Fw: Franny sectioned

Camille Scaysbrook (c_scaysbrook@yahoo.com)
Mon, 02 Aug 1999 11:09:17 +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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