Authorial Intent / Authority vs. the Reader's Interpretation

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

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

[Flint]

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.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

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

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