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While reading a few essays by Jonathan Franzen last night in his collection: How to Be Alone, I stumbled upon a few interesting passages and quotes, that I'd like to save and comment on.
"What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with the work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follow it around?" -from William Gaddis's first novel The Recognitions (1955), as quoted by Jonathan Franzen in his essay "Why Bother?" which first appeared in Harpers in 1999, in a slightly different format. He's reworked it for this collection.
In other words the view that the work should speak for itself. We should not need to interview the people involved with it and ask their intent. We should not require a Q&A with the author. And to be honest, I've rarely enjoyed such things often finding the author to be uncomfortable discussing his or her work, uncertain of it, or unconscious of what the reader noted. The interaction between reader and words happens in the reader's mind not the author's. I was reminded of this again, recently, when I watched an old episode of a TV series on DVD, then watched a portion of the writer's commentary - the episode was deliberately written in a stream of consciousness manner to the extent that the writer admits he was not aware and still is not aware of what he meant by many of the images. Since he is commenting on the episode long after the fact, two years to be exact, and has no doubt forgotten much of the creative thought process - it is even harder to determine what, if anything was his original intent.
Franzen responds to the quote, stating that at first he felt the need to let his work speak for itself and refused to discuss it. Then realized that it was counterproductive and states:
"Silence, however, is a useful statement only if someone somewhere, expects your voice to be loud. Silence in the 1990s seemed only to guarantee that I would be alone."
( Read more... )
"What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with the work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follow it around?" -from William Gaddis's first novel The Recognitions (1955), as quoted by Jonathan Franzen in his essay "Why Bother?" which first appeared in Harpers in 1999, in a slightly different format. He's reworked it for this collection.
In other words the view that the work should speak for itself. We should not need to interview the people involved with it and ask their intent. We should not require a Q&A with the author. And to be honest, I've rarely enjoyed such things often finding the author to be uncomfortable discussing his or her work, uncertain of it, or unconscious of what the reader noted. The interaction between reader and words happens in the reader's mind not the author's. I was reminded of this again, recently, when I watched an old episode of a TV series on DVD, then watched a portion of the writer's commentary - the episode was deliberately written in a stream of consciousness manner to the extent that the writer admits he was not aware and still is not aware of what he meant by many of the images. Since he is commenting on the episode long after the fact, two years to be exact, and has no doubt forgotten much of the creative thought process - it is even harder to determine what, if anything was his original intent.
Franzen responds to the quote, stating that at first he felt the need to let his work speak for itself and refused to discuss it. Then realized that it was counterproductive and states:
"Silence, however, is a useful statement only if someone somewhere, expects your voice to be loud. Silence in the 1990s seemed only to guarantee that I would be alone."
( Read more... )
