Re: Salinger and Barthes

Thor Cameron (my_colours@hotmail.com)
Tue, 15 Sep 1998 20:33:05 -0700 (PDT)

<<My main question here is, where does that leave Salinger's unread
manuscripts? Can a text truly be "written" if no one is around to read
it (kind of a spin on the tree-falling-in-the-woods question)? I'm not
sure where I stand on this question, but I'm leaning toward "NO." I
mean, I've written dozens of crappy stories and poems that no one has
ever read, and to me those stories are dead. They have not been given
life by the reader, so they just end up being words without meaning.>>

Well, that's just it.  Every text has at least one reader--the author. 
The author becomes the reader after the text is done.

Jim

Absolutely, Jim.  That's the necssary editing that a writer must do.
I think it is the author, not the reader that gives a particular piece  
"life".  When there is another reader, it only becomes a shared life.

Oh, and I'm reading you, Akemi

Namaste,
Thor

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