Author, Reader, or Text? (aka Canonicity Slapdown 2005)

[tar-ancalime]

Mister Underhill said:

An author may dramatize a profound truth you've always felt but never been able to express. He may open your mind to new concepts or new ideals, which you are able to articulate only after having read his story. He may reveal ambiguities or doubts in a belief you were previously sure of.

I'd like to add that, most of the time, while the reader's mind is being opened and the ambiguities in her/his beliefs revealed, the book is there but the AUTHOR IS NOT.

Once the book is written and sent off into the world (like a child on the first day of school--I've got the strange feeling I've written this post before, not that that will stop me from writing it again...), the author has to relinquish at least some control. Even if, as the phantom suggests, an author might wish to clarify or explain his/her work, s/he cannot possibly address every question from every reader, especially those that are never articulated. Therefore, I suggest that the collaborative process is less like a dialogue between the author and the reader, and more like a commentary or a performance--when I play a Brahms sonata, I try my best to study performance practice, to follow the composer's instructions, and to show the audience just what Brahms was on about. But the dirty truth remains--Brahms is dead and can never, ever tell me if I got it right or wrong. The reins have passed to me, the performer, in the same way that an author must relinquish control to the reader.