Readership

[Doug Millison]

At 1:31 PM -0500 8/9/02, Tim Strzechowski wrote:
[snip good insights]
>The second definition was the one I'd intended to best convey my meaning (I
>said: "Not that all esoteric passages in Pynchon are based on such
>haphazardry and coincidence, but the act of writing / creation allows the
>author a certain privelege of knowledge that readers/critics cannot
>achieve.").


Tim, I think jbor's problem -- I'm not sure, of course, maybe Otto can
explain for us what jbor is up to ;) -- is that he can't (his theory won't
let him) admit any sort of primacy on the part of the author or the work of
art -- the critic (or reader, if that's the preferred term) has to be on
par with the author in that critical approach, if not actually elevated in
status above the artist or work of art. From a certain perspective, that
may be true, but from another angle it seems silly.  Experience in the real
world tells us that riticism can certainly rise to the level of art (albeit
for a rather limited, specialized audience), but rarely supplants the art
on which it comments, which generally speaks to and is enjoyed by a far
broader audience than the critic.  jbor  also seems stuck in a critical
approach that has to judge certain readings better or more "comprehensive"
than others, in order to preserve the elitist notion that some readers have
more insight, or "get it" while others don't, instead of permitting
democratic access to the text on the part of readers who bring vastly
different experiences and expectations and reading approaches to a novel,
and whose responses to the work of art have value in and of themselves,
apart from the critical judgement of any self-proclaimed expert or judge.