MDMD: Outlaws revisited

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Lundy" <jlundy at gyk.com.au>

When readers see the text as open to a wide variety of
> interpretations it is more likely that they're all wrong than that we're
> witnessing authorial genius on a scale way beyond normal human
> comprehension.

In other words no authorial genius at all. At least no genius in the art of
helping the reader. Or perhaps only a genius in the art of helping the
reader to see that he is beyond help. Is this a lesson by any chance the
reader needs to absorb? Don't know for sure but don't think so. And it's
bothersome that postmodernism counts as a kind of accomplishment that
interpretation is left so open (and not only theoretically) because surely
the downside to this is that where there is too much meaning there is also
likely to be too little (your point I think). However I don't think that at
this stage of the book there has been too much left open to interpretation.
We've only been warned to be well advised not to take many of the ensuing
events in the story  at face value. Having been through MDMD before I think
this is the challenge to be kept in mind. Of course out and out fantasy will
be no problem. It's the possibly real events we will have to decide about.
Fortunately there will be many clues along the way as to what we should or
should not believe. And of course I'm not implying in any way that anyone
has said (yet) that the unrelieable narration is anything but an asset. If
there are faults in the book they will lie elsewhere.

            P.