>>
>> How does that work when the reader and the writer come from radically
>> different cultures?  I mean, I NEVER would have understood even 1/4 of
THE
>> SATANIC VERSES if I hadn't had the "Rosetta Stone"
provided by Newsweek
>> Magazine's contemporary interview with Salman Rushdie.
>>
>> So how does the general average reader hook into the cultural scene of
the
>> writer?
>>
>> Or do you consider that even necessary?
>>
>> (BTW, with that "Rosetta Stone" provided by Newsweek, I
did enjoy the
book.)
>>
>> Ain't I just a bundle of questions, though!
>>
>
>Hmm.  Let me see if I am getting the question... a Lit Critic would say
that in
>order to understand Rushdie, you'd HAVE to have access to that Rosetta
Stone
>you mention.  A critic would probably use a historical/cultural reading to
>'unlock' the text before commenting on it (or they bloody well should, but
that
>does not always happen).
>
>There's a critical theory which argues that a reader can read without any
>mediation from outside sources at all.
>
>And I am still not sure I answered your questions.  
>
>
>>
>> So why do some critics go on and on ad nauseum about
"authorial intent?"
>> Are they just outgassing their own knowledge (or the appearance thereof)?
>>
>
>Bluntly: they are idiots.  It's not a critic's job to assume authorial
intent.
>However, that was in vogue 20-30 years ago, and it was taught in secondary
>schools as a valid way to read a text, so I s'pose there's still folks out
>there doing it.  It doesn't happen in academia anymore (or at least we
thump it
>right out of the freshmen when they try it).
>
>
>> AHA!  (Said with a Yiddish accent.)  So it doesn't even matter, when you
>> get down to it.
>>
>
>Well, yeah.
>
>
>>
>> A lot more, necessarily, or just different?  Might I bring not only some
>> knowledge, as a graduate-degree-holding person and a widely-read person,
>> but also a whole different packet of experience as someone who's been on
>> out there Living Life and having done such things as military service and
>> being a nurse and being a mommy and . . . ?  And how does my experience
>> "stack up" to a critic's very different experience?
>>
>
>When I say 'a lot more' I am thinking of the piles of theory I read in grad
>school - Lacan, Sasseure, Derrida, Foucault - in other words, the technical
>manual for literary criticism.  No slights intended for any other
knowledges
>brought along.
>
>Your experience - from a purely academic perspective - would not matter to
a
>critique any more than my personal experience does.  Most of what WE do
here is
>apply theories to texts in some fashion or another, though there is still
some
>lingering historicism and what not else coming along.  I think you and I
are
>really talking about radically different forms of criticisms.
>
>
>> Isn't this apparent meaning at least in part determined by the critic's
>> personal baggage?  I'm sure my baggage influences what I see in what I
>> read.  Or a little weird esoteric bit of knowledge might have quite an
>> impact, nu?
>>
>
>Something like -- critics pick apart things like how many times a clock or
time
>is mentioned in, say, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and use that to
comment on
>the presence and importance of time within the narrative as a modernist
novel.
>Thus, it's not overly important what baggage we all bring along (if, for
>instance, I am afraid of clocks).
>
>
>>
>> For him/her.  Just as the reader may see something entirely different,
and
>> it's just as "there" for the reader as something else is
for the critic,
or
>> another reader.
>>
>
>Right.
>
>> I've had the experience of reading a book that my husband had enjoyed and
>> gotten a lot out of, and found that to me it was the worst drivel to come
>> down the pike, and morally questionable, too.  I don't think that makes
my
>> experience with it any less valid than my husband's, even though the
result
>> of the reading was entirely different.
>>
>
>Of course not.
>
>But what I am talking about as critic... I really don't *like* a lot of
what I
>had to read and critique in college.  I did not get much out of it on any
>personal level.  But I learned how to read it and to see things in it I
>wouldn't have otherwise-- which no way impede or enhance my ability to like
or
>dislike it.
>
>It's like... say, being able to see a rock and say 'that is a pretty rock.'
>And to have a geologist say 'it's amethyst, which is quartz, which is a
>hardness of 6 and...'  Both *see* the rock, and experience the rock, and
the
>extra knowledge in no way affects the ability to say 'it's a pretty rock'
or 'I
>hate purple'.
>
>
>>
>> Um, then, why do we need critics?  
>>
>> 
>>
>
>Heh.  There's postmodernist critics who would say you don't.  And in
general, I
>think we don't *need* them at all, academic or pop.  We don't need
chocolate,
>either, but we have it, so... (ok, not a fair comparison, since chocolate
is,
>in general, preferrable to critics).
>
>
>>
>> Oh, shux, I'm sure I miss a great deal of "what's there"
in everything I
>> read, but I'm equally sure I find something, or at least have the
potential
>> of finding something, that nobody else would find there, just because of
my
>> unique life experience.
>>
>
>Sure.  But again from the academic standpoint... there's stuff written
that's
>meant to be read with postmodern lenses, or at least (since we cannot
assign
>intent) partakes so heavily in postmodern techniques that the meaning is
>radically different without that background.
>
>You yourself mentioned The Satanic Verses.  You could have gotten stuff out
of
>it without the Rosetta Stone, but would it have been as satisfying?
>
>
>> As readers, really, are critics.  I mean, when I come across a book that
I
>> think is just the largest collection of egregious nonsense to come down
the
>> pike, and badly written to boot, I express my critique by flinging it
>> against the wall!  (We need to paint the house . . . )
>>
>
>Done that a few times m'self.  
>
>
>> Well, yeah, there are some authors who are supreme egotists.  I've
written
>> lots of "fan" stories, and readers have told me about
all sorts of things
>> they've gotten out of them, on their own (never mind the attribution
>> wrangle alluded to above and expanded upon below). When they find these
>> gems for themselves, and it gives them something to think about or have
>> feelings about, I think it's neater than.  (Don't ask, "Neater than
what?"
>> It comes from an expression my college housemates used.) 
>>
>
>Agreed.
>
>
>
>
>
>> I don't think serious criticism should be limited to the
"lit'rary"
realm,
>> either.  Popular literature as well as popular entertainment should be
>> subjected to serious examination.  It's one of the ways society
determines
>> what is really worth keeping and what belongs in the trash heap.
>>
>
>  Ah, but when I say literary text, I only mean 'that which is
written
>down.'  I am a huge proponent of turning the criticial eye onto pop stuff,
too.
> Love to do it to good sci fi, fantasy, whatever.  TV, even... ok, I lied.
I
>can expand 'text' to be 'anything that conveys meaning through some sort of
>narrative'.  Because Loren and I definitely critique just about any media
we
>experience.
>
>
>
>>
>>   Certainly it isn't the way to get rich!  I do think it's
>> interesting for someone -- and I encourage Joe and Jane Doe to do it, too
>> -- to examine a work and see what he or she can find in it, and share
that
>> with others.  I don't think it's very interesting when the critic (some
of
>> whom can also be supreme egotists, we do have to admit) states that THIS
IS
>> THE WAY IT IS and whosoever disagrees with me is just not worth bothering
>> with.  We've seen that kind of attitude on both sides of the literary or
>> artistic street.
>>
>
>Dump 'em all in a big bucket and let them duke it out...
>
>> I hope my comments haven't made you feel that you need to defend the
>> endeavor.  I'm sincerely interested in the whole question, having done a
>> criticism myself (albeit it was a television show, and who would argue
that
>> those are serious art?  ).
>>
>
>No, not feeling defensive.  And TV is TOO serious art.  Or it can be...
just
>like novels can be, even if lots of them are drek, too. 
>
>
>>
>> And more people should do that.  In fact, on an admittedly less
>> academically rarefied and most likely much less a disciplined level as
>> well, this is what media fans do to the "texts" of the
shows they are
fans
>> of.  And they find all kinds of meanings in them that one who was
distanced
>> from them would sit and stare and say, "How in the hell do
they find ALL
>> THAT in a TV show?"
>>
>
>Have you ever spent time on a fan site for a sci fi show?  Am thinking in
>particular of Farscape on Sci-Fi.  I am amazed at the level of scrutiny
that
>goes into each episode from some fans.  So yeah, agreed.  That's perfectly
>analogous to an academic critic and a text, too, though.  I drag in a
Lacanian
>reading of X, and someone stares at me and says 'but it was just a damned
>story, Kat!' lol
>
>
>>
>> Could criticism be properly defined as "intelligent
examination?"  What
IS
>> the accepted professional definition, anyway?  Isn't that a good place to
>> start understanding it?
>>
>
>Ye gods, I don't know that we have a professional definition.  I like
yours,
>because it's broad enough to encompass the professional, the academic, and
the
>amateur.
>
>>
>> I suppose that sounds like a personal problem, but it seems relevant to
me,
>> that critics (whether professional or amateur) are on dangerous ground
when
>> they attribute to the author (to the author's face, at that) something
that
>> wasn't at all contemplated.  FINDING it there on your own because of your
>> own experience is one thing; saying that the author deliberately put it
>> there when the critic has no such knowledge is quite another.
>>
>> Am I making any sense at all?
>>
>
>Absolutely.  We - academic critics - try to keep personal experience out of
our
>readings, at least overtly.  If I were to read your fic, and see the
>traditional story alluded to therein, I might mention it in a critique...
but I
>would not assume that you, too, had encountered it beforehand.  I also
would
>not ask you if you had.
>
>
>> Well, thank you for getting up there!  What an interesting discussion
this
>> is.
>>
>
>Hey, thanks for asking.  Having fun with it.
>
>> And again, congratulations, and I wish you decades of connubial bliss.
>>
>> Or at least a helluva lot of fun.
>>
>
>
>Thanks.  We've gotten started on the helluva lot of fun bit.  Hee.
>
>darkelf, also enjoying the talk
>
>=====
>Obsequium parit amicos; veritas parit odium.  - Cicero
>(Compliance produces friends; truth produces hate.)
>
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--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha