Re: Franny sectioned

Camille Scaysbrook (c_scaysbrook@yahoo.com)
Mon, 02 Aug 1999 10:53:28 +1000 

Jim Rovira wrote:
> Jeez, Scottie, it's not that the writer's opinion DOESN'T matter, it's
> that, well, the point is JD NEVER WILL show up on anyone's doorstep with
> all the answers.

No, I don't think that's the point. The point is - as Anna's anecdote
illustrates - I think the only time you should stop pursuing options is
when they cease to be fruitful in your interpretation of the test. For
example - Holden Is Gay, let's try that out for size. Could be an
interesting interpretation, would lend some light and shade to such things
as the Carl Luce and Mr Antolini episodes, even his relation ship with
Ackley or James Castle maybe. But how about Holden has Nits. Not so
productive. As I see it, different opinions are just different lights you
project onto a text to see what things are put into shade and what things
are thrust into high relief. As I said earlier, Franny being pregnant just
doesn't illuminate much in the story for me. I think also that a writer
attempts to cause his readers to see something from a certain point of
view, but that doesn't mean that his or her view is supreme over all
others. To me, a writer sends out a transmission, and the interpretation
does not lie in the radio waves whizzing through the air but in the radios
picking them up all over the world. In the end, the writer is just another
radio owner - if you get my drift. Once you throw something out into the
world it's a little like having a child - it's both yours and its own
person. (All of this is a metaphorical way of agreeing with your statement
that:

> When a writer has written a text, he's just another reader. 

However, I wouldn't necessarily agree that:

> He's
> probably the best informed reader, but he's still just another reader.

which you in some ways obliquely agree with in asserting that:
 
> And some writers, I'm afraid to say, aren't that good at reading.  :)

I truly believe that some writers have not the capacity to interpret the
power in their own words. Take `Goblin Market' for example, by Christina
Rossetti - fraught with imagery that took on whole new meanings when it
entered the Freudian age, imagery that now seems obvious to us. But it
presumably did not and could not seem so obvious to Rossetti herself.

> In my opinion, speaking as a reader and a writer, the value of the
> writer's opinion varies with the writer and with the type of work.  For
> example, in writing something as direct as this e-mail, I have a few
> specific ideas I mean to communicate and I'm fairly confident that the
> range of meanings that can legitimately be derived from this e-mail is
> pretty close (by and large) to my intended meaning.

I guess it depends. I find myself increasingly putting works out there that
even I am not confident of the `real' meaning of and simply seeing what
people make of them; whether my route from A to B is similar to theirs.
Sometimes it is, sometimes people very much `get it' (where that simply
means their opinion matches mine), other times, not at all. I'm perfectly
happy with either outcome, but it would discount the idea that, by default,
a writer is seeking to convey his or her ideas in a manner that would make
as certain as possible that readers were on the same track. So what I'm
saying is that I almost put my texts out there to be deliberately
`misinterpreted'. Which really renders the whole concept of
misinterpretation irrelevant.

JDS on the other hand seems (as I have explored before) to be so wary of
his readers not Getting It that he appears to put filters in his work to
sort the Real from the Phony.

I've always been very wary of trying to find meaning via a writer's life.
It's just such a hypothetical business; I've written things that correlate
to things in my own life but are in no way inspired by them, but I've also
written things that are totally inspired autobiographically but the only
person who would possibly work that out is me. It doesn't bother me so much
as being disrespectful to the author - just, again, a method of
interpretation of only limited and facile worth. However, I don't think
there's harm in speculation; in imagining that there really was an Esme or
a Sybil. It doesn't matter whether they are true or not any more than
wondering `Did that guy sitting at the bus stop drink tea or coffee for
breakfast this morning?'




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