Get a bigger hamme

Chris · 31 Dec 2002, 17:57 · from urth-v0212.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Get a bigger hamme
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 17:57:21 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0212-2574 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0212/2574.txt.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

There is also the general feeling going into it (not to say that it is the=20
sole reason behind what you term "The New Criticism") that the work should=20
stand on its own; the roots of what is to be interpreted from the text=20
should be *in* the text (or, I suppose, body of texts) and if the author ha=
s=20
anything further to say to explain what he meant, he should have somehow pu=
t=20
that in the text in the first place.

There are plenty of arguments that can be made against this, and I won't=20
dispute them. However, I suspect it's a sentiment that Wolfe himself shares=
.=20
I've always gotten the feeling that he's been reluctant to answer these=20
questions about his work because he wants them to stand on their own, and=20
that he's made uncomfortable by the prospect of adding something that will=20
alter or "fix" the reader's interpretation. This also helps account, I=20
think, for how upset he gets about even the smallest unintentional error=20
that he might make in the text (I seem to recall him talking about one in=20
the end of the Long Sun series, in the afterword or thereabouts...) -=20
perhaps he doesn't feel that his word, after the fact, is in itself a=20
completely adequate fix.

Tangentially, I tend to read what an author has to say about his work=20
anyway. With Wolfe I find it rewarding. The worst experience I had with it,=20
though, was reading what Faulkner had to say about "The Sound and the Fury"=20
and finding out that some of the things I found most masterful were in fact=20
completely incidental, and that if he'd had his full way with the story (th=
e=20
printer imposed certain limitations on him) I would have been keenly=20
disappointed with the result. Sometimes, you just don't want to know what=20
the author really meant.

>Assuming that "original intent" is a thing that can be known in the first=20
>place--even if the author's still alive, s/he may not tell the truth, or=20
>may have forgotten, might think it unimportant, etc.
>
>The New Criticism is an established literary fact, and kicking against it=20
>will prove to be more trouble than it's worth.  Not to say that authorial=20
>intent is unimportant, but it's not the Grail:  nobody knows all the=20
>reasons why they do things (or psychotherapy wouldn't be necessary). =20
>There's a lot in any author's work that they might not have consciously pu=
t=20
>there; why not take the time to tease it out?
>
>Please note that the New Crit is NOT a free pass to spin isogeses about=20
>Severian as a drag queen, Herbert Hoover in disguise, or a Fungi from=20
>Yuggoth.
>
>
>
>Matt
>
>The fault is great in man or woman
>Who steals a goose from off a common;
>But what can plead that man's excuse
>Who steals a common from a goose?
>	The Tickler Magazine, 1 Feb. 1821
>
>--

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 limited-time offer: Join now and get 3 months FREE*.=20
http://join.msn.com/?page=3Ddept/dialup&xAPID=3D42&PS=3D47575&PI=3D7324&DI=
=3D7474&SU=3D=20
http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=3D1216hotmailtaglines_newmsn8i=
shere_3mf

--=20

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net