the shadow the original content creator casts

[rthstewart]

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.

Comments

[raykel.livejournal.com]

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.

[lady_songsmith]

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.

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

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Oh 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."