NP Tolkien Picks Up A Few More Bits Of Cultural Baggage

[tess marek]

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> Yes, I don't disagree that fantasy, sci fi, fairy
> tales, animal fables and
> the like can have allegorical purposes, and can
> function allegorically. I
> also agree that readers can read texts in
> idiosyncratic ways if they choose
> to. They can also choose not to.
> 
> From the biographical info on Tolkien I've read,
> from what I recall of the
> text itself, from seeing the two movies, from the
> arguments and (lack of)
> evidence that've been proposed, and having an
> understanding of and interest
> in racism and its effects, I choose not to read
> racism into _TLOTR_. Simple
> as that.
> 
> best


This sounds a bit like the argument Cyrus advanced:
The text is a mirror. How do we distinguish evocation
from interpretation. Simply putting the onus on the
reader doesn't cut ice. It's sophistry, as most of
this thread has been. John tried to introduce what I
think was a good place to start--racial issue and
themes. I think that the objection to this idea was
mere obfuscation in  lieu of a substantiated argument.
Overall the thread has been poor because the posters
seem to be ignorant of or only vaugely familiar with
the texts. What this thread devolved into was pretty
much what we all expected--a taunting at the alleged
psychological patterns or complexes of individual
readers. Avoiding the text has produced a thread that
is non-literal and lopsided because it has focused on
the reader and ignored the texts. The text is not a
Rorschack. You can misread a text and a text is not
neutral. Misreading or misinterpretations may in fact 
tell us something about a particular reader's
preoccupations (Cyrus's example of the white
supremacist), but we have to be very careful about
drawing such conclusions and we need to be familiar
enough with the text to argue that we do in fact have
a misreading or misinterpretation and that the
response of a particular reader is purely subjective
and not a supportable evocation. That has not been the
case here because of the lack of familiarity with the
texts under consideration. John's expericne was quite
revealing of a larger issue. Cultures and sub-cultures
use very different mearsures to evaluate texts. I find
nothing at all reacist about Conrad's Heart Of
Darkness. In fact, I think Achebe's reading of that
Story is a misreading and a misinterpretation. I
recently read parts of Moby-Dick and One Hundred Years
of Solitude with my students and I was surprised by
their reactions. Students were upset that the we were
reading racist tales. When I provided a bit of
biographical backround on the authors and so on many
of students changed their positions. I could have
provided other information to sway their opinions in
another direction. Of course I usually try to get them
thinking on both sides and leave it at that. In all
the years that I taught Conrad I never once had a
student say it was a racist story. But all I need to
do is introduce Achebe's essay on most of the students
will see the Light. Why is this? 

I put Pynchon's statement about race and class on the
black board. Many students had the same reaction as my
wife. They assumed it was a minority talking about the
white establishment. A mirror held up to the reader?
Ambiguity? What do you want it to be? 

Oh come on. Both/and my ass. My aunt doesn't have
balls and Moby-Dick is not about yo momma. 

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