rthstewart | the shadow the original content creator casts

Entry tags:

the shadow the original content creator casts

So, I was going to post something exploring

raykel's discussion earlier about adults playing with toys that are really intended for children. But before we do that,

knitress wrote the following:

As someone who just stumbled into this, the whole ur doing it wrong thing seems very parallel to some of the debates in Lewis scholarship/'scholarship'/worship. Joy Gresham, Mrs. Moore, Lewis' lifelong friend Arthur Greeves.
I mean, if you're going to go on at huge length about what the original author would have wanted, shouldn't you, y'know, learn something about his actual life?

lady_songsmith and

andi_horton have both said, oh yes, please share your reading list!

And so

knitress has said she will post her reading list. This is an interesting exercise in a couple of respects.

There are a lot of people in the Narnia fandom who assert that adhering to Lewis' intent is very important, so illuminating what Lewis did intend and separating that from what others think he intended is interesting. I know some of you know far more about Lewis' life and art than I do, so do share, if you are so inclined.
Stepping back a few meters, some folks really like this sort of exercise at the more philosophical level -- who if anyone has the right to interpret something once it is freed into the wilds. Assuming we do understand the author and what he or she intended, what modicum of respect is owed the original creator? Or his or her designee or progeny? Gresham named Ramandu's Daughter Liliandil for the DT film. Rowling asked once that people not include underage sexual content in HP fic? Does any of that mean anything? Should it?
Last, there is the frustration all authors feel when the reader doesn't get what you intended. Sometimes it's a flaw in the writing; sometimes though it probably doesn't matter how clear you are, right? The reader is going to take what the reader is going to take.

In response to the above, divining authorial intent isn't something I usually worry about. I take a plain language view to borrow from a canon of statutory construction -- if it's there on the page, literally or thematically, it's fair game. I'm more interested in exploring what I and others think about their work, and the community that develops around that exploration then I am in understanding more of what the author thought about his or her work. People pull more than I intended out of my work all the time and frequently I have no greater intent than "Shiny! let's try that!" and "Gosh I love that line. Let me build 10,000 words to include it." Or, "fandom poke. poke. poke."

Admittedly, TSG Peter and I both share extreme ineptitude in the areas of philosophy, theology, and languages. Being a shallow sort, I do not usually ask the big questions. (Though when I told Clio that, she said that I may assert the absence of a rear view mirror and claim inability to think big thoughts but that's because I pour my philosophical musings into fic.) I decline to speculate as that would call for introspection.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So. This isn't going to go near the authorial intent issues -- but it's hard to argue that Lewis himself would be as "nothing but married heterosexual sex in books please".

There's been lots and lots written about Lewis over the last 40 years. Because I'm a bookish sort, I've read a fair bit. That said, I'm not a historian or a literary scholar, so I'm just summarizing what others have said in print.

Fact One: Lewis' best friend as a kid was Arthur Greeves -- Lewis' memoir Surprised by Joy talks about the importance of their friendship. They remained friends and regular correspondents their entire lives. Greeves was gay.

Fact Two: After serving in WWI, Lewis established a household with Mrs. Janie Moore. She was the mother of his friend Paddy Moore, who was killed in combat. Lewis lived with Mrs. Moore for the rest of her life.

Fact Three: Lewis eventually met and married Joy Davidman Gresham, a divorced woman. They were married in a civil ceremony so Joy (an American) could become a legal British resident. However, they later had a religious ceremony. Divorced people were generally not able to be married in the Anglican church at that time -- Lewis had to hunt to find a priest who was willing to perform the ceremony. Joy's death led him to write A Grief Observed

One biographer -- Walter Hooper, who worked for Lewis as a young man and is his literary executor -- insisted early on that the relationship with Mrs. Moore was entirely platonic, and speculated that the marriage to Joy was never consummated. Other biographers don't agree. For what it's worth, I have to agree that Hooper's opinion is just weird. It's hard to imagine that young Jack Lewis would spend every weekend and some weeknights with Mrs. Moore during his university years out of some sort of idea that he was doing his duty by an adopted mother. Read Grief and you'll see that it was written by a man who'd lost someone he loved deeply and in every possible way.

The Lewis-Greeves correspondence has been published. Lewis knew Greeves was homosexual, and wasn't particularly troubled or concerned by this. He certainly didn't end the friendship over it. Lewis (before Joy) wrote about the distinction between religious and civil marriage for divorced people, and it's hard not to wonder what his opinion would be about same sex (civil) marriage rights today! Certainly his marriage to Joy ended up contradicting statements he'd made before meeting her about how remarriage after divorce wasn't an option for Christians.

Oh, and to add to the complex stuff, it appears from the Lewis-Greeves correspondence that Lewis himself had mildly sadistic fantasies as a young man. What's more, he read Greats at Oxford; Greek and Latin writers were not exactly G rated. I don't see how anyone could argue that Lewis himself would insist that a story is immoral and evil because it includes sex outside of marriage.

