Author, Reader, or Text? (aka Canonicity Slapdown 2005)

[Lalwendë]

OK, do you think I ought to be facetious and vote for option 4? I don't want to settle the discussion once and for all! Although they give me headaches and such threads are an addiction I can easily do without, they do get me running (well, metaphorically running anyway, very little actually gets me literally running) to the computer to see what everyone's gone and posted. I'm not totally sold on any of the reader theories anyway.

Unless *puts fingers together in a Sherlock-Holmes-deducing-a-motive fashion* Fordim is sneakily trying to get that whole Canonicity thing up and running again?

[VanimaEdhel]

Well, you see, in my opinion, it is up to the reader. But when discussing the religion of Tolkien, my personal belief is that he wouldn't have wanted me wandering around with an Eagle pendant around my neck muttering "Unto thee, oh Saint Frodo, I am devoted" - so I don't. Others are free to do so if they are of a mind.

[Mister Underhill]

Where's the middle-ground -- the collaboration between author and reader?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

Where's the middle-ground -- the collaboration between author and reader?

Quite right. It's a flawed poll without this option. Care to start another, Fordim?

Edit: I can't begin to understand how anyone can think that "analysis" is the extent of the collaboration between author and reader.

Edit2: Okay, since Fordim has explicated choice #4 to include the collaboration between author and reader, thus including the sense of wonder and enchantment, that's how I'll vote. I just wish the option didn't read quite so dunderheaded compared to the rest of them.

[Lhunardawen]

Maybe we should all just vote for option 4, so Fordim would fail in his diabolical quest.

But you voted already, didn't you?

Oh.

[Bêthberry]

Oh, I never take Fordim at his word.

For instance, this little poll does seem to have drawn out many another Downer who never ventured into either the Enchantment thread or the Canonicity thread. Now, there's a democracy of entanglement if ever there was one.

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill
Where's the middle-ground -- the collaboration between author and reader?

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Quite right. It's a flawed poll without this option.

On the contrary, there is no collaboration per se between author and reader, unless it is carried on solely within the reader's mind, some sort of necromancy in calling forth an absent human being.

Or perhaps necromancy is not the most applicable metaphor. Mayhap a better one is that of a performance art, with the reader taking the place of the performer rather than member of the audience, who but listens.

Indeedy, perhaps we can take this in a new direction which memory tells me was not examined on either of those two threads: we can even take Estelyn's discussion about music and the Music and apply it here.

Estelyn on musical interpretation

which was inspired by davem's post:

davem on performance

The ball's in other courts now, I believe.

[The Saucepan Man]

It's a no brainer really.

Some have questioned why there is not an "all of the above" category. This was my initial reaction too.

But then I realised that there is. It is that the meaning may be found in the experience of the reader. This covers each of the other categories and more.

The readers' views on the author's intentions, how the text should be analysed and interpreted, his or her enjoyment of it etc all fall within his or her experience of the book. If we feel compelled to divine the author's intentions, then that falls within our experience of the book. If we simply enjoy it as a darn good read, then that too is within our experience of it. Since our experience of the book as readers is dictated by and also dictates our approach to it, this in turn defines its meaning to us as individuals (which, of course, may change over time).

Simply put, a book can have no meaning save by reference to its effect on the individual. There can be no objective meaning which sits apart from the reader's experience. Of course, a group of individuals may share similar experiences of a book and may therefore agree on certain aspects of what it means. But no one individual reader's experience will ever be compeltely identical to another's, and so a book can never have one unified, objective meaning.

But what of the author, you may ask. What about the meaning that he or she intended? Well, the author is but an individual too, and so his or her intended meaning will simply fall within his or her individual experience. Provided that he or she is sufficiently skilled at communicating that intended meaning, then it may well form a part of many readers' experience too. But that will not necessarily be the case, certainly not with every reader.

And so I have voted, rather predictably, for the experience of the reader.

[davem]

Sneaks in wearing big hat & false beard & using assumed name so as not to look like a hypocrite....

Where's option five - The meaning is to be found in the glimpse it provides of 'joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief'?

[Kath]

But surely the experience of the reader includes their own personal analysis of the text and their view of the intention of the author. That is why reading is so subjective.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Sneaks in wearing big hat & false beard & using assumed name so as not to look like a hypocrite....

Where's option five - The meaning is to be found in the glimpse it provides of 'joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief'?

