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

I think that intelligence, like most characteristics, needn't be a trait
of the author for it to be depicted well, simply a trait that has been
studied. A woman who is 5'4" tall can still draw a character who is a 6'
6" man, simply by studying the way he enters a room and ducks, or the way
he moves his seat way back when he gets into a new car.
Alternatively, much like someone can appear smart simply by being an
expert in one subject, an author can just carefully shy away from topics
with which he/she is unfamiliar, and thus let the characters successfully
tackle carefully contrived situations.

Brooks

On Mon, 26 Aug 2002, Jim Rovira wrote:

> 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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Received on Mon Aug 26 17:59:05 2002