How important is an author to the text?
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There are at least two ways of reading:
On the one hand, the text stands on its own while on the other, you read the text to find out who the author is. This is as true for fiction as it is for philosophical tomes. There are some who read Huckleberry Finn and the character of Huck or Jim or whomever become as real people with their own inborn motivations and desires. There are others who can read the same work, but read it to see how much of Samuel Clemens (these people would never use the moniker of Mark Twain!) is in Huck and they work to discover Sam's inborn motivations and desires. Similarly, there are readers of Kant who take the categorical imperative or antinomies of reason and will happily discuss these concepts/ideas all day long. Then the other set picks up Critique of Pure Reason and begins to interpret who Immanuel is, the German raised in a dogmatic religious household struggling to balance his religious experience with reason and the Age of Enlightenment.
Pushing it further:
The first camp of readers could eschew Christian authors if the content of the text is dark or perhaps sexually explicit (J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series or Graham Greene's The End of the Affair). The second camp could likewise avoid books if the author of said book was too "dark" or "sexually explicit" in his/her personal life (Friedrich Nietzsche or David Sedaris).
What's a reader to do?
As with most questions with two answers, the correct response is not either/or; it's both/and. However, the difficulty of achieving the right kind of balance between these two approaches to reading is akin to what I know as The Aquinas Challenge where you put the Bible on one end of a yardstick and Aristotle on the other and try to run as far as you can without either book falling off. In short, balance is hard to achieve. You cannot pretend that book and author are totally distinct from one another, but you also must assert that each is capable of having a life of its own.
What's a writer to do?
This fact is probably the most frightening to a writer. When you have a work produced in your lifetime, people will decide that work is you...and not only you, but all of the people you hold dear. Suddenly your spouse, parents, siblings, children, and friends must stand ready for the onslaught of investigation and critique that will come their way as well as your own. At these times, you may really want to assert that the content should stand removed from its author, but it still can't. It is you and to some extent it is all those people who influence and shape you. Hopefully, all will be educated readers enough to find the balance between you the author and the book you've written, but there's no guarantee that will be done. If you're a writer, you write anyway.
Lastly, the big book
I close with how this discussion bears on a pet peeve of mine. There is a tendency in conservative Christian circles to read the Bible for content only and with almost no regard for distinctive writers. Nowhere is this more practiced than with the four gospels. It is true that three of those gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) most probably were working from the same body of material and even borrowed from one another. However, this should be all the more reason to keep them distinctive (they knew the other's existed and yet still chose to put their edited version out there with new material). Each was working to produce something with a unique audience and purpose in mind. To borrow language from one and stuff it into the mouth of the other is wrong. Don't even get me started on what is know as the gospel of John! It is so distinctive in genre, content, chronology, etc. that it must stand alone. The only thing John has in common with the others is that they're about Jesus (and the feeding of the five thousand). Otherwise, it's almost entirely new and different material.
If I don't say it then someone might have a heart attack:
I believe all of the gospels to be true. I think God is the one ultimate author of all. I don't think these texts contradict each other in any way which would require me to say that one is true and the other false. I don't believe any of them is written with such a heavy handed agenda that there are exaggerations or rhetoric so that truth becomes obscured. I think that covers everything. I'm just asking that these writers be allowed the same artistic merit that we give to others. P.S. I didn't allow myself room to go into how Paul is maligned by not having his letters read holistically (they are to different audiences at different times in his life).
What I'm reading right now:
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (I've set a deadline to be done by August 24)
A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards (If you haven't read this--you should. It's a quick read and it is very insightful. I'm only taking so long because it's my book club reading and as such it's divided into chunks!)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
On the education of children by Michel de Montaigne (I love, love, love this old, crazy man!! So much so that about once a quarter I find myself compelled to pull down the book and read one of his essays.)
There are at least two ways of reading:
On the one hand, the text stands on its own while on the other, you read the text to find out who the author is. This is as true for fiction as it is for philosophical tomes. There are some who read Huckleberry Finn and the character of Huck or Jim or whomever become as real people with their own inborn motivations and desires. There are others who can read the same work, but read it to see how much of Samuel Clemens (these people would never use the moniker of Mark Twain!) is in Huck and they work to discover Sam's inborn motivations and desires. Similarly, there are readers of Kant who take the categorical imperative or antinomies of reason and will happily discuss these concepts/ideas all day long. Then the other set picks up Critique of Pure Reason and begins to interpret who Immanuel is, the German raised in a dogmatic religious household struggling to balance his religious experience with reason and the Age of Enlightenment.
Pushing it further:
The first camp of readers could eschew Christian authors if the content of the text is dark or perhaps sexually explicit (J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series or Graham Greene's The End of the Affair). The second camp could likewise avoid books if the author of said book was too "dark" or "sexually explicit" in his/her personal life (Friedrich Nietzsche or David Sedaris).
What's a reader to do?
As with most questions with two answers, the correct response is not either/or; it's both/and. However, the difficulty of achieving the right kind of balance between these two approaches to reading is akin to what I know as The Aquinas Challenge where you put the Bible on one end of a yardstick and Aristotle on the other and try to run as far as you can without either book falling off. In short, balance is hard to achieve. You cannot pretend that book and author are totally distinct from one another, but you also must assert that each is capable of having a life of its own.
What's a writer to do?
This fact is probably the most frightening to a writer. When you have a work produced in your lifetime, people will decide that work is you...and not only you, but all of the people you hold dear. Suddenly your spouse, parents, siblings, children, and friends must stand ready for the onslaught of investigation and critique that will come their way as well as your own. At these times, you may really want to assert that the content should stand removed from its author, but it still can't. It is you and to some extent it is all those people who influence and shape you. Hopefully, all will be educated readers enough to find the balance between you the author and the book you've written, but there's no guarantee that will be done. If you're a writer, you write anyway.
Lastly, the big book
I close with how this discussion bears on a pet peeve of mine. There is a tendency in conservative Christian circles to read the Bible for content only and with almost no regard for distinctive writers. Nowhere is this more practiced than with the four gospels. It is true that three of those gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) most probably were working from the same body of material and even borrowed from one another. However, this should be all the more reason to keep them distinctive (they knew the other's existed and yet still chose to put their edited version out there with new material). Each was working to produce something with a unique audience and purpose in mind. To borrow language from one and stuff it into the mouth of the other is wrong. Don't even get me started on what is know as the gospel of John! It is so distinctive in genre, content, chronology, etc. that it must stand alone. The only thing John has in common with the others is that they're about Jesus (and the feeding of the five thousand). Otherwise, it's almost entirely new and different material.
If I don't say it then someone might have a heart attack:
I believe all of the gospels to be true. I think God is the one ultimate author of all. I don't think these texts contradict each other in any way which would require me to say that one is true and the other false. I don't believe any of them is written with such a heavy handed agenda that there are exaggerations or rhetoric so that truth becomes obscured. I think that covers everything. I'm just asking that these writers be allowed the same artistic merit that we give to others. P.S. I didn't allow myself room to go into how Paul is maligned by not having his letters read holistically (they are to different audiences at different times in his life).
What I'm reading right now:
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (I've set a deadline to be done by August 24)
A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards (If you haven't read this--you should. It's a quick read and it is very insightful. I'm only taking so long because it's my book club reading and as such it's divided into chunks!)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
On the education of children by Michel de Montaigne (I love, love, love this old, crazy man!! So much so that about once a quarter I find myself compelled to pull down the book and read one of his essays.)
posted by Marjorie at
7/30/2007 09:59:00 AM
3 Comments:
Marjorie,
Good post.
What is a writer to do, anyway? I confess, the thought of people peering at my life and the lives of "all the people I hold dear" through my writing paralyzes me. It's variation on that old malady, writer's block. I feel stifled to write on some topics because I fear the critic, that fear acting as a gag. I shrink from the public eye, and I certainly don't wish to subject my friends to the scrutiny of the critic.
As something of a perfectionist, I also want to be sure what I write is the truth, not merely my opinion. While experience can't very well be argued with, human perceptions and perspectives can differ, and do cloud the truth sometimes. I'm not God, and I don't have His view of the world, so it just figures that my writing will fail to ring true in every respect, for all times and all people. Je suis l'écrivaine. C'est la vie.
Vita Sackville-West expresses my sentiment quite well:
"...I wish I knew what life was all about and what place literature really held in it, to a God's-eye view. I wish at least I could be content to accept things because they *are*, instead of trying to poke back their origins and discover *why* they are, and what they are made of," (to Virginia Woolf, 1927).
Loving this discussion. Though the work cannot be in practice separated entirely from the author, I'm of the camp that it should in theory. The voice of narrator and/or main character is not always in line with the convictions of the author, and in some cases, they may be very distinct to prove a point. For example, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. If one were to assume that Marlow were or even the nameless narrator were Conrad's alter ego, the criticisms that Conrad and this particular work are racist might hold some weight. But when I separate the work from the author, I see a deeper meaning which tells me something quite the opposite.
On the other hand, I completely understand this writer's hesitancy you're talking about and that Rebecca elaborates on because the very act of writing is so personal that bits of yourself and loved ones can't help but factor in somehow, and that fact puts writers into a very vulnerable, exposing position.
So, what's a writer to do? Like you said, write anyway. Sort of like after Jesus talked about people eating his flesh and drinking his blood and after people got offended and stopped following him he asked the disciples what they were going to do. "Where else can we go?" What else can we do but write anyway?
You are both so right on with the tension. I love the quote you use, Rebecca, and Chantell, the allusion to the disciples' quandary is excellent. The combination of these things reminds me of the vignette at the end of the gospel attributed to John. Peter asks about this other disciple's fate and Jesus says to him, "What does that matter to you? You follow me." Similarly, if your calling and passion is writing: You follow Him. Maybe you screw up a little bit (like we find out about Peter in Paul's letter to Galatia). Maybe this screw-up occurs after you've dreamed dreams and seen visions, but you just keep following Him. You keep writing even when one of your attempts goes awry and it doesn't "ring true, in every respect, for all times and all people." Ultimately, you're not writing for your glory. Anyway, thank you for your thoughtful and insightful responses. I think you guys are awesome!
P.S. Chantell, the Joseph Conrad example gets me to thinking that it may be that reading one way or the other (content or authorial) is not necessarily the "right" way to read, but that one must be aware of how one is reading.
P.P.S. Rebecca, avez-vous écrit dans le français parce que j'adore Montaigne? Merci pour l'hommage!
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