Response to Scottie
Lomanno (lomanno@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 24 Nov 1998 17:08:04 -0500
Scottie wrote:
> And yes, Kari, I have written quite a lot. Even a couple of books.
> And I simply never had the feeling that any of my readers had
> discovered a meaning hitherto unknown to myself. The ignorant
> slobs often seemed to miss the point. But I felt that was more
> my failing than theirs. Human beings are in the main unbelievably
> stupid & it takes a great writer working at the top of his form to
> get anything at all into their thick heads.
>
> (Australians excepted, of course.)
>
Thank you for maintaining your sense of humor through all this (which is
more than I can say for other members of this discussion group). I agree
with you on the fact that people often misinterpret what the author
meant to say.
I wouldn't go so far as to say most people are stupid; ignorant seems
more appropriate (and I blame this on home environment and the quality
of education). I know I would have never read Salinger, Hemingway,
Vonnegut, Kerouac, or many other fabulous writers if I hadn't had the
gumption to pick them up myself. None of these authors have ever been
offered to me in school (and I'm a grad student studying LITERATURE).
But as far as author intent...sure, the message you wish to convey with
your writing is important, but if I get something out of your writing
that you didn't mean, I've still gotten SOMETHING. And how can you say
what I've gotten doesn't exist? It does in my mind, even if that annoys
you. :)
> They were fundamentally the same kind of idiots who hail
> computer generated pictures or the daubs of chimpanzees
> as works of art. A landscape or a piquant human face may
> arouse all kinds of emotions but they cannot be regarded
> as pieces of art until an individual human mind has deliberately
> worked to transform them into something else altogether.
>
Aren't you committing the same fallacy as your "thick-headed" readers
here? What if the person who paints the landscape thinks it IS a work
of art? Aren't you adding your OWN interpretation to the piece? That
doesn't sound like the almighty "authorial intent" to me.
Scottie, you say you've written books. What are the titles? Are they
fiction? Would we here in the States have access to them? I always get
excited to think I might know some "famous" author.
--Kari