sides to it. But it exists!

then the difference between a good and a bad author might partly be a matter of how well they can respond to what their inspiration tells them.
I deliberately didn't want to go into the whole bad/good argument -- which in a way is a different argument and causes me headaches just to think about it. I am also puzzling at my own tendency to conflate rigorous theory with numinous mythical points abouit inspiration, muses and letting the story speak through me. I normally hate such metaphysical shamanistic musings but I find myself connecting them to the theories!

Intention yes, interpretation no.?
This phrase alone is worth another post. *Feels overwhelmed*

I think this is also why feedback is such an integral part of our fandom.
Yes, i said this in earlier comments but yes. Absolutely. And grist for another post...

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

I don't feel that this is a discussion that I can enter properly over the internet, because I have too much to say, and too much to find out from you, and we need to meet up in rl!

Anyway..

1. My fic (or my huge ego to be more accurate)

When it comes to my fic, I don't care a lot about having the definitive opinion. There are some extra chapters to fota, written by someone else. I've never read them, as they are in Chinese, but I did give permission for them to be written. They expand the early sections, about Viggo and Orli. I don't consider them part of my fota world, but I am aware that to Chinese people who read it, they now are.


BUT, I don't think of fota as just being the fic. I'm coming back to the tip of the iceberg again. I've known the characters and then written the fic. Anyone else has read the fic and then had to work backwards from that to invent the characters. Readers aren't inhabiting the same fictional world as I am, which I suppose makes my opinion the least important, as I can't understand my fic in the same manner as a reader does, only readers can share that perspective with each other.

This I suppose means, you can say what you like about my fic, but not about my fictional world.


As for intended meanings, I wrote the fic and invented the characters in order to put across a meaning, or perhaps a messge or a moral. The reader may never see that moral, but I have to at least attempt to get them to see it. You say above about how the writer could deliver the intended meaning through giving a plot outline, but I don't think I could. I don't want to inform people of my meaning. The whole meaning has to be delivered covertly. It has to be subliminal, or it doesn't capture people. If I was just writing about characters, I'd just sit and write rpg all day. I write and share fic to play with the reader. I like seeing people being lead down one path, whilst all the time I know they are heading the wrong way, so that I can then shock them by switching paths, and playing with their expectations. I have no intention of giving away the meaning.

The reader can interpret however they want, but it is not going to stop me trying to influence them.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

we need to meet up in rl! We once started to make arrangements -- what happened to those? At the moment, t'h is away and I can only travel with the children. After that, I have some weekdays off and Sundays is a possibility, too. Can't remember the town we agreed on. Email me or phone me.

I've never read them, as they are in Chinese,
*boggles*

I'm coming back to the tip of the iceberg again. I've known the characters and then written the fic. Anyone else has read the fic and then had to work backwards from that to invent the characters.
This reminds me of the story/plot (aka fabula/syuzhet) distinction in narrative. Every story consists of the story (the events in chronological order) and the plot (the story as presented, incl. the mixing-up of chronology via flashbacks, flashforwards, deliberate withholding of information, surprises, foreshadowings, points of view and so forth).

Some argue that the story (the bare bones of the events) is first and the plot puts those pre-existing events into a form. This reminds me of your point about knowing the fota world and now giving shape to it in writing.

Others argue that for the reader it is in fact the plot that comes first. We read the plot and reconstruct from that the story. I think that this sometimes also pertains to me writing: I have written many fics without pre-planning: the story emerges as I stake out the plot, *as I type*.

in order to put across a meaning, or perhaps a messge or a moral.
It makes sense to me that you couldn' tput this across in another form but the fic. Form and content are one, I believe this. So the meaning or moral would automatically change if the format changed to, e.g. rpg or plot summary. But I also still think that the meaning the reader gets is not the meaning in your head but the meaning in the fic. And in a way that is also the meaning you want the reader to get, as it appears to me about how you described weaving the meaning covertly into your story. The world in your head is in a way a useful crutch for you while writing (and perhaps a joyful thing to imagine) but it is the fic that transports meanings to others and in a way, once fota is finished, the fota world can, to all intent and purposes, be discarded.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

but it is not going to stop me trying to influence them.
Yes! You try to influence them *through your fic*. So what will end up influencing them is *your fic*, not you.

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

2. Fic that actually matters.

Would you consider reading 'Robert Antelme or the Truth of Literature'? It is an article by Georges Perec and is included in 'Species of Spaces and Other Pieces'. It is published by Penguin. This piece of writing, together with Perec's book 'W' has hugely influenced my thinking on literature.

The article deals with the literature of concentration camp survivors, and how it has not been always been treated as being literature. I think the article speaks better for itself than I can speak for it, as does Perc's book 'W'. Books about murders often sell very well, but books about victims of real terror seldom do (with the exception of Anne Frank's Diary, but that is dealing with a more removed, looming, uncertain terror, compared to actually being in a camp).

I think that many people can read about murders, and in some ways identify with it, can make it have meaning in their lives, not because many people are secretly inclined to evil and violence, but because a murderer is an active person, who is attempting to take some kind of control over the world around them. The murderer is in some ways, the expression of the ultimate expression of the free society. In the US and Western Europe, we have more freedoms and opportunities to live out our lives as individuals than most of the world.

When it comes to victims, we can't understand that in the same way. We can't bring our own experiences to it. In the article it says that survivors were often asked if they had been raped, as that is about as far in understanding terror as we are able to imagine. Beyond that we say that we can't imagine, that we can't even begin to imagine how people live through such things, how they manage day after day.

I feel the whole death of the author approach, has trickled down into our way of approaching literature and history, even if people are now using the approach without knowing the actual theory or term. There has to be a danger in that approach, in that when it comes to the stories of people who are so far beyond our own experience that we have a limited amount of self knowledge and meaning to bring to a book, we cease to have any interest. By feeling that our interpretation, and the meanings that we can bring to a book, are more important than the writers, we limit the type of book that we are likely to read, and therefore the type of book that is likely to be read, published or considered important.

What I am saying rather clumsily, is that we can't imagine what it was like for victims, because we don't want to try and imagine, because it says nothing to us about our lives. By constantly bringing our own experience and interpretation to literature, we prevent ourselves from understanding what is being said to us by people whose lives are beyond our own experience, and in doing so, we deny them their humanity all over again.

When I read 'W', I attempted to bring my own meaning to the book, and I found it to be a hollow and unsatisfactory experience. I had to let go of the method of reading that I had been encouraged into at school, and try and see, really see, where the writer was leading me, to listen to the writers message and meaning, and to stop trying to bring myself to the text.

Eyebrowofdoom talked about one of the prime pleasures of reading as being 'the experience of spontaneous emotional human self-recognition'. I think we have to sometimes put that aside and try to understand something in whcih we cannot recoginse ourselves, and understand that the expression of humanity in literature is more than what is known to us in our own life experience. She also talked of 'fiction to be slippery and conditional in the same way that meaning in actual human relationships is slippery and conditional -- the slipperiness is part of my aesthetic of realism as it were.' I think sometimes with other human beings we shouldn't look at the relationship between us and them (that deadly space in between), but try and appreciate them as person outside of that relationship. The same should be true of a writer and a reader.

continued..

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

I know that you may consider this irrelevant, because concentration camp literature is not fiction, but in the case of Perec this is untrue. His experiences of living through the war and losing relatives to the camps is written as a blend of fiction and reality, because like many victims, he has few memories of the terror, and he has no way to explain what has happened to him, other than through his fiction.

At work we are trained to remember that being a good listener involves letting someone speak without bringing your own experience into the conversation. Perhaps the same should be true of a good reader.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Would you consider reading
Yes. I've read many things recced to me by online people. When time allows. Will check t'reference library.

I just continued reading. I get terribly depressed by concentration camp literature but I will bravely forge on.

Books about murders often sell very well, but books about victims of real terror seldom do
I like this formulation but am unsure if true. Some concentration camp literature and victim literature has sold amazingly well, especially in Germany whose citizens enjoy flagellating themselves over their past. In fact, as far as Nazi literature is concerned the rediscovery of the perpetrators (or murderers, if you like) is fairly recent, compared to the deluge of victim literature. In Germany, at any rate, it was more comforting (via self-flagellating) to think about the victims (Jewish victims as 'the other' and on a more general level, all of us united as 'sufferers') than to think about the active perpetrators (too close to the bone! many people had these perpetrators in their family, after all - and the guilt is much greater because difficult and ambivalent).

As far as silence and survivors are concerned: it seems to me that survivors often talk much, much more than perpetrators. This was particularly striking in Lanzmann's film "Shoah" (ok, not literature but since we are veering off topic anyway...): the victims spoke and spoke, haltingly perhaps, but articulately, they remembered, they wanted to bear witness. The perpetrators were evasive and claimed to remember nothing; they talked of going mountain climbing and how nice the weather was when asked about their time spent in managing the Warsaw ghetto. So I think it's not true what you say about victims. I find conc. camp literature almost too painful to read because I can imagine the victim's sufferings all too vividly. Beyond that we say that we can't imagine, I don't think that's true, not in my case at any rate.

By feeling that our interpretation, and the meanings that we can bring to a book, are more important than the writers, we limit the type of book that we are likely to read,
I'm not sure what "we" you are talking about but I don't limit the type of book I like to read at all because of the theories about authors I hold dear and like to ponder. I read eclectically; I just love reading. How am I limiting my books? In recent months, I've read the Iliad (Homer - and who knows if he existed or wrote it? makes no difference to the story), Eugenides' Middlesex, Sachard's Holes, Karl May's Winnetou (re-read), lots of fanfic by assorted Lotrips authors, a book on Stories of Art by James Elkins, Gaiman's American Gods and I can't remember what else. I go into Borders and choose books by their cover. I do choose books by authors I've read and liked - but I ascribe this to my belief in the author-function. But I don't know how I've been "limited" in my reading. Explain.

Also, I think these theories have *no* impact on what gets published. The publishing world is dependent on notions of the Author, capital A. That's how books get marketed.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

By constantly bringing our own experience and interpretation to literature, we prevent ourselves from understanding what is being said to us by people whose lives are beyond our own experience,
I love books that manage to convey to me something about being another person. I don't approach books like this at all, which is why I again quibble with your use of "our" and "we". I think fiction is the only way we have of truly crawling into another person's or other people's heads and minds and skins, and it is the highest ethics *and* aesthetics to be able to achieve that. But this has nothing do with whether I believe in the primacy of the author's intention. The story does that and the character do that for me -- a good story lets me forget the author. (Anyway, I love stories that allow me to forget their authors. It is very difficult to do that, to achieve that level of humility in prose but the authors I like best use prose to serve their tale, not to express themselves or push themselves into the foreground.)

Eyebrowofdoom talked about one of the prime pleasures of reading as being 'the experience of spontaneous emotional human self-recognition'. I think we have to sometimes put that aside and try to understand something in whcih we cannot recoginse ourselves, and understand that the expression of humanity in literature is more than what is known to us in our own life experience.
To me, these two approaches are not incompatible. Other people are different but they are also the same. It's the paradox of humanity.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

What I like about slash is the fluidity of the author-reader relationship. We all shift about between author, editor, reader and reviewer - some of us even have multiple cyberidentities - so the author-function is nowhere near as monolithic or prestigious as it has generally been historically. You can't sustain any kind of latter-day Romantic 'High and Solitary and Most Stern' version of authorship when you're in a permanent dialogue with your readers, who are also people you read on a frequent basis. It becomes, I think, attractively messy, mutual and inclusive.

It's also important that there is no cult of authorial originality in fandom by its very nature - it is a derivative, interventionist form, and this is one of the reasons I find it so likeable. We are all intervening in others' texts, messing about with canon, or, in the case of some RPS, communally creating canonical elements in a very gradual way. (I mean, I'm very new to fandom, and am fascinated by seeing collective notions of characters emerge over time, and being fed with new material from new instalments (HP), interviews and dvd extras etc.)

This is conventionally read as gendered - women intervening, writing in what is missing, filling in the gaps. (There's a huge amount of fun for me in reading someone who's stuck a bunch of rampant-and-tender sex into the middle of the battle for Helm's Deep, and completely undercut the machismo.) You can read this as a set of tributes to Tolkien, Rowling, or whoever, or a kind of violence done to the original text. (I thought that was what 'slash' meant, when I first heard of it.... Duh me.)

It seems to me this lack of initial originality possibly has an effect on the way we see our own fics, I think - if they're partly found material, then we are possibly less possessive and insistent on intentionality ...?

Lecture over. Prof Childeproof goes to lie down in darkened room.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

We all shift about between author, editor, reader and reviewer - some of us even have multiple cyberidentities - so the author-function is nowhere near as monolithic or prestigious as it has generally been historically.
Yes, absolutely. I'm just starting to think about that now. Grist for many future posts. The thing about all these theories, I'm coming to realise is, that a) they focus on the reader at the expense of the author, and b) they ignore writing and reading communities such as ours.

there is no cult of authorial originality in fandom by its very nature - it is a derivative, interventionist form, and this is one of the reasons I find it so likeable.
This is an extremely interesting point which is in some ways tangential to mine because it's about originality rather than authorial authority (although these two are connected; I just can't figure out at this very moment how). And I don't think anybody has theorised this yet at all. The academic writers I'v read are all so hooked up on the weirdness of fandom and the bizarreness of women enjoying man-on-man sex that they rarely get beyond rudiments.

collective notions of characters
Yes! Who *is* the author of fanon??

then we are possibly less possessive and insistent on intentionality
Except some of us are. <lj user="freyafloyd", e.g. -- see her vigorous arguments on this very page. *g8

Calico said:

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

ukcalico replied to the post in an email:


I am defining 'author' here as something different from the rl individual who sits at her desk and types characters into her keyboard. I follow the categorisations of narratologists here (yes! my not-yet-begun book!). The author is also not identical with the narrator of a story (just as the narrator is not necessarily identical with the pov character of a story). I might have to get back to this point but first what I really want to say.

It may be the late hour, but I am not sure from this what you *are* defining "author" as. (Which may confuse things later. <g>) For the record: I believe the Author is the entity which carried out the work to create the Story - in my case, I think that the author of my collective works is "Calico", a subsection of [RL Name!], but valid as part of my personality nonetheless; certainly nothing to do with the narrator or pov (which are synonymous for me - uh oh...).

We tend to proceed on the assumption that an author precedes her text. Author begets fic, so to speak. But you could also reverse this and argue that it is in fact the text that precedes the author. You cannot have an author without a text. Even if you click on a fic and the author's name is missing at the top, you will assume that this story *has* an author. The existence of the text does, so to speak, beget the necessity for an author.
Hm, this doesn't work for me. I believe the story cannot exist without the author, full stop. If I choose not to write my particular bunny where Orlando and Johnny touch knees on the couch until Miranda interrupts, then that PWP will not, will never, exist. It cannot find some other person to be written through; the only drive that may bring about its existence is its constant gnawing on *my*, its potential author's, brain. I cannot reconcile myself to the suggestion that before I got the urge to write it, it was skulking about in the ether waiting to ambush. I'm probably getting too literal, but do you see what I mean? There in a conceptual imbalance here for me. Would you use similar logic in less artistic parallels? That the shoes beget the cobbler, the bread begets the baker? Is there a sculpture waiting patiently inside every hunk of stone? It feels too fuzzy for me.

Intuitively, my experience chimes in to some extent with my theoretical position on this. I frequently have the sense that something is writing *through me*, that I'm the vehicle for the story..
Heh. At this point, to disagree means potentially putting a couple artistic noses out of joint, *but*. <g> Although I recognise that one's muse can be a very real discrete voice in one's head (eg, Milton and his angels), the atheist in me refuses to find credible the *fact* of being the story's vehicle. I enjoy the *idea*, but ultimately I believe that anything I write has evolved from germs of ideas that my subconscious has glanced upon, and anything that you write, likewise. The idea of muses - alternatively enthusiastic and stubborn, generous and inscrutable - is a delightful crutch to assist and ease and excuse the frustrations of writing. But the art you've produced is yours, prologue to epilogue, word for word.

I think this is why people like to talk about their muses, because there is the sense of being spoken by the text, rather than speaking the text (creatively adapting Jacques Lacan here who said something like 'we do not speak language; language speaks us' -- which is also in a way true, because language exists before we are born and we accede to it in childhood - at least I seem to remember that this was Lacan and not some other theory monger).
I like the language quote, and I believe it true - for language. Vast, it will both predate and outlive everybody who reads this sentence, and yes, to reap its benefits you must have bowed to its rules. However, a text is merely a pattern woven by language at the author's will; although in all Wool there lies the potential to become Scarf, there is no imperative in play but that of the Knitter.