It isn't there, davem because that is an effect the reader experiences based upon his or her own subjective reading experience. So it's there under # 2.

Actually, I wouldn't mind a write-in option.

[VanimaEdhel]

Thus far, the voting is a little lop-sided - too lopsided. Too bad I already voted. I would vote for one of the two that have no voted just to arouse controversy.

But this is the question that has haunted me for some time (since I cannot secure an answer for myself): if one reads a certain message in the author's work, but the author in no way intended it to read that way, is that message interpreted by the reader a valid one? Most English teachers argue "yes", but I know from experience that there are not many things I find more irritating than when people create things in my writing that are not there. There is part of me that says, "You're missing the entire point!" Then, there is another section of me that thinks, "Perhaps somehow I did intend that - or it just birthed itself in my writing." It can be compared, I suppose, to the method I use to write. It is not as though I carefully plan out every facet - it comes almost as though it is arriving through me, not from me. Therefore, does the story have a life of its own once it's out of my hands, open to the interpretation of strangers that know nothing about me?

[Mister Underhill]

davem and Bb, you two ought to have your own show.

"So who's from Moria?"
"That's right."
"No, I mean, who's from Moria?"
"Of course he is. Why do you keep repeating yourself?"
"I don't know--"
[Together:]"Iron Hills!"
"Whoooo!"

There's got to be someone to hold back the curtain and someone to look at what's on the other side. A novel is a communication, a meeting of the minds -- a sort of telepathy, as Stephen King would have it.

[obloquy]

I'm the only dude who voted for analysis of the text. Sometimes I don't even trust Tolkien when his opinion conflicts with an interpretation that lends itself to a stronger internal consistency.

Edit: It's important to note that this attitude towards his writing was allowed for by Tolkien himself when he chose to write things as if he did not even know the full truth of Middle-earth.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

It isn't there, davem because that is an effect the reader experiences based upon his or her own subjective reading experience. So it's there under # 2.

Actually, I wouldn't mind a write-in option.

Weeellll....

Depends how you're using 'subjective' (& 'objective'). I'd say what I'm talking about is a 'subjective' experience of an 'objective' Truth'/Reality. Its 'subjective' because it won't happen to all readers, but I think true Art is a window on another, objective, reality - & that's the 'meaning' we find in the text - ie, that's why its meaningful to us on the deepest level.

And I don't think that's included in option 2.

So there

[Lalaith]

Yup, Kuruharan, you're clearly an old-fashioned kind of critter, like me. Author's intention, positively Victorian. Anyway I hummed and hawed between A&C and went for C.

[Kuruharan]

Yup, Kuruharan, you're clearly an old-fashioned kind of critter

I'VE BEEN FOUND OUT!!!!

I'm noticing a trend here wanting to discuss what our options ought to be rather than actually voting. Perhaps we should have a poll about what should be in the poll?

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

Where's the middle-ground -- the collaboration between author and reader?

Hear, hear.

Originally Posted by davem

Where's option five - The meaning is to be found in the glimpse it provides of 'joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief'?

Hear, hear.

Where's "The collaboration between the author, the reader, and The Author of the Story By Which I Do Not Mean Myself?" Though I'm just rewording davem's option, above. (You go, davem.)

Fordie, I give you applause for starting these polls. The rest of us shoiuld do them more often.

Maybe we should let this poll run its course as is, and then put up another with all the "where's option number umptyfratz" and do it again.

Does Tolkien get to vote too?

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Perhaps we should have a poll about what should be in the poll?

A song, Mister Underhill! Sing us a song!

[Lyta_Underhill]

Oh great! Another dip into the Canonicity pool! As I am currently fresh from the Dead Marshes, it is tempting to ponder whether this topic is clear as the mere of Kheled-zaram or if it is as tortuous and fraught with "candles of the dead" as the Dead Marshes themselves. Needless to say I haven't voted yet; this requires thought (again) and the re-booting of old patterns woven with new ones. But, drat it all! It requires thought!

I visited the link to the "What broke the enchantment?" thread and found one entry for the Ents. Personally, this created a lasting and new enchantment for me that I can't imagine disregarding as I look at any tree! Different experiences for different people, reacting to the same text. But the trees are there, whether the eye of the reader sees them or not. And they have aspects that are beyond any eyes, perhaps even those of the Professor, as he has hinted in other areas. Maybe this is the literary version of the "tree falling in the forest" question...

Anyway, a jolly good lark, Fordim! Thanks!

Cheers!
Lyta