Authorial Intent / Authority vs. the Reader's Interpretation
 

"Everybody knows" that Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is about censorship. (Many people, of course, know this because they were told it by their English teachers.)

Yet Bradbury recently said that's not it at all. It's really about the decline of literacy (as in the practice of reading books, if not the actual skill of being able to read) and the rise of video.

So who's right? Who am I (or anybody else) to ascribe a certain meaning to a book when the author himself has said that view is wrong? Is Bradbury being overly stubborn in his seeming reluctance to understand why people have interpreted his work this way?

I think it's some revisionist history on his part. He feels that way NOW, and he mentioned it in passing THEN, but that doesn't mean that's what the whole freakin' book was about THEN.

The majority of Americans didn't even have TVs when the book came out.

I think what you're saying here, is that the internet is strictly for porn. :D Am I interpreting your work accurately? :rolleyes:

I don't know what's wrong with you people, its not that hard. The folks down to Prospero’s Bookstore, Will Leathem and Tom Wayne, obviously get it.

Fascinating subject.

Tolkien stated that he intended no larger meaning behind LOTR than to tell a good story.

Neil Peart stated that he stopped writing sci-fi/fantasy-type lyrics for Rush albums because of the wildly speculative interpretations people kept applying to their meanings.

Define "internet", "strictly", "porn", "interpreting", and "accurately", and I'll think about it.

the intersection between art and perception is fascinating.

An artist creates something with an intent.

An art lover sees something different.

Who is correct?

I think it's a meeting of two perceptions. A skilled artist can create something that elicits a reaction, some emotion, some resonance in the viewer (or reader, in this case). A viewer brings his or her own experience, and feelings, and understanding, thereby adding something to the art.

Perhaps a genius can make something so perfect that the person experiencing it will only "get" the artist's original intent.

But I doubt it.

I think there's a difference between analysing a text from a particular perspective, and trying to figure out what the author was actually saying.

Sure you can read a text and get the general gist and create meaning for yourself, but it might not be what the author intended. That's the benefit of being able to look at a text from different perspectives. It helps you understand why different people create different meaning and yes, the same people think differently at different times.

Although you may consider that books and other forms of traditional text are static, they're not.

They develop new meaning constantly.

Just check out some of my post.

The reader can interpret the book to mean any damn thing they want. But if a hundred people read it and most agree on what they got from it, then the author tells you it's about something else, it's not well written.

So an author that comes along and says, hey everybody it really means this, he's admitting failure to communicate. Without sweat.

I don't think that an author has much power to control how people read his/her works. After all, once you've experienced something you can't go back and "edit" the way you reacted just because someone tells you you're wrong. I've had people react to my work -- writing, dancing, etc -- in a variety of different ways, and sometimes they've seen things that I didn't consciously mean to do, but that I would have if I had thought of it. :)

That doesn't mean that every interpretation is equally valid, of course. Interpreting "Teletubbies" as an attempt to further the gay agenda would be a good example of a reader who is so obsessed with his own issues that he can't see the text (or its context) itself, only the beliefs he projects onto it.

The one I feel the most sorry for is Alanis Morissette with her Ironic song. It's a good song with good lyrics, but she ended up with a permanent testament to her stupidity immortalized with that one. Can't listen to that song now without feeling sorry for her. Not the message she wanted at all, I imagine.

If you are a natural at writing, or you've studied the craft for years, there are ways to lead the reader into thinking the way you want. Timing, pacing and word choice are effective means of direction.

Once the ink has dried, the writer is SOL to control readers interpretations. Mores change. Language changes. References that might have been a little obscure become leaded, obtuse, or archaic.

It's true what many here have said. In my paraphrasing, the written word is a form of communication. Any communication demands two parties. While a written work is not as simple as a tree in an existential forest, it might as well vaporize if no one ever will read it. So two parties. The reader's perspective can be swayed by the writer's already written words, but if the reader has a different paradigm the work can and will mean something other than what the writer intended.

This is not bad. It just is.

I don't know what Ray Bradbury's feelings are about this topic. I understand how he could say that "That isn't what I meant at all!" Sort of a J. Alfred Prufrock lament. It's also likely that his own perspective and interpretation of his own work has changed with the years. I trust he knows what he intended, but the distinctions get softer in time and other aspects become more important.

Some years back I took a Psych 101 class as an adult student. The instructor was older than me, but it's conceivable that he and I read Walden Two initially around the same time. He assigned it for the class and we discussed it. Okay, he and I discussed it, trying to get the apathetic students to participate. It surprised me how no one understood the times in which it was written, or that B.F.Skinner might have had external concerns when he wrote it. Even the instructor was saying how racist Skinner was... Political maybe, but racist?

A significant character was described as having mahogany skin. Her hair and dress were described from time to time, with small details of a type not given to other characters. Skinner was trying to not be overt, trying to move past the issue of civil rights and look at a utopia of acceptance and equality. In 1948, he was way ahead of his time. I don't care what the man's politics or psychology were, he was pretty damn astute for that time. However, fifty years later in 1998 or whenever, none of the other people in a class could see what Skinner had intended. That wasn't Skinner's fault. It wasn't the other peoples' fault. It was a product of the intervening years and the change in mores.

Should we have an addendum to copies of Walden Two being printed now? Nah, it is what it is and people will continue to interpret based on their perceptions. Walden Two will fall out of favor and be seen as archaic, until 80 years from now when someone does a lengthy analysis of it and proclaims it as emblematic of the times.

And I think that's how Skinner would have wanted it.

From your lips to god's ears.

This comes back to a recent notion of "ownership" and "intent". If you put your "art" into the public domain you have very little control over how people are going to take what is put out and give their own meaning to it, for whatever purpose.