‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

Should we allow more changes in the statistics as given above (with regards to the titular 'Book or the Reader' issue?

Ah, but HI, the fact that the statement is one with which you agree does not mean that it provides the answer for all of us.

I will continue to influence the statistics, if I may:

Originally Posted by Squatter

It stands poised between the author and the reader, so clearly something is required from both in order for the circuit to be completed. I simply do not understand why one should have to be the master, as though one were to ask whether the ability to speak or the ability to understand were more important in conversation.

I simply do not get this analogy between the act of reading and a conversation. Reading is most unlike a conversation, because the reader is not free to ask the author whatever questions may come to mind and the development (as opposed to meaning) of the story is not dependent upon the reader's responses. The reader can only rely on that which the author has supplied.

Of course the act of reading requires input from both the author and the reader. But they both play very different roles (unlike participants in a conversation). The author provides the material for the reader to inrepret, and the reader has no influence on that material, but it is the reader who interprets. And, to my mind, it is in the act of interpretation that meaning may be found. Nine times out of ten, the reader's interpretation will accord with authorial intention (that's where common sense and judgment play their role), but it will not always be so. And, in some cases, the reader's interpretation may well be completely at odds with the author's intention, but nevertheless hold meaning for that reader.

I wouldn't say that neither reader nor author are the master, but rather that both are masters in different ways. The author has complete control over the material supplied to the reader. But the reader has complete control over how he or she interprets that material and therefore, ultimately, what the story means to him or her.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

The debate whether that particular 'Writer' is 'dead' is an entirely different one, but one can easily surmise Tolkien's position in said debate.

I disagree. The debate whether the 'Writer' is dead (or indeed ever existed) is very relevant to your proposition that there are three parties involved in the act of reading, rather than two. After all, if the 'Writer' does not exist as far a particular reader is concerned, then the 'Writer' will have no place in that reader's interpretation (save to the extent that reader acknowledges the author's belief in said 'Writer').

[davem]

Originally Posted by SPM

I wouldn't say that neither reader nor author are the master, but rather that both are masters in different ways. The author has complete control over the material supplied to the reader. But the reader has complete control over how he or she interprets that material and therefore, ultimately, what the story means to him or her.

He or she does, but if he or she knows what the author intended & chooses to ignore that in favour of the meaning they find there they are stepping out of the secondary world created by the author & into their own. In other words they are ignoring what the author is saying.

This is fine - as long as they don't go on from there & claim that the meaning they find in the text is the author's. If that reader says 'I know what the author meant but I don't like it & choose the text to mean something else.' I have no problem as such - I just don't think their choice is that relevant in a discussion of the text which seeks to understand what the author intended. or in any attempt to understand what the story means.

The author provides the material for the reader to inrepret, and the reader has no influence on that material, but it is the reader who interprets.

This may not be the author's intention at all, as it assumes that the author is offering a random collection of statements for the reader to give meaning to. It may well be that in the author's mind he has already done the interpreting himself & is atually passing on, as best he can, that interpretation. In that case, if the reader goes on to interpret the text he is actually interpreting an interpretation, and placing himself at a further remove from the 'facts'. In other words, the author is not simply offering the reader a collection of words & images to do with as he will, but is showing what he has done with those words & images he himself has 'recieved'.

The reader must, in the first instance, attempt to experience the story as it is & be affected by it in as pure a form as possible, then, if he chooses, make a jugdement on it, interpret it, in the context of his own experience - though this experience may be deeply affected by what he has just read.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

This is fine - as long as they don't go on from there & claim that the meaning they find in the text is the author's.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by davem

If that reader says 'I know what the author meant but I don't like it & choose the text to mean something else.' I have no problem as such - I just don't think their choice is that relevant in a discussion of the text which seeks to understand what the author intended.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by davem

or in any attempt to understand what the story means.

Ah, therein lies the rub.

Authorial intention is not the decisive factor in determining the meaning of a story, but merely the starting point upon which the reader bases his or her individual interpretation. If you want to find some kind of objective meaning outside of individual interpretation then you have to try to look for some kind of consensus between individual readers. Generally, the consensus will be in line with authorial intent, because most readers will exercise the judgment and common sense that Squatter talked of, and will be naturally inclined to take on board authorial intent (to the extent that they are aware of it).

Originally Posted by davem

This may not be the author's intention at all, as it assumes that the author is offering a random collection of statements for the reader to give meaning to.

No, not a random collection of statements, but an ordered one which allows the reader (if he or she is so inclined) to apply a sensible interpretation (assuming that it is not the author's intention simply to write a load of gibberish ).

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

I disagree. The debate whether the 'Writer' is dead (or indeed ever existed) is very relevant to your proposition that there are three parties involved in the act of reading, rather than two. After all, if the 'Writer' does not exist as far a particular reader is concerned, then the 'Writer' will have no place in that reader's interpretation (save to the extent that reader acknowledges the author's belief in said 'Writer').

It may be so; see Letter 328.

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by SpM

Ah, but HI, the fact that the statement is one with which you agree does not mean that it provides the answer for all of us

That's why I asks, or even begs, not states.

I was well aware this was coming, ever since that Canonicity Slapdown 2005 appeared, my previous was a feeble attempt to keep the low profile. In fact, I'm mildly surprised it took so long for this here mind-trap to emerge to the surface again. I feel I'm being sucked back in... Well, if you are prepared to go 13 pages of this all over again, so be it. I'm ready, bring them on! (but maybe better tomorrow, not just now)

Should we step up our desks, seeing as the discussion turns to dead poets somehow?

Just a minor bone-picking before I fall asleep from my chair:

Originally Posted by SpM

I simply do not get this analogy between the act of reading and a conversation. Reading is most unlike a conversation, because the reader is not free to ask the author whatever questions may come to mind and the development (as opposed to meaning) of the story is not dependent upon the reader's responses

1. Free questions re: Talking to a person with a large hairy wart on his/her nose, am I free to ask where s/he acquired such an adorment, however curious about the issue I may find myself?

2 Development re: Can I bend conversation to [insert the subject of your choice here], however big my desire, if the person I'm talking to A) was never interested/never heard about [subject of aforesaid choice] in the first place and B) is inclined to talk about flowers in pots?

But that's me being merely peevish, I'll see what the lot of you talk yourself into by morn tomorrow

Hoping to get as much fun out of this later as possible, since there seems no inclination of not tickling sleeping dragons, I say my compliments and withdraw for now...

cheers

[Lalwendë]

Perhaps both C-threads ought to come to a Gentlemen's agreement and take each other outside for a bout of fisticuffs and see who emerges as winner. Or failing that could the threads be merged?

Originally Posted by Squatter

However, there are still theories about Tolkien that are clearly just wrong, such as the old second-world-war-allegory chestnut. Where the reader is clearly off his rocker, I can think of no better argument than that of the author.

Originally Posted by SpM

Nine times out of ten, the reader's interpretation will accord with authorial intention (that's where common sense and judgment play their role), but it will not always be so. And, in some cases, the reader's interpretation may well be completely at odds with the author's intention, but nevertheless hold meaning for that reader.

I am very, very pleased that Tolkien expicitly stated that LotR was Not an allegory. If he had not done so, then we might all have spent many hours drawing analogies between the events in Middle-earth and events in the 20th Century. Time and again I will read something in LotR that brings to mind events of the last century, but then I stop and think and before I get carried away, remember that Tolkien said this was not the meaning of what I am reading.

So the Author clearly is not irrelevant. Anything I may 'see' or may individually interpret as similar to historical events is effectively wrong. I can see these elements as 'applicable' to our world, but I cannot and must not see them as allegorical. It isn't any consensus which does that, nor is it sense or judgement, it is the Author who tells me that this meaning I am constructing is wrong.

I think Tolkien was all too well aware of how readers can construct meanings, and he did want to steer us away from that particular path or else why would he have stated his case so clearly? If he had not done so then I am quite sure that upon publication some would have picked up LotR and said "ah, an allegory of..." because all the elements are in place; people still do this to this day before they learn otherwise, and it is Tolkien who steps in to 'put them straight' as 'twere.

Like Tony Blair and Saruman before him I'm sticking with the 'third way'.

[The Saucepan Man]

... how carefully one has to choose one's words on this thread.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

It may be so; see Letter 328.

OK, I'll allow you the possibility. But the fact that Tolkien felt the need to identify the man's pre-existing state of belief would seem to confirm its relevance to the issue.

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

1. Free questions re: Talking to a person with a large hairy wart on his/her nose, am I free to ask where s/he acquired such an adorment, however curious about the issue I may find myself?

2 Development re: Can I bend conversation to [insert the subject of your choice here], however big my desire, if the person I'm talking to A) was never interested/never heard about [subject of aforesaid choice] in the first place and B) is inclined to talk about flowers in pots?

The fact that the scope of a conversation may be limited by social conventions (or any number of other factors) still does not render it analagous to the act of reading, where the involvement of the two 'actors' is restricted to the point where they both play entirely different roles.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

It isn't any consensus which does that, nor is it sense or judgement, it is the Author who tells me that this meaning I am constructing is wrong.

But what of a reader whose whose honest reaction to the story is to see it as an allegory? Is that reader wrong? Should they deny their genuine reaction to the story simply because the author tells them that it is not his intention that they should react in this way? What of the reader is unaware of the author's intention in this regard?

Surely a reader should be entitled to take the story as an allegory if that is their honest reaction to it, even if they acknowledge and accept that the author did not intend it as such.

Of course, most of us (possibly influenced by authorial intention, possibly relying on our own interpretation, but in most cases probably a combination of both) do not take LotR to be an allegory. So, on a 'near-as-we-can-get-to-an-objective-basis', it is not an allegory.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Like Tony Blair and Saruman before him I'm sticking with the 'third way'.

Personally, I relish the company of neither.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The issue of allegory vs. application comes right back to the central theme of this discussion. I can't say it better than Tolkien himself did in his foreword to LotR:

...the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

That's it precisely - no reader can tell the author whether or not his work is an allegory, for an allegory is written purposefully; that decision is made by the author in the process of writing. If the author says it is or isn't an allegory, then we must accept his word for it.* However, neither can the author tell the reader that he may not apply aspects of his work to whatever he chooses, as application is an individual choice of the individual reader. This is where the interactive aspect comes in - each reader will apply different things to her/himself and her/his worldview, and that may well change during the course of a reader's lifetime/repeated re-readings.


*In the case that we do not have a definitive statement by the author as to whether his work is allegorical or not, there should be enough evidence made obvious in the work itself to prove a claim one way or the other. Otherwise, it remains ambiguous and any discussion thereof is speculative in nature.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Esty

That's it precisely - no reader can tell the author whether or not his work is an allegory, for an allegory is written purposefully ...

Must an allegorical meaning be intended by the author in order to be an allegory? I think one can make a distinction between an allegorical meaning intended by the author (which does reside in the purposed domination of the author) an an allegorical meaning which the reader perceives, but which the author did not intend (which lies in the freedom of the reader to interpret).