Calico said contd.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

As for interpretation: The author is the fic's first reader...
<shaking head> Nonono. The author is not the fic's first reader, unless by reader you mean "reviewer", because the fic did not exist to *be* read until the author carved out the idea. The author *is* the fic's creator, and was responsible for its upbringing. The author is the fic's first beta.The story of the fic: the author meets the raw idea in one of the dusty passages of her brain. Chemistry sizzles, but the raw idea is in no state to be introduced to the wider community, so the author does her best to hone the raw idea into a shape acceptable for a larger audience; to do this, she builds a beautiful box, covers it in carvings and collages, and then displays it (*now* a fic!) for the world to see.Now, I'm not saying the author can't fuck up. The raw idea could be one that could only lead to mediocre, boring stories. Or a great raw idea could be poorly executed. (Using me as an example again: I had a gorgeous, brilliant Viggo/Karl bunny, and I managed to ruin it completely by writing from the wrong pov, the metaphoric equivalent being that I took my raw idea and put it in a box and covered the box with duct tape and sprayed it bright orange, vastly reducing its appeal - so yes, the author can fail to manage the idea, and the story can suffer as a result.) But if the author fucks up, the result is a fucked-up fic, not a raw idea poorly *interpreted*.[pause]Hmm. <goes to www.m-w.com>>Interpret (v)1: to explain or tell the meaning of : present in understandable terms2: to conceive in the light of individual belief, judgment, or circumstance : construe3: to represent by means of art : bring to realization by performance or direction Okay, I'm using the word "interpret" in the sense of 1, with a little of 3 mixed in.

...and its first interpreter. But she is not the only interpreter and her interpretation is not privileged above anyone else's.
The raw idea, obviously, is interpreted by the author in the very early stages: she says, "aha, what a great idea. It means *this*," and starts building the box. She can't get that bit wrong. She just can't. She can misjudge her audience, and thus the finished product won't delight. She can lack the skill to make a good box. She can get carried away with a particular carving and end up entirely obscuring her original intent. But she can't misinterpret the raw idea, because the raw idea just *was*. And if she creates a box that is entirely unsuitable, then for all intents and purposes, the raw idea in face of her inaccuracy simply ceases to exist.For example, I have argued with Julad about what a particular story (in the case I'm thinking of, a Harry/Draco wip) is about; she saw the box I'd made and thought that I was ineptly telling Story C, whereas I was actually halfway through telling Story B. Her suggestions made me abandon Story B and concentrate on telling Story C instead, because it was a better use of the material I'm working with. This doesn't mean that Story C existed beneath Story B the whole time, or that Story C was truer to the raw idea - it was Julad's interpretation of the box I'd shown her, and showed that I wasn't telling Story B very well and probably ought abandon Story B's raw idea and put Story C's raw idea in Story B's box and carry on.(It's getting very late. You can probably tell... )

Awaiting Oblivion

[office-ennui.livejournal.com]

you said: The author is the fic's first reader, and its first interpreter.

i think: you are a genius.

you said: Either her intention manifests itself in the story, or it does not in which case the author's intention has failed.

i think: as you later go on to point out, the major problem with intent is that it presumes a "perfect" reader for the text. there is also the question of audience – the writer is writing to whom? this has a lot to do with intent. if intent is the point than who knows the most about the intentions but the author so is the perfect reader then the author? in some ways you may be arguing against the idea that the perfect reader is the author, as you go on to state that once it is written it has a "life of it's own" so to speak. perhaps ultimately you are negating judging or reading a text from one perspective, which i would say AMEN SISTER too. it is all about the context. always already...

so what this discussion made me remember was something that came up in a course about writing where we were reading awaiting oblivion by blanchot. and man he had a lot to say about muses. i found some of my notes and am going to write them down here:

seeing and saying = the impossibility of defining what you see in what can be said arising from the inability of language to convey complexity. there is never a stable, descrete self but there is the illusion in literature. in writing you have to get out of the way of yourself, let your ego slip from the act of writing into the erasure of should. the structure of language gives/creates the ABILITY to express through putting limits (technical, systematic) but as a process allows expression and ultimately freedom. (only the writer is free, the author and the reader witness but what of the text itself - is it insignificant?). as soon as you construct/create an "I" you are limiited to the "I" that sees or knows. when you write you create create a space that when finished is obliterated. the oblivion is literature.

DISECTION OF A DICHOTOMY
the self that makes the work vs the writer that wrote the book -- who is the self? who is the author?

the work makes a self vs the self that makes the work

QUESTIONS
can you write without an "I"?

Re: Awaiting Oblivion

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

i think: you are a genius.
No no no!!! My whole ranty-pant is about how the author is *not* a genius.

Not, I tell you! Not!

Although I suspect you are using it in the hyperbolic online sense not in the post-Romantic cult-of-the-author sense, heh.

if intent is the point than who knows the most about the intentions but the author so is the perfect reader then the author?
This is very interesting, and a rather exciting thought. And it seems to me to be the logical conclusion that all those who defend the author's authority must come to. *waves at those authorial authors* (I am not one of these, *g*. I do not believe in the 'perfect' reader.)

Aha, so *this* is Blanchot. Is this Maurice Blanchot? In which case I have come across the name but that is all.

tbc