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Originally Posted by davem
Well, yes, but even if one accepted that authorial intention is neither here nor there (hence one is perfectly ok to read LotR as an actual history book - or to put it another way 'What's reality got to do with anything?'), there is a major difference between choosing to see Sauron as a tragic hero & ignoring an author's right to object to people ripping him or her off.
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Yep. Alas that kind of theory allows people to plagiarise and be able to have some way of defending it intellectually. However the biggest drawback is that in seeking to 'liberate' the readers it actually alienates them. They are supposedly 'freed' and allowed to respond in their own way despite the fact that they were free to do that anyway - people were seeing Milton's Satan as seductive when Barthes was just a twinkle in Le Milkman's eye. However, now readers are under no obligation to justify their claims with any kind of evidence. So you are, quite literally, free to make any kind of claim that you wish - I can claim Tolkien was writing a Neo-Fascist meisterwerke and there's nothing you can do to disagree with that as that's my right as a reader to respond how I feel. You cannot chuck me a quote out of letters about how much Tolkien despised fascism because it's irrelevant now.
Yet this is exactly why Barthes was full of rubbish - people have feeling and reason and inevitably as humans want to refute such claims. But you can't! You must accept it!
And as humans we seek meaning. We do soul-less jobs and travel on cattle-class public transport and are subject to directives and rules, rules, rules by those supposedly 'superior' to us. We crave Meaning.
The theories of Barthes were meant to stand alongside militant Atheism in a Brave New World. But the world aint like that, humans have proved they want Soul. So they watch an odd, quirky film like Donnie Darko or Lost In Translation and the first thing they say is "But what does it all mean?"
Being told "whatever you want it to" is so alienating.
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Is it an already published writer - do people want Steven Erikson, Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan, Ursula Le Guin? Or do they want someone who's written a piece of fanfic they've read & enjoyed to be authorised - if so, gives us a link to it.
Or are we still on the 'If you authorise it, he will come.' kick? All the Estate has to do is give permission & this visionary artist will magically appear, manuscript in hand?
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Not a chance. It's ruddy hard work getting a name and a reputation as a writer, let alone as a decent writer. No-one reputable is going to put that on the line to risk writing a book that will be torn to shreds by the fan community. Even those few who might look forwards to something about Middle-earth not written by Tolkien being commercially available in Wal-mart or wherever would rip it apart - inevitable as the reader would want to see if they could have done a better job themselves.
They'd be very lucky to get a hack writer. More likely it would be an inexperienced one.