Postmodern Literature and the Gooey Kablooie
Calvin's Dad: What story would you like tonight? We can read anything except…
Calvin: "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie!"
Calvin's Dad: No! No Hamster Huey tonight! We've read that book a million times?
Calvin: I want Hamster Huey!
Calvin's Dad: Look, you KNOW how the story goes! You've memorized the whole thing! It's the same story every day!
Calvin: I WANT HAMSTER HUEY!
(later, in bed, both with eyes glazed wide open…)
Calvin: Wow, the story was different that time!
Hobbes: Do you think the townsfolk will ever find Hamster Huey's head?
Explanation by Bill Watterson in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book: "'Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie' (like the 'Noodle Incident' I've referred to in several strips) is left to the reader's imagination, where it's sure to be more outrageous."
* * *
Note: shorter entry this time; I was up way too late last night. The "23:59" posting time is not to be taken literally; it simply means "I began this essay on the evening of February 3, and want to have my entries on the Calendar view associated with that evening even if I didn't finish until after midnight." Also, due to my tiredness as I finished that essay, I didn't give it a very good conclusion, and so have edited to add a "summary" section at the end.
* * *
In her reply to my "Definition Fallacy" essay in last night's entry, perceval commented: "For some authors, such inconsistencies may be part of what they are trying to achieve. Not for JKR. (External evidence from interviews.) … Postmodern literature will of course work differently. But I'm afraid JKR is more about straight forward story telling." As far as I know this is correct (although I'm no expert either); inconsistency very likely is a technique used for effect by some present-day writers. I've also seen it suggested that "postmodern" writers tend to play with multiple possibilities in the reader's mind, producing texts that are quite deliberately capable of multiple interpretations with no one being preferred. In this case, the technique is one of incompleteness rather than inconsistency.
Now, as Percival remarks, "straightforward storytellers" like JKR tend to abhor inconsistency. But incompleteness often appears as a compositional tool even in straightforward stories-- not just in the sense in which incompleteness is unavoidable (because we can never describe a truly complete world), but also in the sense of playing with multiple possibilities in the reader's mind. The technique is of course used to very different effect, but the interplay of multiple possibilities is still there. It's a technique described by Bill Watterson in the comment quoted above-- a technique which (for lack of more pretentious terminology) we might simply call "leaving the details to the reader's imagination."
Of course the examples Watterson gives show this well enough. He doesn't tell us what "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie" is about, nor do we know what on earth the "noodle incident" was about (except that it got Calvin in trouble somehow). Rather, Watterson implicitly invites us to have fun pondering what the story or the incident might have been; and it adds effect to his comic strip very well.
* * *
There are examples of this also among the "straightforward storytellers" of the HP fandom. For example, when the PS/SS movie came out, I had the privilege of meeting Thing1 from the Werewolf Registry at the New York summit. Over lunch I took the opportunity to ask her a couple of questions about her stories. One of these concerned a remark in one of the prank-war trilogy stories which seemed to refer back to some prior incident. Unfortunately I can't remember which it was; I don't think it was the bit in "Waterloo" where Remus acknowledges that he owes Sirius one for "hexing his robes before that meeting last summer," but it was something like that.
My question was whether that was a reference to something I'd missed in one of her earlier stories. She replied that it was just an unspecified incident left to our imaginations. "Kind of like the 'noodle incident' in Calvin and Hobbes?" I suggested. "Yes," she replied, "exactly." We don't know what kind of a meeting it was, or what exactly Sirius did to Remus' robes-- she just invites us to come up with our own ideas.
And in cases like that, even in a traditional-style story, multiple interpretations can certainly be valid-- not because of our ignorance, but because that's exactly the effect intended. This doesn't mean we can say "well, I think his robes turned black-and-white vertically striped like a referee's" (or whatever)-- to settle on one possibility is to miss the point. But if we enjoy a few amusing thoughts about what it might have been, then that's perfectly consistent with "communicative interpretation"-- to ponder some goofy possibilities is to experience a very good level of communication with Thing1 through the text of her story.
Even my own Halloween fic, "The Death of the Party," ends this way. In discussing the story with GP, I told her that, since she was a well-known Ginny fan, I would assure her that Harry did indeed get out of his dilemma at the end of the story somehow; but exactly how he got out of it was left to the reader's imagination.
* * *
Therefore, it is not really correct to say that "communicative interpretation"-- when our goal in interpretation is to receive communication from the author through the text-- only deals in fixed possibilities and never leaves room for imagination. Most of the time it does so, yes-- because the stories we're interpreting are usually designed for that. But we don't set it down as a fixed law. To do so would be to lose some excellent humor possibilities.
