Re: a poor old guesser
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Sat, 05 Dec 1998 17:53:55 -0500 (EST)
heh, Scottie, you misread me. I don't think I ever made a reference to
your age--though I think Will made a passing reference to that type of
approach to a text being long out of vogue.
I see authorial intent as being the place just about everyone starts in
literary theory. When people first try to describe the relationship
between readers, authors, and text that's usually where they start.
That's been my personal experience, and my perception of the experience
of many others I've spoken to, at any rate. It's not so much a matter of
age, then--being old or of young. Notice that both yourself and Mattis,
being widely different in age, hold to roughly the same ideas. I see
holding to authorial intent as a sign of "newness," rather, to the
discussion of the reading process.
BUT, the rest of your post REALLY demonstrates a misunderstanding of my
beliefs here. I don't know if it's my fault--I haven't been clear
enough--or if you haven't been reading closely enough. I really have
little respect for egalitarianism or the ideas of "equality" being passed
around American society--especially the intelligentsia. Differences
between people are real and substantial, and some people are indeed
better, smarter, or at least more interesting than most of the rest of
us. My belief in reading as a "community" effort has nothing to do with
this impulse.
See, I think you're taking me to mean that if a group of people all agree
that a book means a certain thing, well, that's what it means regardless
of what the author thinks. Of course I don't think that. Groups can be
just as stupid as individuals, and sometimes more so. I'm just trying to
point out that language is bigger than any one of us, and that authors
and readers own it equally.
And that the distinction is really, in the end, false. The best readers
I know are writers themselves.
Jim
On Sat, 05 Dec 1998 12:22:42 +0000 Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie>
writes:
> I can see that I must indeed be - as Will & Jim would
> have me - a degenerating dinosaur. Certainly the latter
> is quite right in his portrayal of me as a pathetic old git
> reduced to the game of trying to guess what Salinger
> might have intended us to take from his words.
>
> It can't be wholly a question of age, though. Acquaintances
> in Eng Lit departments on this side of the Atlantic assure
> me that the 'community' approach to reading is a
> Frog fashion that the Americans have embraced as eagerly
> (& gullibly ?) as they once did the teaching of Julia Childs.
> The poor things, they say, find irresistible anything which
> combines the impressively verbose with an implicit flattery
> of the Common Man & his contribution to western culture.
> The fashion will pass no doubt - just as like the hula hoop
> & chrome Niagaras on the front of motor cars.
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
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