Re: intelligence of the author vs. intelligence of the characters

That's a good question...hard to say :). I think part of this is really about
how convincingly an author can draw a "smart" character, and this has more to do
with what people in general recognize as signs of intelligence vs. actual
intelligence. If the author researches behavior/thought patterns of "smart"
people (I assume by smart you mean genius level) he/she may be able to
convincingly create a genius character without being a genius.

But it's really hard for me to think of an author I really know to be "dumb" and
see how she/he drew "smart" characters. I'd think the author was just a poor
writer first.

I think Salinger's views of intelligence were at least partly influenced by his
study of eastern philosophy...so that could be a whole other ball o' wax
there...

Jim

m e g h a n wrote:

> I'm not even sure how I got started thinking about this, but all of
> Salinger's characters(I was focusing on the Glass family when I thought of
> this though) are smart, to say the least. And while I've never really
> researched Salinger or his life, I think it's safe to call him an
> intelligent man. So what I'm wondering is, does the intelligence of the
> author impact the intelligence of the characters? Would it be hard for a
> "dumb" author to create a smart character, or for a smart author to create a
> dumb character? Or do you think that in most cases, the author doesn't think
> about the characters intelligence(except in cases where it somehow effects
> the book), and because of that, the characters end up reflecting the authors
> intelligence?
>
> Meghan
>
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