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

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I'm always intrigued people people who argue that writers' personal beliefs must be reflected in their writing--mine certainly aren't always! (Especially, say, in my Narnia fic, where I tend to give Aslan a lot of slack, even though a) atheist! and b) if I did believe in an omnipotent omniscient deity I would have to hate it.) Sometimes your personal credo doesn't work for the story you're telling, or the world, or the audience. Especially fantasy children's stories--you might have to change your theology around a bit.

I'm also intrigued by the idea that writers have one set of personal beliefs, even though (as in Lewis's case) those beliefs were forged over a lifetime, and we seriously don't have access to a lot of them (like the sexuality issue, for instance. Lewis was close friends with a gay man and seemed to have some S&M leanings himself, so...). Even if we could say with 100% certainty that Lewis was writing his direct beliefs into each book, what do we do if his understanding of Christ changed between LWW and LB? Which is the "true" Aslan?

Mainly, though, I don't think it's relevant. (I mean, I think it's interesting, to be sure--sometimes I am fascinated by what writers think. And I *do* think context is frequently important. A writer writing about two men sharing a bed, frex, is going to mean different things in a novel set during the civil war than a novel set right now. Which is why the Achilles/Patrocles ship war is ultimately futile, but I digress.) And that's for two reasons: first, because I don't think writers should be able to insist on their readers carrying around three biographies, a manifesto, and a commentary to understand the story. That's sloppy writing. I might have meant that, say, Will is an elderly basset hound, but if you have to read through my journal to the bit where I talk about how I've always believed in writing about dogs as those left behind by soldiers, and then read through a comment somewhere else about how I love basset hounds, and then read through another comment about how Will is the perfect name for a dog...if that's the way my story was meant to be read I am a sloppy writer. You know?

And second, like, whatever, author. The author is dead! I don't believe in the idea that there is one thing put into the story, and that's what the author meant, and that's the end. Readers get different things out (I mean, hell, what are Homer's thoughts on war, right?), and writers don't get to dictate that, even within the confines of the story. If I write a story that I think is totally about stalking, is it invalid if readers think it's about sainthood? (uuuuum actually I think I am going to go with yes here. NEVER HEALTHY, READERS. :/ Maybe the better example is: I interpreted--and wrote--that final section as Lucy finally getting some power back in that relationship, but other people have definitely seen it as the nail in the coffin of Aslan being an abusive boyfriend, so to speak. I don't think that's invalid at all--I think it's totally a valid conclusion from the text that I wrote. And my text speaks for itself, and I can't wander about telling people what to think, because the story is a story all by itself.)

I think also...like, sometimes writers mean for the hero to be perfect, and they say he's perfect, and they write it into the text, and they tell you in interviews, and he's still Edward Cullen. So authors can be wrong. Even Lewis. And I think Narnia fandom sometimes has a problem with that, because there's a weird contingent of fandom that wants to take Lewis as, like, a fifth gospel.

[min023.livejournal.com]

Right, so not much a philosopher, but I think you're onto something here. From where I'm sitting, belief isn't a fixed, unchanging constant. It evolves over a lifetime, changing as different life lessons educate us - growth of wisdom, and all that?

While I may have the same core tenets that I did at twenty, there's an awful lot of things have changed, to a greater or lesser extent, over the course of twenty more years. I think lady songsmith is certainly onto something when she notes age, mindset and mental maturity. From personal experience, I can attest that it's far easier to sit in some smug certainty about the rightness of your beliefs when're younger and have less exposure to life

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I think that's so true! And it took Lewis a long time to write the Chronicles, so...

I think you probably also have a point about the fandom--Narnia fans tend to skew young, and it's probably a lot easier to be smug about what Lewis would have wanted when you're still a teenager.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Will was elderly basset hound? Oh gawd. I've always wanted a follow on fic, you know that, don't you? Ed and Nora meeting in a bookstore after the war? I WANT THIS FIC.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

With sad eyes! Missing his master, away at war. Of course, Nora isn't a dog person. But she makes an effort.

Oh god I can't even. She asks after his family and he asks after her friend, and the afternoon under the apple tree is so far away that neither of them can quite recall the feeling, the warmth of the sun, the smell in the breeze. AND THEN THEY MAKE OUT. And then Ed goes to catch a train.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

But where do they snog???!! They are in a bookstore on a rainy day in London? Or Cambridge, again? What section? Is she reading Milton and he is reading Joyce? Is Will with her? Or, perhaps they meet at a Museum in London. She is looking at illuminated manuscripts or Carroll's original Alice In Wonderland at the British Museum and Edmund is exploring the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon pieces. Maybe he's in a squalid little flat that he shares with Lucy, Peter, and some itinerant Indian masons and Irish laundresses whose Chinese husbands have been deported and hollow cheeked concentration camp survivors. And they want to make out but small children keep sneezing on them and Will is drooling on Edmund's leg. But they make out anyway, because there MUST BE KISSING.