I highly recommend the Jacobs biography, The Narnian and also Laura Miller's The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Guide to Narnia. There's also A.N. Wilson's CS Lewis: A Biography.

Edited 2012-01-16 01:50 (UTC)

Wow. thanks so much. I have just plowed through yet MORE of the "I don't write or read slash/homosexuality/incest." [the three are always equated] followed by "I don't think Lewis would be at all pleased or Lewis would be rolling in his grave" which is then followed by "Lewis was a Christian and these are Christian children's books," etc. The smug certitude of a segment of this fandom is really breathtaking when one considers that Lewis knew of the conduct, knew men who engaged in it, corresponded and wrote on the subject and that his very dearest friend was gay. He was obviously a very complex man.

The fact of his relationship with Greeves is so .. well, very much in keeping with the spirit that I see in the books I almost want to weep. While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance. And now google fu leads me to this, Lewis and Homosexuality.

Thanks so much for the contribution!

I don't get it. You don't read slash/homosexuality/incest, fine. I myself stay away from incest and pedophilia. I'm also not crazy about AUs. That's my choice.

But I don't go seeking out stories with these things so I can write reviews telling them how bad they are. OY! What's the point? If I were reading your story and disagreed with elements of it, I'd either stop reading, or I'd be so captured by the writing that I'd read it despite those reservations.

That might have been my reaction to a certain story of yours back in the day, as a matter of fact. I may have even written a review like that, saying what I liked, saying what I had issues with, but I think even back then, when I was more uptight than I am now, I think/hope I had enough sense to phrase it AS my own issues that don't really say anything whatsoever about YOUR story. Just my own baggage that I bring to it, not the ONLY way it MUST be.

Similar to what you're running across with the Lewis fandom, I write for a cartoon fandom called Danny Phantom. The creator of the show, Butch Hartman, has gone on record as supporting fanfic and fan art, but being opposed to slash. Pretty vehemently opposed, as a matter of fact. Fandom divided into the people who support him on this and those who don't and do what they want.

I find a walk a middle ground here. On first reading of his anti-slash statement, I thought it was over the top (he said something about it shouldn't exist anywhere on the internet), but when I read it again, I could really see where he was coming from. For one thing, he was using "slash" not to just refer to gay pairings themselves, but the really graphic pornographic stuff. And there have been actual police cases of pedophiles using DP porn (art more than fanfic) to lure in kids. What do they call it? Grooming?

So when he says he's against that stuff existing anywhere on the internet and if you're involved in it, you're not welcome on his boards, that's what he's talking about, and I find I can't really fault him for that. He's not actually going after this stuff where it exists, he's just saying how he feels about how his creations are used and that if you disagree, you can, but go play elsewhere, not on his boards. And this is coming direct from him, not fans' interpretations of his intent.

I've written stories in his universe that involve sex between non-married adults (canon characters later when they're grown up) and I've made one of his canon side characters gay. But my stories aren't very graphic and don't involve kids having sex and certainly don't involve adults having sex with kids (the "slash" that seems to get his goat the most is the adult villain with the teenage title character which actually says nothing about consenting adult gay relationships and everything about adult control. In canon, the villain is actually non-sexually obsessed with the teen hero, so going to some sort of mutual love sexual relationship definitely pushes many of my own squick buttons).

Does what I write fit with the author's vision and intent? Probably not. But there is nothing in what I write that contradicts canon, either. And I do try to respect his stated preference that if people play in his universe, they don't write graphic porn, especially involving minors (and honestly, I don't really anyway), because I can see where he's coming from.

Don't know how closely that correlates to your situation where fans are projecting their OWN views onto the creator, who is no longer around to state for himself what he thinks, but the war over what "true fans" will write really sets my teeth on edge, and in my fandom, I can see both sides of it. But I still think in the end it comes down to: stay away from the stuff that isn't your cup of tea rather than trying to recruit people to doing it YOUR way.

While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance.

Interesting that you say this. I actually had an epiphany while watching -- shoot... the Dawn Treader, I think? -- that the reason I've never really gotten, er, focused on the Narnia stories is that I find I really dislike Aslan. He's kind of an arrogant douche. Enormous compassion, yeah, I see that, too, but it doesn't override his douchiness, not for me, anyway.

But again, that's my own baggage and where my view on Christ may (or may not) differ from Lewis' and other Christians', and I don't think that gives me license to tell you how you should write Aslan.

Dawn Treader is probbly the douchiest Aslan of the three, having been taken over by the more "Narnia = Christian!" side of thinking.

But there's quite a few of us in fandom who write a more... capricious? Aslan, for exactly those reasons.

raykel you are absolutely right. I'm not one who has really delved into the peculiar capriciousness of Aslan but plenty of writers have. It's one reason why I've come to see the books as less Christian than many make them out to be, precisely because he's so far from the God I know. He rips four children from war and sends them off to another war, lets them grow up there and then sends them back with no explanation at all, lets his people suffer for over 100 years with the Witch and then hundreds of years under a brutal dictatorship that nearly wipes them out, he attacks and mauls a girl who is trying to escape a terrible familial situation, etc. etc. And then his solution, EVERYBODY DIES.

I've preferred dealing with him in a different way, but yep, there are plenty of folks who see many, many shortcomings there. One writer, Anastigmat, operates on an assumption that he's more like the capricious Greek and Roman gods. I sort of assume that since he says "I am true Beast" that he's not human, really doesn't relate especially well to humans, and just doesn't "get them."

Thank you for this, many many times over!! It will be some time before I work down my reading list to those books, but they are definitely on it now!

Seconding the recommendation for Laura Miller's book: I found it really enlightening (if not entirely complimentary) about Lewis' attitudes towards women & sexuality.

ETA: Which brings me back around to my original intended point, which is that regardless of what happened in Lewis' life, I can read the text, and the subtext, and from that I can see what he was saying about women, without having to know or even care what he actually believed. And I can react and respond to those unstated but clear assumptions, and to everything else in the text, and I don't care at all if someone thinks it's a horrible violation of Christian morals to do so.

There is no fanfiction police, and nobody gets to tell us that we're not allowed to go certain places in what is, in the end, a work of fiction. We may dislike what someone does with their story, and so we can ignore it, flame it, or mutter about it behind flock, but we have no authority over the writer and the content of the story.

... I do wish people would remember that.

Edited 2012-01-16 06:30 (UTC)

I'm curious, did you read Miller's book before the plunge into the fandom or after?

I agree completely, of course. After my first forays into fic, I did get to know, very well, one of the content creators whose work I had been fan ficcing. It was awkward in the sense that I never wanted the author to know that I had written fan fic from that author's original content, and I learned that we had some pretty different ideas about the author's work and characters. Different though we were, it never occurred to me change my fic. I knew there were things I'd done the author would not approve of -- and the author was alive and sitting right next to me. Was that disrespectful of authorial intent? I admit I never even asked the question.

You never know what people will pull from something and there's only so much control one can exert. There's a trend now in consumer protection to recognize that people do not understand disclaimers no matter how plainly presented. "Results not typical. You may not lose this much weight" and people come away thinking, "Bonus. I'm going to loose even MORE weight." When you can't control something so blunt as that, how can there ever be one single interpretation of anything, or an effort to enforce it.

At the risk of over-replying...

Yeah, I remember this. AW-KWARD. But at the same time, you know, you put your stuff out there, I don't think you get to dictate how the universe views it. Just because HE didn't intend his character to be seen that way doesn't mean you're wrong for reading it that way. Writers--good ones, anyway--have Bibles and Bibles of stuff that never make it to the page. It informs the characters as they appear, but readers can only take what's on the page and go from there. And I don't think where you went with his character was inconsistent with what was on the page, whatever the author's intent. Respect works both ways. Creators have to respect that other people bring their own things to their work, and it's actually a testament to their work if the characters come so alive that we each take with it something uniquely our own. I think I even told this particular writer that when he was, IMO, overreacting to how others saw his characters.

And sort of a corollary to that, but not necessarily the same thing, sometimes no matter how clearly you put your intent on the page, readers Don't. Get. It. I will never forget Aaron Allston sharing a story about how in one of his Star Wars books, a chapter from Kyp Duron's POV has him musing how he is so much more powerful a Jedi thank Luke Skywalker. And OH THE CRAP he got from readers about how DARE he say Kyp Durron is more powerful than Luke!!!!11!

No, Aaron did NOT say Kyp was more powerful than Luke. KYP said it. And it is perfectly in character for Kyp to (incorrectly and arrogantly) BELIEVE he is more powerful than Luke. But some readers do not get the concept of unreliable narrator, instead believing, if it's on the page, the author must think it so. ::headdesk::

So no matter how clear you're being, readers are gonna take what they want and divine intent to you (the writer) that was never there. Nature of the beast.

Edited 2012-01-16 15:24 (UTC)

I'm curious, did you read Miller's book before the plunge into the fandom or after?

After: I read it last winter, I think, so about halfway through writing Carpetbaggers.

there's only so much control one can exert.

Indeed. Ricky Manning (former executive producer of Farscape) once asked what the ficwriters would do if Brian Henson or David Kemper asked us to stop writing. I said, "Please don't ask." Our enormous affection for the source product is, in great part, the reason why we're playing there in the first place. I started to say "enormous respect", but that's wrong--fannishness is based more on emotion than that.

That was totally my reaction to Miller. I loved the book, even though I disagreed quite a bit with some of it. She made me think -- about writing, about the role Narnia played in my childhood (and continues to play in my worldview), etc.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this, it's very much appreciated. Unless Hooper had powerful evidence that Lewis was wholly asexual, I agree, his arguments don't seem to hold much water.

I hadn't heard of the Jacobs work, and I had only heard Miller's mentioned in passing. I'll definitely see if I can acquire any/all of the titles mentioned via our library here.

Again, thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the shadow the original content creator casts

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

TAG! You're it! Aslan as a really bad deity

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject