Re: More Chuckles from The Laughing Man
Byrd, Steven T (BYRDS@papa.uncp.edu)
Fri, 06 Aug 1999 10:34:45 +0000
No worries, Mattis. Your summation was beautiful, and a hell of a lot
more clear than my own. Thanks for the assist. Bye for now.
--steve
On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Mattis Fishman wrote:
> Hello friends,
>
> Jim reponded to Steven's post:
>
> J: I've done a lot of semi-autobiographical stuff myself, and no matter how
> J: close to the real details I get, it's still not me.
>
> Which seems to be in response to this sentiment:
>
> S: ... Buddy suddenly understood that reading
> S: anything anyone has ever written, no matter how "superficial" (sp) is
> S: like reading a diary.
>
> Pardon me if I missed the boat here, but you did not really indicate
> what triggered your response, Jim.
>
> In my view, though, Steven made his statement more powerful when he added:
>
> S: When you're writing a storypoempaintingsongart like this, this close to the
> S: bone, you're not just writing down your thoughts, you're writing your
> S: thoughts themselves.
>
> I realize that I am chopping a lot away here, but to me the question is
> not so much the literary "how much can we infer from the works about the
> author?" which might focus on whether the words, events and viewpoints
> expressed in a story correspond to the author's own, but rather the raw
> realization that even the fictional words that may have no resemblance
> to actual people and events, are the thoughts, the intellectual offspring
> of their creator, who has therefore laid out a piece of himself on the
> page. In that sense, then, your work may not resemble you, but it *is*
> inescapably you.
>
> Please pardon me, Steven, if I put words into your mouth or do you
> an injustice with my interpretation.
>
> all the best,
> Mattis
>