TECH: Does the Reader know the Writer?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 01:30:03 JST

[lots of new critters in the pond (HI!), but I still want to kick this around... forgive me for not quoting everyone, but I thought I'd just summarize and go bravely where I hadn't rambled before...]

Does the Reader know the Writer?

I think that's sort of the topic we're wandering around.

Okay, let me reiterate what I think was the original question - how important is knowledge of the writer's situation to judging the work? (e.g. does the fact that the anne frank of bosnia is writing in bosnia, and is 13 or something, alter the value of the work?)

randy and stuart have gone wandering a bit, bringing up the questions of shared background, internal meanings vs external words, and so forth.

Tsirbas Christos also added some interesting comments on the notion of categorizing writers by their nationality (or other group membership - I'd never really thought about it, but that "area authors" corner in some bookstores really is a rather nasty ghetto to be stuck in, isn't it?)

[Hi, Tsirbas! thanks for joining in...]

good stuff, one and all...

Let me drop a few more pebbles in the rather muddy waters we're treading about the writer, the words, and the reader.

Interesting - especially if I stop and think about something like Shakespeare's work, or Gawain and the Green Knight, where I need commentary just to have a chance of figuring out some of the social and historic references. Take a gander at the original 1000 nights and a night, without reading the footnotes? very difficult.

I suppose the negative case of Japanese writings where you don't even understand the language doesn't clarify much...

Consider, though, reading something like the original Robinson Crusoe or Swiss Family Robinson (not the kid's versions - the old monsters). Stylistic barbarisms, with an overlay of socially accepted trash (the White Man's Burden, don't you know!).

Or take Tarzan, Lord Greystoke - in the original, with the whole wonderful mixture of "British supremacy" with "the natural man." It's enough to make almost any modern reader feel uncomfortable...

Heck, pull the author and cover off one of the "golden age" space operas (E.E. Smith) and try to convince a modern reader to read it.

It does seem as though the effect (and affect) of a piece of writing in part depends on how similar the background is. At the same time, I think the detailed knowledge of the author's personal history, while sometimes adding some depth or understanding to a piece, really should not be required to understand and enjoy the piece.

Let me switch fields for a sec - Picasso's Guernica (sp?). Disturbing, almost tortured piece of art. I didn't care for it, then someone told me there was a war there... and suddenly the piece started making sense. Now, that little piece of information helped me connect the pattern of thoughts and make a whole out of it.

An interesting question for some kind of theoretician might be what information needs to be added to "set the stage" for understanding a writer's work. Actually, it may not be so theoretical - when you bring a book (or short story, etc.) from America to Japan, for example, there are some severe limits on the "common background" you can expect.

It seems as if there is a kind of continuum here, from the writer and reader having largely common background and knowledge (which allows them to communicate with the least words and should tend to limit misunderstandings) to cases where writer and reader share very little. It might be interesting to compare different readers - could we say that the writer who manages to convey roughly the same message to a statistically larger percentage of the readers is more "effective"? What then becomes of a Bach (or maybe a James Joyce?) whose messages are so bloody complex that most readers don't follow it even when it is simplified and laid out in great detail? (I was thinking of Johann Sebastian, incidentally - the musician).

What about a Marshall McLuhan? I have one of his early books - Mass Communication Theory? something like that. and found it absolutely inspiring, although I could only read about one paragraph a day! DENSE! Then he became popular, and started doing 15 minute books with practically no content - comic books for adults? To me, his later work is eminently discardable, even though it reached a much larger audience.

Hum - complex questions, which probably have complex answers.

BTW - I've seen a write up of someone who took several pieces by well-known authors, polished the names off, then tried submitting them under an unknown name. Rather amusing collection of rejections, editorial slams, and so forth...

Would it make any sense to say that while the names, situation, and so forth are likely to have a high level of influence in our reading of "current" material, these factors are likely to change over time, resulting in rather different evaluation of the writing? E.g., while a piece from the 60's calling for popular support of the Vietnam war might have been a winner at the time, dragging it out now is likely to be a problem.

you know, there is something in here that reminds me of the rather well-known comedy bit, where the young man is excited over the voice on the phone... and then we learn that this exciting voice belongs to a well-worn, rather overstuffed mother of whiny little brats...

does it really matter what the writer is like, or where, or when? if the words ring, the images live, I can't see it being important whether Hemingway was homosexual, impotent, or even a lush. I think I agree with Randy - once the writer "lets go" of the words, the whole business turns into one between the reader(s) and those words. Admittedly, the writer should do the best they can to form and mold those words for the audience they expect - but if the readers find pornographic imagery underlying it that the writer never thought of, that is just as accurate as the writer's vision...

(further ramblings as soon as I find the other file I started on the same topic. sometimes the mental filer misfires. :-)

TECH: Meditating on Writers and their Context

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 01:30:03 JST

(being a rather abstract look at the same problem we've been kicking about anne frank, bosnia, area writers, and so forth...)

Start with the notion that people largely think in patterns - A happens, B happens, and people derive a pattern mostly by taking the common elements - most differences are tossed and lost. So the worm in the head builds ruts for itself...

Now, what does communication do? back to the old times - we get to send uncle joe around the other side of the mountain, then listen to him to figure out whether or not to go there. if he just says it's more of the same, skip it. If he says there's good eating around the corner, well, maybe we all take a hike. If he says they's monsters and they is coming this way, for sure we all take a walk the other way...

if he says there are golden temples and nymphs and fawns dancing in the mists, we clobber him on the head and have dinner (what a kidder that uncle joe was - there really were mists around there!)

anyway - the key is that we use communication to extend the territory covered by the ruts the little worm doth spin.

's aright? but suppose (just suppose) that there aren't so many virgin frontiers waiting to be crossed. still there are some interesting possibilities hidden behind or between the silky walls of the ordinary ruts. I.e., while the writer may find the easiest task is simply describing what's on the other side of the mountains, an interesting variation on this is helping the little worm break through and build some new ruts right here at home.

Notice that in any case, the job of the writer is never to simply repeat the well-known plodding ruts. even worms get bored, I guess.

This notion of writing as extending, building anew, breaking down, or reworking the perceptual grid through which we structure experience (virtual, fantasized, actual, whatever) is rather interesting to me. If this be true, then it seems as though humor (which generally involves a sharp change in perceptions) may be an integral tool in the process. For that matter, puns (rather than being a corruption of literary purity) are one of the tightest forms of writing, since they always involve two (or more) meanings (well-rutted patterns) being brought into conflict in a very compact form.

Admittedly, many readers may feel more comfortable with slower alterations in the internal scenery. Walk them along the ruts with just enough new stimuli to let them wallow in their torpid placidity, and they will reward you well for it. But perhaps the writer has claustrophobia and wants to open the windows...

hum - this argues that the writer whose background or context differs from that of the readers may have an easier time constructing a message which provides that taste of strangeness that we learned to love in ancient times (exogamy - the love of the stranger - was a practical necessity to survival of the species, as inbreeding does some very bad things in small groups). At the same time, they may have more difficulty linking their message to the well-known ruts of the readers, and I think most readers need some help in getting up speed before they tear through the edges of their own webs... (remember poor uncle joe!)

writing, then, may be considered as one way to counteract the staleness of inbred thoughts, to avoid being trapped in the labyrinth of tiny little passages that all look just the same.

I like that.
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