answering jody again

[Doug Millison]

jody: "But doesn't believing that there is some author sanctioned "correct"
view automatically crimp your appreciation?"

I've never claimed and certainly don't believe that there is some 
"author-sanctioned correct view" of any book, not regarding Pynchon 
or any other author I read, and I'm sure I've never argued this on 
Pynchon-L or in any other forum. A chorus of voices has been working 
overtime on Pynchon-L to spread the lie that I have argued this, but 
it's simply not true.

To revisit one current instance, it's true that I have pointed to 
Pynchon's Luddite essay as a place where I believe we can find some 
insight into what he was doing in GR and M&D and Vineland, and I fail 
to see the harm in that, or how it adds up to me making an assertion 
of some "author-sanctioned correct view of a book."  Perhaps you 
disagree and instead believe that in that instance I was promulgating 
an "author-sanctioned correct view of a book" and if that's the case, 
you're entitled to that opinion, even though I don't believe that's 
what I was doing, and I feel certain that revisiting the posts I 
actually wrote about that would support me.

I agreed with s~Z when he wrote here (I paraphrase but not with 
malign intent, s~Z, hoping you'll correct me where I might be wrong 
or potentially misleading) a long time ago that so much of the 
creative process is unconscious that artists will probably never be 
able to know what they were trying to do.  At the time I *agreed with 
s~Z* on that point, I also suggested that when it comes to the 
rewriting and editing phase, an author might easily become more 
intentional (just as the artist will approach the project in the 
first place with certain intentions, more or less specific), but even 
then, I admitted, the same unconscious creative process that guided 
the first draft will come into play as the author works on succeeding 
drafts.

I do think that knowing (or trying to know, or whatever, I can have 
it as tenuous as you'd like) what the author intended -- what the 
author thinks he intended, what others think he intended -- can be 
added to the store of knowledge that might enlighten a reading of 
that book.  I have argued that knowing what we do know about 
Pynchon's biography and artistic influences and examining what he's 
written in his novels and stories and essays can yield some insight 
into his intentions,  and that we might if we wish use this to help 
us form our own interpretations of his books; if that doesn't work 
for you, no problemo, ignore it.

For a work that I want to know better, I want to know more about all 
aspects of it -- what can I know about the author, the time and place 
in which the author lived, what other artists were doing then, how 
the work was received then and since, what historians and critics and 
theorists and observers & etc. have had to say about it, what 
contemporary critics have to say, and so on. Inclusive, not exclusive 
of any one approach.  You ask, "what would be the effect of actually 
knowing the author's  intentions on all the other ways of 
understanding and appreciating the book, some of  which might be even 
be more interesting than the author's, or at least as  good?" In 
Pynchon's case, I don't really know, we're not there yet.  I do know 
that in the case of Marcel Proust, just to pull another author I 
enjoy reading and reading about off the shelf (or off the nightstand 
where I find him every evening), where we have lots of insight into 
what Proust thought he was doing with A la recherche du temps perdu, 
knowing what he thought he was doing (from his letters, what we know 
of his communications with his editors and publishers, etc. ) is just 
part of the mix of what readers and critics can bring with them to 
the novel; there's been a whole series of books published recently 
that do precisely this, pull together what we know about Proust and 
his novel and his era & etc., to help foster appreciation for his 
work by general (not academic) readers.  That's how I had the 
pleasure to read and enjoy many French authors when I was working on 
my undergraduate degree in French at UC Berkeley back in the Stone 
Age, and I figure if they can teach the great French novels that way, 
it's probably OK to advocate a multi-disciplinary, comprehensive 
approach to reading somebody like Pynchon.

Having said that, I'm also a reader who, the first time I encounter a 
novel, studiously avoids reading an Introduction that attempts to 
explain something about the novel (unless Pynchon has written that 
intro, of course).  I read it the first time and form my own 
impressions.  If it's something I want to come back to, I may then 
make the effort to find out more about it and its creator & etc.

Yielding to the temptation to believe I've devined Pynchon's 
intentions would only become a problem, it seems, if I somehow had 
the power to force  everybody else to agree with my ideas regarding 
his intentions, and since I haven't that power, nor that desire, it's 
a moot point. I may try to change your mind, and as long as I'm civil 
about it, where's the harm in that?  Isn't that one of the things we 
often do when we talk to each other about the works of art that 
please us?  Don't we often try to convince others to see it the way 
we see it, or hope they will at least permit us to talk about the 
work in terms that make sense for us? There's little I find more 
offensive than walking away from a movie, for example,  with 
somebody, explaining what I liked about the movie or what I think it 
meant, whatever that means, and having the other person say bluntly, 
You're wrong, it doesn't mean that, it can't mean that, you're an 
idiot to think that's what it means, here's what it means and here's 
why you have to interpret it that way. Of course none of the people I 
go to the movies with ever do that; I choose to spend my time with 
people who respect my opinions and who expect me to return the favor 
-- and that's what I'd like the discussion to be like here on 
Pynchon-L, too.

jody:  "But you are a proponent of delving for what you think the author
intended, no? How do you feel about interpretations, responses, etc., 
that do not  jibe with what you think the author intended, including 
the notion that
focusing on what the true authorial intention may be limits the creativity of
the reader. No matter blatant the author of a text might be, isn't it in
the nature of works of art, worth the label, take on a life of their own? I
guess I would cite _The Wasteland_ complete with the author's  supplemental
explanatory notes as the proto-typical example. I can empathize with
the author, but when someone, say Max, comes up with a keen insight, which
I get a kick out of, Max gets the credit. Whether Pynchon intended the
interpretation or not, doesn't bother me. I do not need P's permission
to see what I can see."

I see nothing in what you write here that I can disagree with or take 
issue with. As I asked in my earlier post, why the move to exclude 
one or another of the several major ways to approach a work of art? 
I've argued often here on Pynchon-L that there's value in all of the 
ways that various critics and readers approach Pynchon's works.  You 
wouldn't know that I've argued this if you're only paying attention 
to the way certain people consistently rewrite my Pynchon-L posts and 
put words in my mouth, of course. But if you go back and read what 
I've actually written, you'll see that I've consistently welcomed a 
multiplicity of approaches, and that I've gernerally suggested my own 
interpretations in tentative terms that respect my interlocutors' own 
choices.

jody:  "How do you define "good critic.?"

I don't; I gave three examples in the post to which you respond.  I 
like critics who open up my view of a work of art in surprising and 
delightful ways. I have no interest in laying out a set of criteria 
that would discrmininate "good" critics from the rest. I read what I 
read and I enjoy what I enjoy, and that's good enough for me. I 
abandoned the temptation to make "Who's In and Who's Out" lists when 
I left the general reader newspaper business a long time ago.

FYI, a subscription to PN only costs about $10/year.  And you can 
find it in good libraries.



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