And what would be the fun of that?
Calvin: "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie!"
Calvin's Dad: No! No Hamster Huey tonight! We've read that book a million times?
Calvin: I want Hamster Huey!
Calvin's Dad: Look, you KNOW how the story goes! You've memorized the whole thing! It's the same story every day!
Calvin: I WANT HAMSTER HUEY!
(later, in bed, both with eyes glazed wide open…)
Calvin: Wow, the story was different that time!
Hobbes: Do you think the townsfolk will ever find Hamster Huey's head?
Explanation by Bill Watterson in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book: "'Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie' (like the 'Noodle Incident' I've referred to in several strips) is left to the reader's imagination, where it's sure to be more outrageous."
* * *
Note: shorter entry this time; I was up way too late last night. The "23:59" posting time is not to be taken literally; it simply means "I began this essay on the evening of February 3, and want to have my entries on the Calendar view associated with that evening even if I didn't finish until after midnight." Also, due to my tiredness as I finished that essay, I didn't give it a very good conclusion, and so have edited to add a "summary" section at the end.
* * *
In her reply to my "Definition Fallacy" essay in last night's entry, perceval commented: "For some authors, such inconsistencies may be part of what they are trying to achieve. Not for JKR. (External evidence from interviews.) … Postmodern literature will of course work differently. But I'm afraid JKR is more about straight forward story telling." As far as I know this is correct (although I'm no expert either); inconsistency very likely is a technique used for effect by some present-day writers. I've also seen it suggested that "postmodern" writers tend to play with multiple possibilities in the reader's mind, producing texts that are quite deliberately capable of multiple interpretations with no one being preferred. In this case, the technique is one of incompleteness rather than inconsistency.
Now, as Percival remarks, "straightforward storytellers" like JKR tend to abhor inconsistency. But incompleteness often appears as a compositional tool even in straightforward stories-- not just in the sense in which incompleteness is unavoidable (because we can never describe a truly complete world), but also in the sense of playing with multiple possibilities in the reader's mind. The technique is of course used to very different effect, but the interplay of multiple possibilities is still there. It's a technique described by Bill Watterson in the comment quoted above-- a technique which (for lack of more pretentious terminology) we might simply call "leaving the details to the reader's imagination."
Of course the examples Watterson gives show this well enough. He doesn't tell us what "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie" is about, nor do we know what on earth the "noodle incident" was about (except that it got Calvin in trouble somehow). Rather, Watterson implicitly invites us to have fun pondering what the story or the incident might have been; and it adds effect to his comic strip very well.
* * *
There are examples of this also among the "straightforward storytellers" of the HP fandom. For example, when the PS/SS movie came out, I had the privilege of meeting Thing1 from the Werewolf Registry at the New York summit. Over lunch I took the opportunity to ask her a couple of questions about her stories. One of these concerned a remark in one of the prank-war trilogy stories which seemed to refer back to some prior incident. Unfortunately I can't remember which it was; I don't think it was the bit in "Waterloo" where Remus acknowledges that he owes Sirius one for "hexing his robes before that meeting last summer," but it was something like that.
My question was whether that was a reference to something I'd missed in one of her earlier stories. She replied that it was just an unspecified incident left to our imaginations. "Kind of like the 'noodle incident' in Calvin and Hobbes?" I suggested. "Yes," she replied, "exactly." We don't know what kind of a meeting it was, or what exactly Sirius did to Remus' robes-- she just invites us to come up with our own ideas.
And in cases like that, even in a traditional-style story, multiple interpretations can certainly be valid-- not because of our ignorance, but because that's exactly the effect intended. This doesn't mean we can say "well, I think his robes turned black-and-white vertically striped like a referee's" (or whatever)-- to settle on one possibility is to miss the point. But if we enjoy a few amusing thoughts about what it might have been, then that's perfectly consistent with "communicative interpretation"-- to ponder some goofy possibilities is to experience a very good level of communication with Thing1 through the text of her story.
Even my own Halloween fic, "The Death of the Party," ends this way. In discussing the story with GP, I told her that, since she was a well-known Ginny fan, I would assure her that Harry did indeed get out of his dilemma at the end of the story somehow; but exactly how he got out of it was left to the reader's imagination.
* * *
Therefore, it is not really correct to say that "communicative interpretation"-- when our goal in interpretation is to receive communication from the author through the text-- only deals in fixed possibilities and never leaves room for imagination. Most of the time it does so, yes-- because the stories we're interpreting are usually designed for that. But we don't set it down as a fixed law. To do so would be to lose some excellent humor possibilities.
And what would be the fun of that?