meta: if authorial intent dies in a fire, does anyone even notice?

[angearia]

I have this button called "Authorial Intent" and whenever someone pushes that button to dismiss a reader's interpretation or to question the value of even bothering to offer interpretation, it sends me off into a tailspin of discourse on the value of authorial intent and the reader's participation in the process of creating meaning in fiction. So,

Comments

[beer_good_foamy]

When you see the author prick a finger and paint a pattern in the divining bowl, the author then hands that bowl over to you to divine meaning in the patterns. Only people cannot understand from a distance, cannot divine without joining in. Blood calls to blood. So you prick your own finger and trace the pattern in the bowl, and you try to read the author as you try to read yourself, as you've both spilled yourselves into the fiction.

And that's what we've all got running in our veins. (Alternate metaphor: And then the sharks show up and the feeding frenzy starts.)

I'm not sure what caused this, and I'm not sure I want to know, but I like it.

[angearia]

(The alternate metaphor sounds messy.)

Nothing specifically caused this so much as any and every 'authorial intent' discussion where I want to toss my hands up because it feels like being told, well just go home, don't bother showing up, don't bother reading/watching/thinking, just wait for the author to tell you the point in the DVD commentary.

[local_max]

I hope Emmie doesn't mind me stepping in!

one proximate starting point:

~is Angel a jerk in I Will Remember You because of bad writing, or because of good writing of Angel being a jerk?~

but I think different people were all coming at the Authorial Intent question about that from different angles.

[beer_good_foamy]

I would say it's an example of pretty good writing of a concept that's not very well thought through.

(Then again, I also never got the point of deferring to authorial intent; I love to examine authorial intent and how it translates into a work of fiction, but I don't think it gets a say in what meaning I should take away from it; if that were the case, I wouldn't bother with fiction at all. I don't love Buffy because of what Joss intended, I love Buffy for the work of fiction it was.)

[angearia]

(Word. I envy your succinctness.)

[beer_good_foamy]

Yay! I succ! :D

[local_max]

For me, I think that authorial intent does "get a say" insofar as I do think that I can potentially learn something from the author. But I agree totally with what you say later on. I love Buffy because it is what it is; what it was meant to be informs what it is, in the end, but only indirectly, as do a number of other factors.

I think my problem with ignoring authorial intent entirely is that I am afraid of inauthenticity. That is perhaps strange; but I am not sure I trust my reactions to be constant, so I like the idea of there being a there there that exists independent of me, and somehow it's easier to believe that that there is there if it's authorially intended. But that is itself a doomed proposition, too

[beer_good_foamy]

Yeah, saying it gets no say was a bit harsh, perhaps. I just meant that in the end, the fiction has to stand on its own; the worst piece of shit won't be more interesting (though the discussion of it might be) just because the author claims to have had some brilliant ideas, and vice versa. The director of the remake of The Wicker Man tried to sell it as a feminist work, and Groucho Marx was ashamed that he'd "wasted" his life doing comedy. Guess what? The Wicker Man is still blatantly misogynist, and Duck Soup just gets better every year. Discussions of authorial intent can be incredibly interesting, they can add a lot to one's appreciation of a work, but it doesn't get to trump the actual work, I should have said. (You might even argue that the stated authorial intent, like with Commentary! The Musical, is a work unto itself.)

I am not sure I trust my reactions to be constantI get that, though for me, that's part of the fun. My favourite books, movies, albums and TV series age and change with me. There's the work that exists

[angearia]

I hope Emmie doesn't mind me stepping in!

As long as you play nice ;-)

[local_max]

oh never mind then, you know me and my troublemaking ways!

[angearia]

who do you think you are, a sea captain or something?

[local_max]

lol, for a second I thought you were Christy because of the quote and icon. anyway!

[angearia]

Christy :(

now there's a whole new dimension to my depression and it's Christy-shaped

(lol not actually blaming you, just being dramatic in my missage of Christy)