academic commentary

Craig Brewer · 01 Dec 2010, 20:23 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 12:23:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) academic commentary
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>> (To make this relate to Wright, I think he's has every right to read New
>> Sun *against* the religious meaning many of us might assume Wolfe
>> intended.
>
>I strongly disagree. If we susbtitute reader intent for author intent we're
>no better off than where we started.

True, but that makes both seem paltry. Ultimately, intention is secondary to 
whatever is in the books. I take it that we have 4+1 books called _The Book of 
the New Sun_. Interviews, conversations, and whatever else is not within those 
covers is interesting but ancillary.

If those the primary texts support his reading, then his reading is valid. 
Reader and author intention have to ultimately be judged against the text. If 
Wolfe meant one thing but achieved another, that other is what we have. His 
intention is then nice or interesting, but unimportant. Otherwise, when I was a 
teenager, I wrote some masterpieces in intention but not execution... :)

----- Original Message ----
From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Wed, December 1, 2010 2:08:29 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) academic commentary

I'll take this opportunity to present a couple of points:

Craig Brewer wrote (01-12-2010 17:25):
> I generally agree. Or rather, I absolutely agree about things internal
> to the text.
> 
> When it comes to the author's stated intentions or explanations of a
> text, though, I'm more conflicted. That's particularly true with Wolfe.
> Personally, I have to say that any text that can only be understood in
> relation to something outside of it (an interview, a conversation with
> the author, etc.) is a flawed text.

I disagree. That's just a property of the text.

(But I think that Wolfe's not such a case.)

> But the opposite extreme can also be a difficulty when people impose
> biographical information on a text.

That usually results in inferior work - because the biographical drive is
stronger than the creative -, but it's not usually the religious writers who do 
it.

(But I think that Wolfe's not such a case.)

> An author has every right to tell us we're wrong about what happens; he
> has less right to tell us we're wrong about what it means.

Maybe even none at all, and even what happens may be open to discussion.

> (To make this relate to Wright, I think he's has every right to read New
> Sun *against* the religious meaning many of us might assume Wolfe
> intended.

I strongly disagree. If we susbtitute reader intent for author intent we're
no better off than where we started.

> If that's the reading the text ultimately supports - and, granted,
> that's the point of the debate with him - then that's what it supports.

The issue is also that such a rich text can support all kinds of meanings. *But 
only* arrived at through thorough examination. Analysis that stops half way will 
always be half way, even if its same conclusions might be arrived at by a 
further, more thorough, analysis.

> It doesn't matter at all what Wolfe thought he was writing or what we'd
> like it to mean if the text ultimately goes in a Wright's direction. Lot
> of *IF*s there, of course, but I think it's just really bad logic to say
> that Wright has to be wrong, a priori, because Wolfe is Catholic or
> because he's said in interviews that the book has a "true" religious
> meaning, or what have you. It always has to go back to the best reading
> of the books as we have them.)

It's just that I haven't seen anyone say that the books have to be read a
certain way because Wolfe intended them that way. The most I've seen is that
they should be read a certain way because they're richer that way.
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