> <<People can think and have their own ideas...they can synthesize > empiracle data in an objective fashion without the mediation of some > qualified figure like a priest or a parent, and thus they are > individuals. Thus, also, they can be writers. They can have something > to say. They can mean something. --Matt>> > > I'm not espousing the death of the author as the death of meaning in > literature--but as I said in a previous post, and as you mentioned at the > end of your post, the author becomes the reader of a text once the text > is published. I don't think you **intended** this (a loaded word, now :) > ), but I will say that the "author" dies at that point and becomes just a > reader. Well, funnily enough, this is pretty much what I've been trying to say all along. Once his intention has been rendered, there's nothing he can do about it. But it's funny how knowledge of the author can make us reassess our view of where his intentions may lie. For example, the Joyce Maynard revelations sent quite a few people scurrying back into their texts to find out whether or not, as Cheryl put it, Salinger really was a `hoochie daddy' (: Try as we might, Salinger can never fade into the walls. Which is strange really, because it seems to be what he tries to do with his fiction, but the fact that he tries to hide physically makes us even more eager to find him amongst the shadows. The author may be dead but the Cult of the author is flourishing ! (: I was just thinking how strange it is the way the Salinger/Maynard thing is in a way our own version of the Lewinsky/Clinton thing in miniature. It would be a nice topic for a book or a movie or something. Someone approached me with a view to write a movie about Salinger a while ago. I said I'd have a think about it - but it'd have to be a long think. I wonder what Salinger could do, legally, about preventing a biography? Think I'd make it one of those `it sort of isn't X but everyone know it's supposed to be X' kind of characters instead (: Camille verona_beach@geocities.com @ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442 THE INVERTED FOREST www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest