‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

Originally Posted by SPM

I wouldn't say that neither reader nor author are the master, but rather that both are masters in different ways. The author has complete control over the material supplied to the reader. But the reader has complete control over how he or she interprets that material and therefore, ultimately, what the story means to him or her.

He or she does, but if he or she knows what the author intended & chooses to ignore that in favour of the meaning they find there they are stepping out of the secondary world created by the author & into their own. In other words they are ignoring what the author is saying.

This is fine - as long as they don't go on from there & claim that the meaning they find in the text is the author's. If that reader says 'I know what the author meant but I don't like it & choose the text to mean something else.' I have no problem as such - I just don't think their choice is that relevant in a discussion of the text which seeks to understand what the author intended. or in any attempt to understand what the story means.

The author provides the material for the reader to inrepret, and the reader has no influence on that material, but it is the reader who interprets.

This may not be the author's intention at all, as it assumes that the author is offering a random collection of statements for the reader to give meaning to. It may well be that in the author's mind he has already done the interpreting himself & is atually passing on, as best he can, that interpretation. In that case, if the reader goes on to interpret the text he is actually interpreting an interpretation, and placing himself at a further remove from the 'facts'. In other words, the author is not simply offering the reader a collection of words & images to do with as he will, but is showing what he has done with those words & images he himself has 'recieved'.

The reader must, in the first instance, attempt to experience the story as it is & be affected by it in as pure a form as possible, then, if he chooses, make a jugdement on it, interpret it, in the context of his own experience - though this experience may be deeply affected by what he has just read.