‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Thenamir]

Originally posted by SPaM:
To clarify, the full meaning of the work can only lie with the individual reader (because it will mean something different to each individual). Aspects of that meaning may be shared.

At last I read something upon which I can hang a decent point, or at least a good question -- the idea of "community".

Is it our purpose here to come up with (or at least to discuss ad mortem) a corpus of "meanings" which are shared by this community as a whole? Or perhaps, by a simple majority? Now there is a discussion from which we might actually produce something tangible, something other than interminable laps around the same philosophical track. A series of posts or even threads, each beginning with a particular thought or idea that was especially meaningful to a member of this community, followed by commentary by others about that point and whether it should be included in the community standard. Once all have spoken, the community moves on to another point, and so on. How useful the finished (ha!) product would be is something I cannot fathom, but at least it would bring some semblance of order to the repetitive chaos, and provide many an interesting insight into the ways that the participants approach and internalize the Great Work Under Discussion.

Originally posted by SPaM:
You interpret the question as: “What do you mean by LotR, Professor Tolkien?” I interpret the question as: “What does LotR mean to me?”

Magnificent! I could have saved much bandwidth in the Canonicity Slapdown thread if I had had your mind, Saucy. This is the penultimate encapsulation of all I have been trying (in way too many words) to express. The Reader Camp seems to be fighting for the right to bring whatever personal influences to bear on the meaning of LOTR to them, and misinterpreting (probably unintentionally) the Authorial Camp to be dictatorially restricting their individuality and invalidating the nuances that their personal experience brings to their reading of the text. The Authorial Camp on the other hand, rightfully defending the right of the creator of a work not to have that work defaced, seems to be similarly misinterpreting the defenses of the Reader Camp to mean that the intent of the author can have *no* bearing on how a work is to be received. And so the war continues, like the Yooks and the Zooks of Dr. Seuss, fighting over the "right" way to eat bread -- butter-side-up or butter-side-down.

I find HI's CD-ROM analogy to be most fitting. Everyone has the right to apply, contort, distort, retort, or strawberry torte , any input your senses receive, and we cannot stop them from doing so, no matter how far afield from "authorial intent" such ideas may be. But it is commonly true that the maximum use of an object is employing it as it was designed (or intended) to be used.

That is not to say that someone cannot come up with something innovative that might be applicable, but such innovation usually comes from thorough knowledge of the workings and components (that is to say, the original design or intent)of that from which you wish to innovate. A person who wished to invent, say, a laser-pointer from the parts of a malfunctioning CD-ROM drive (were it not already convenient and inexpensive to buy the same thing already built and designed for that use) would be innovating. A person who attempts to shove a videotape into a CD-ROM drive might be attempting to innovate, but is operating from a fundamental ignorance of the workings of the drive. Such attempts at innovation are, like Morgoth's attempts to "innovate" elves into orcs, usually counterproductive, and can even be destructive. Even so, I assert that the best "innovations" upon "established" or "mainstream" ideas about the meaning of LOTR will come from those who have given some time and effort to understanding what Tolkien intended. (As well they should attempt to find and comprehend as many of the ideas and attempted innovations which have come before, so as to avoid unnecessary duplication. We don't need any more "Is Tom Bombadil a maia?" threads.

In a way, those of the Authorial Camp may be more kindred to the Reader Camp than either would like to admit -- for in researching Authorial Intent, they are merely attempting to expand that totality of their own experience from which they form their conclusions and take their meanings (and thus, the personal import) of LOTR -- yet even the results of such research are subjective to each individual researcher. The Reader Camp, perhaps, feels less of a necessity to find our more about what JRRT intended, finding themselves content to see what they see in it and needing no more than that. But in merely reading the work through to its conclusion they are (for whatever personal reason) participating in the author's intent, because it is his work that they read and can not participate in it except for the fact that the Learned Professor, whose specialty was words and languages, used these words and not others to express himself. It is JRRT's book, and it was published with the intent that it be read. You can choose to read it or not, but if you do you are, whether you like it or not, part of Authorial Intent.

Going back to my first point in this post, I think that it would be more productive to share the most important meanings from each of us, as each may be willing, and to see how each post resonates (or not) with our own perceptions. It would not do, though, to attempt to divine the authorial intent of each such post -- if that were to happen, this thread would spiral in on itself until it imploded.

Just one more small voice in the bandwidth maelstrom.