Readership

[jbor]

> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> 
>> While I agree that it is never possible for a reader to possess the "full
>> meaning" of a work, this is equally so for the writer. It's that concept
> of
>> "full meaning" which is the phantom, one of the fallacies of logocentrism.
 
on 10/8/02 5:31 AM, Tim Strzechowski at dedalus204 at attbi.com wrote:
>
> Maybe.  I wouldn't say "equally so," however, because the author certainly
> has an advantage.  That's not to say the author knows *all* meanings of
> *all* things within the text, but s/he has the advantage.

I agree with you when you talk about "the endless possibilities of
interpretation that a literary work offers", but I don't think "meaning" is
a fixed object or entity, either for the writer or the reader. Communication
theory is something which Pynchon has been addressing in his texts from the
beginning of his career:

    "Tell a girl: 'I love you'. No trouble with two-thirds of that,
    it's a closed circuit. Just you and she. But that nasty
    four-letter word in the middle, *that's* the one you have to
    look out for. Ambiguity. Redundance. Irrelevance, even. Leakage.
    All this is noise. Noise screws up your signal, makes for
    disorganization in the circuit." (Saul in 'Entropy', 1960)

I think the author has an advantage of knowing her or his intentions better
than anyone else at the moment of composition, but I don't think that means
much in the long run, once the text is out there. (Cf. Wimsatt and
Beardsley's "Intentional Fallacy") As you say, there can be unintended
"meanings" which the writer was *never* aware of, there are always already
traces of other "meanings" in the language she or he has used (etymological
and metaphorical connections, literary resonances etc), and the same factors
around social and cultural preconceptions apply to the author as they do to
the reader. And as McElroy wrote in his intro to _Lookout Cartridge_ in the
quote Otto posted, and as Pynchon himself writes in the _Slow Learner_
'Intro', there comes a point when, time and human memory being what they
are, the writer of the text is just another reader himself or herself. Text
always is the product of an author who is human, and fallible, too. I guess
one point I'd make is that all of these ideas are present in Pynchon's work,
and are a part of what is being communicated to the reader.

I included the example of Dadaism and surrealists making "random" texts
because that is the point I thought you were making with the anecdote about
Joyce. Tzara, Breton & co. were more deliberate about their "randomness" (a
paradox, for sure), where the "Come in" in FW was apparently accidental, but
it's the same thing. Once anyone (reader, professional critic, writer)
starts thinking or writing about *why* something is in a text then they are
embarking upon an act of interpretation.

I'm not arguing that the reader or critic possesses a "complete
understanding" either (cf. the "Affective Fallacy", ibid.). And I certainly
don't agree that just because someone is a "professional" that fact
automatically qualifies their work as "better" than someone who isn't.

Reading your later post I guess I don't really see the "creative" author vs
the "reactive" critic as such a complete or useful demarcation either,
because the artist is always responding to things which are out there
already too. The writer's page is not a tabula rasa. Pynchon inscribes his
text in _M&D_ onto a wide array of other texts - historical, artistic,
philosophical, theoretical - texts which do not originate with him. He has
read these texts, and he is reading them through his own text, which is
pretty much what a reader or critic is doing when she or he opens up the
cover of _M&D_. Every experience of reading a text is "new", or unique, in
this sense. So, just as "the reality of the reader bringing his/her life
experience, readings, and literary 'baggage' to the text" is something to be
taken for granted, I'd say it's exactly the same situation the author was in
when composing the text.

Even though Doug's obvious intention was to try and cause insult and start a
flame war it's been an interesting discussion. Thanks to all.

best