On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 07:32:35AM -0800, Quinn Tyler Jackson wrote:
> Laurie said:
> 
> > I  found it fascinating for showing me a point of view I've
> > never seen before, and I thought the Tavernites who don't
> > have access to Bardroom might also be interested.

For some reason THIS message never reached me, though the
actual forwarded discussion did.  Thank you, Laurie, I'm
finding it fascinating, though it is very confusing without
any attributions.

> I think the world has too many critics.

The world *is* too many critics.  Everybody's a critic.
It's a natural human activity.  I don't really think there
are too many, aside from any large questions about overpopulation.
People have reactions to art, and are more or less articulate
and analytical about it.  But it's all criticism.

> That a critic would think his or her view of my/your/someone else's
> work anywhere NEAR as valid as that of the author is a crock of
> postmodern shit. The acme of crap. Talk about hitching a ride. ;-)

My mileage varies significantly.  I am the author, sure, but I
don't have access to everything my unconscious mind does in a
book.  I have received genuine insights from readers and, yes,
from professional critics, about what my books were doing.  Their
views were more valid than my uninformed view.  Now, what I'm
doing is validating their views, so I guess I'm still taking
the stance that I get to do that and my view is primary.  But
I honestly don't think it is.

As somebody in the discussion points out, I do get to say what
I consciously meant, and it is profoundly discourteous and
downright stupid to tell me I don't know that.  But I don't
get to say what the text does.  Once it's out there, it's its
own agent.  It's autonomous.

We've been around this before, Quinn, but I really don't think
critics are parasites or second-level (in the Platonic sense)
thinkers; I don't think they are hitching a ride.  I've seen
criticism that is a thousand times more creative than the
original work it is discussing.  Criticism is a natural human
activity, like art, and it IS an art.

> That said ... God bless critics.

Amen.

-- 

Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet           (pddb{at}demesne.com)
"I will open my heart to a blank page
   and interview the witnesses."  John M. Ford, "Shared World"

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha