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shadowkatAs an aside, I keep having people I have never heard of friending me on Facebook. Is this common? Why would you friend someone on Facebook, you don't know? LJ is different - that's blogs you read. Unless of course, you think they are someone else? Also why would you want to friend 347 people? How do you keep track of everyone?
Should go to bed, tis late and must get up at 6 am to go to work tomorrow. But my brain is busy thinking deep thoughts again on this bitterly cold night. Not inside, outside. Inside toasty, and a bit on the dry side - even with radiators that hiss and spit in the background.
While thumbing through an entertainment mag as I half-watched the news tonight, I hit upon an article about the new TV show Dollhouse - with a summary statement by the co-creators of the series, Joss Whedon and Eliza Dusku, which said - the series is about identity particulary in this age of information overload, with ipods, media saturation, internet blogs, and so many venues telling us who we are, what we should be, and how we are perceived. Actually that's my summary, this is the exact quote:
Dusku credits a four-hour lunch with Whedon in creating DOLLHOUSE, 'We talked about life and what was in the forefront of our minds in terms of what's going on in the media, the world, politics, the Internet, everything."
"Everybody is questioning their identity, the meaning of who they are,"Whedon says. "Are they a good person? What are they doing with their lives? How can they sum themselves up?"
It hit me reading this bit - that this may be why I've been so fascinated by Whedon's writing, the concept of identity, and how it gets mixed up with how we think we are percieved by others - or another way of putting it, what we see reflected back at us.
But this is not what's been tossing about in my brain tonight and I'm not even sure I can convey it well here in this measley blog. Words aren't after all always interpreted the way we intend, not always through any fault of our own.
I think that sentence above may be the key to what's been nagging at the back of my brain for some time. This tendency to misconstrue or misinterpret what we see or read. To make assumptions and adhere to those assumptions without looking at all the information. It's the flaw, I believe in the analysis, what makes the analysis slippery and questionable.
Example - years ago, I wrote a short story for a creative writing course in college. It was called Just a Bunch of Ants - and was written in the point of view of a young, lonely, frustrated art student yearning for his girlfriend. I based the character and voice on a bunch of letters I'd received from my brother. Where he jokingly tells me that he's so lonely he's writing notes to his trash can. In the story the art student has a shaved head and so does his girlfriend. I don't explain why. The class read the letter and according to the rules, I was not to say a word until they finished discussing the story and what they believed it meant.
The teacher thought it was about a survivor of a holocaust, dying of radiation poisoning. That, my teacher told us explained the bald heads and the notes to the trashcan.
Other's thought the main character had cancer or was just insane.
While a few, about a handful, figured out it was about a lonely, somewhat eccentric, art student yearning for his girlfriend and frustrated with his life.
All caught the abject lonliness, the internal struggle for identity, and the battle against a world that lacks meaning or purpose - but they didn't really understand the story - they were too busy making assumptions.
When I told them what the story was about, what my intent was - I was told that it did not matter by my teacher. Who was a bit ruffled by the fact that he'd gotten it all wrong.
He said if the plot and intent is not clear to the reader or audience, then the writer has failed. A friend of mine who was taking the class with me at the time and obsessed with Samuel Beckett's plays, specifically End-Game, vehmently disagreed - stating just because he didn't get it, did not mean I had failed. Why couldn't it be the simple story of someone who was struggling for meaning? Was it my fault they'd complicated it? Or my fault that the story wasn't the one they wanted or needed it to be?
I guess it depends on how we view stories. Are they a conversation between the reader and the writer? The writer telling us something from their perspective, sharing with us how they see the world, what is bugging them, and who they are? Is the story they are sharing about them or is it about us? I wonder sometimes if we can seperate the two - take ourselves out of the equation. Try to see the story from the writer's perspective, see what they are telling us.
Without superimposing our desires, fantasies, dreams, nightmares upon it?
Another interesting tid-bit about that creative writing class - I wrote over 20 stories for that class. I submitted numerous ones to literary publications at the school. But only one was I told by my instructor to submitt to a contest. A contest that was judged by middle-aged male and female professors. The story I submitted was about a middle-aged man struggling with what to do with his mother who was currently in a nursing home. It was in his point of view and took place on an airplane, about ten-fifteen pages in length if that. In the story an annoying, elderly passenger who resembles his mother, sits next to him, and suffers an attack, getting violently sick - much like his own mother is sick. She's not his mother, but he is struggling with the guilt. Because he's not taking care of her, he is far away, taking care of his own life. I wrote the first draft while suffering an 105 degree fever. OF the stories I wanted published, that was my least favorite and it was the hardest one to share with my family - because I'd based the tale on my own father. My intent was to discuss the complexity of how people feel about their family members, about illness. The complicated emotion. This story was more successful than Just A Bunch of Ants - because it made sense to those judging it. It fit within their framework. They identified with the main character and had experienced or were experiencing that character's anguish. Just A Bunch of Ants did not make sense to them - it was about a 18 year old art student, alone, and frustrated - farther away. Who cursed and used foul language. And was angry at the world. Just A Bunch of Ants pushed my teacher's buttons or it was a story that by itself, without the nuclear holocaust, etc - was uninteresting.
In school, when I was taught how to do literary analysis - you are taught by the way, you don't just wake up one morning and do it - I was told that you should try to figure out authorial intent, as well as what it meant to you. One is subjective and one objective analysis. The second in some respects is far harder and requires greater skill, because you are attempting to get inside someone else's head - someone you don't know. But by understanding the author, the work itself often makes more sense. I'm not sure you can fully understand Faulkner's Sound & The Fury by the way - if you did not know about the loss of his child and his own grief. And Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire takes on a whole new meaning when you find out about the child she lost and obsessed over. Same deal with Joss Whedon - it helps to know when watching Buffy, that Whedon originally wrote the story for his activist mother, who died of Cancer before the TV series aired. OR that he has written in numerous interviews that he is fascinated with the conflict about an individual's identity and society's view of what that identity should be. Also the fact that Whedon himself is a white guy, who went to prep/boarding schools, and is the child of an activist and literary mother and a television writer father. These facts do provide insight to his work. Just as the fact that James Joyce was Irish, poor, and had the majority of his later transcripts typed by French Nuns who couldn't speak English - is critical to understanding his work. He wrote about Dublin. He often wrote in Gallic and English. He had a love for the rhythm of language.
But, I often see in analysis - these items forgotten or overlooked. Critical reviews do this a lot, I think. Until they become or feel if you will excuse the term, like masturbation.
The critic indulging him or herself. Not all. I'm not saying that. Certainly not. Nor am I saying that I think you have to take authorial intent into consideration. But, to a degree, perhaps we should?
It's like having a conversation with someone - in which after a while you realize the other person is misinterpreting every word you say. Putting their own twist or meaning on your words. I've had these types of conversations with both Wales and my brother. As they have had with me. Where, we are reacting to what we think is being said, not listening and thinking about what is being said. I think this is true with stories too - the difference between the emotional reaction - which is vicerial and does not always have anything to do with the author's intent but our own perceptions or moods or what have you, and the thoughtful reaction. Right vs. Left brain if you will, although I don't believe it is nearly that cut and dried.
Anyhow it is late. Must sleep. Just letting this hang out there for whomever may pass it by, for the moment.
Should go to bed, tis late and must get up at 6 am to go to work tomorrow. But my brain is busy thinking deep thoughts again on this bitterly cold night. Not inside, outside. Inside toasty, and a bit on the dry side - even with radiators that hiss and spit in the background.
While thumbing through an entertainment mag as I half-watched the news tonight, I hit upon an article about the new TV show Dollhouse - with a summary statement by the co-creators of the series, Joss Whedon and Eliza Dusku, which said - the series is about identity particulary in this age of information overload, with ipods, media saturation, internet blogs, and so many venues telling us who we are, what we should be, and how we are perceived. Actually that's my summary, this is the exact quote:
Dusku credits a four-hour lunch with Whedon in creating DOLLHOUSE, 'We talked about life and what was in the forefront of our minds in terms of what's going on in the media, the world, politics, the Internet, everything."
"Everybody is questioning their identity, the meaning of who they are,"Whedon says. "Are they a good person? What are they doing with their lives? How can they sum themselves up?"
It hit me reading this bit - that this may be why I've been so fascinated by Whedon's writing, the concept of identity, and how it gets mixed up with how we think we are percieved by others - or another way of putting it, what we see reflected back at us.
But this is not what's been tossing about in my brain tonight and I'm not even sure I can convey it well here in this measley blog. Words aren't after all always interpreted the way we intend, not always through any fault of our own.
I think that sentence above may be the key to what's been nagging at the back of my brain for some time. This tendency to misconstrue or misinterpret what we see or read. To make assumptions and adhere to those assumptions without looking at all the information. It's the flaw, I believe in the analysis, what makes the analysis slippery and questionable.
Example - years ago, I wrote a short story for a creative writing course in college. It was called Just a Bunch of Ants - and was written in the point of view of a young, lonely, frustrated art student yearning for his girlfriend. I based the character and voice on a bunch of letters I'd received from my brother. Where he jokingly tells me that he's so lonely he's writing notes to his trash can. In the story the art student has a shaved head and so does his girlfriend. I don't explain why. The class read the letter and according to the rules, I was not to say a word until they finished discussing the story and what they believed it meant.
The teacher thought it was about a survivor of a holocaust, dying of radiation poisoning. That, my teacher told us explained the bald heads and the notes to the trashcan.
Other's thought the main character had cancer or was just insane.
While a few, about a handful, figured out it was about a lonely, somewhat eccentric, art student yearning for his girlfriend and frustrated with his life.
All caught the abject lonliness, the internal struggle for identity, and the battle against a world that lacks meaning or purpose - but they didn't really understand the story - they were too busy making assumptions.
When I told them what the story was about, what my intent was - I was told that it did not matter by my teacher. Who was a bit ruffled by the fact that he'd gotten it all wrong.
He said if the plot and intent is not clear to the reader or audience, then the writer has failed. A friend of mine who was taking the class with me at the time and obsessed with Samuel Beckett's plays, specifically End-Game, vehmently disagreed - stating just because he didn't get it, did not mean I had failed. Why couldn't it be the simple story of someone who was struggling for meaning? Was it my fault they'd complicated it? Or my fault that the story wasn't the one they wanted or needed it to be?
I guess it depends on how we view stories. Are they a conversation between the reader and the writer? The writer telling us something from their perspective, sharing with us how they see the world, what is bugging them, and who they are? Is the story they are sharing about them or is it about us? I wonder sometimes if we can seperate the two - take ourselves out of the equation. Try to see the story from the writer's perspective, see what they are telling us.
Without superimposing our desires, fantasies, dreams, nightmares upon it?
Another interesting tid-bit about that creative writing class - I wrote over 20 stories for that class. I submitted numerous ones to literary publications at the school. But only one was I told by my instructor to submitt to a contest. A contest that was judged by middle-aged male and female professors. The story I submitted was about a middle-aged man struggling with what to do with his mother who was currently in a nursing home. It was in his point of view and took place on an airplane, about ten-fifteen pages in length if that. In the story an annoying, elderly passenger who resembles his mother, sits next to him, and suffers an attack, getting violently sick - much like his own mother is sick. She's not his mother, but he is struggling with the guilt. Because he's not taking care of her, he is far away, taking care of his own life. I wrote the first draft while suffering an 105 degree fever. OF the stories I wanted published, that was my least favorite and it was the hardest one to share with my family - because I'd based the tale on my own father. My intent was to discuss the complexity of how people feel about their family members, about illness. The complicated emotion. This story was more successful than Just A Bunch of Ants - because it made sense to those judging it. It fit within their framework. They identified with the main character and had experienced or were experiencing that character's anguish. Just A Bunch of Ants did not make sense to them - it was about a 18 year old art student, alone, and frustrated - farther away. Who cursed and used foul language. And was angry at the world. Just A Bunch of Ants pushed my teacher's buttons or it was a story that by itself, without the nuclear holocaust, etc - was uninteresting.
In school, when I was taught how to do literary analysis - you are taught by the way, you don't just wake up one morning and do it - I was told that you should try to figure out authorial intent, as well as what it meant to you. One is subjective and one objective analysis. The second in some respects is far harder and requires greater skill, because you are attempting to get inside someone else's head - someone you don't know. But by understanding the author, the work itself often makes more sense. I'm not sure you can fully understand Faulkner's Sound & The Fury by the way - if you did not know about the loss of his child and his own grief. And Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire takes on a whole new meaning when you find out about the child she lost and obsessed over. Same deal with Joss Whedon - it helps to know when watching Buffy, that Whedon originally wrote the story for his activist mother, who died of Cancer before the TV series aired. OR that he has written in numerous interviews that he is fascinated with the conflict about an individual's identity and society's view of what that identity should be. Also the fact that Whedon himself is a white guy, who went to prep/boarding schools, and is the child of an activist and literary mother and a television writer father. These facts do provide insight to his work. Just as the fact that James Joyce was Irish, poor, and had the majority of his later transcripts typed by French Nuns who couldn't speak English - is critical to understanding his work. He wrote about Dublin. He often wrote in Gallic and English. He had a love for the rhythm of language.
But, I often see in analysis - these items forgotten or overlooked. Critical reviews do this a lot, I think. Until they become or feel if you will excuse the term, like masturbation.
The critic indulging him or herself. Not all. I'm not saying that. Certainly not. Nor am I saying that I think you have to take authorial intent into consideration. But, to a degree, perhaps we should?
It's like having a conversation with someone - in which after a while you realize the other person is misinterpreting every word you say. Putting their own twist or meaning on your words. I've had these types of conversations with both Wales and my brother. As they have had with me. Where, we are reacting to what we think is being said, not listening and thinking about what is being said. I think this is true with stories too - the difference between the emotional reaction - which is vicerial and does not always have anything to do with the author's intent but our own perceptions or moods or what have you, and the thoughtful reaction. Right vs. Left brain if you will, although I don't believe it is nearly that cut and dried.
Anyhow it is late. Must sleep. Just letting this hang out there for whomever may pass it by, for the moment.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 02:50 pm (UTC)Yes, if you intend to write a story about the Holocaust and no one realizes it, that's not so good. But generally how each person enjoys something and what they get out of it is their own business, as long as they enjoy it. You tell your stories and as long as people enjoy reading them, the rest is gravy.
Everyone who writes seriously thinks they communicate perfectly. But that's not possible because the reader doesn't have the exact same mind set and experiences as the author. The same is true of teachers. I thought I was a great teacher in the beginning. I taught the first part of my first course in college in such a way that surely everyone would get A's on the first exam. When instead they got a normal spread from A's to D's my pride was hurt. But I did learn that all I could do was my best, and the students would have to do well or not depending on their work not mine.
Clarifications
Date: 2009-02-07 12:09 am (UTC)I think, from reading your post above, that you may have misread a few things in mine. Of course, I could be misreading you. Both have happened to me on numerous occassions - by that I mean, people have misread my post and I've misread their response. We read so quickly on the net, that we can often miss things, particularly if it's on a computer screen.
I'd agree with your instructor about plot, but intent of the writer is a little difficult to pin down.
Okay, not sure what you mean here. I think you are saying that you agree with the instructor's view that if the plot is not clear to the reader, that is the writer's fault? Am I correct?
On the other point? Yes, I agree the intent of a writer is a difficult thing to pin down, even when they tell us. Not helped by well, this interaction is ironically a perfect example of how easily we can misunderstand a writer's intent.
Yes, if you intend to write a story about the Holocaust and no one realizes it, that's not so good.
Okay - yes, of course, if you are writing a story about the Holocaust and no one realizes it - that's not good. But that was not what happened here.
Here - I'll reprint what I wrote above:
> Example - years ago, I wrote a short story for a creative writing course
> in college. It was called Just a Bunch of Ants - and was written in the
> point of view of a young, lonely, frustrated art student yearning for his
> girlfriend. I based the character and voice on a bunch of letters I'd
> received from my brother. Where he jokingly tells me that he's so lonely
> he's writing notes to his trash can. In the story the art student has a
> shaved head and so does his girlfriend. I don't explain why.
> The teacher thought it was about a survivor of a holocaust, dying of
> radiation poisoning. That, my teacher told us explained the bald heads
> and the notes to the trashcan.
I wrote a story about a lonely art student, in his pov, in his apartment, where he is talking about sending hair to his girlfriend, and how they are both without hair. I do not in any way describe a nuclear holocaust, radiation poisoning, or sickness.
Also most of the class did not see a nuclear holocaust victim. A portion thought cancer, insane and another portion thought lonely art student.
Re: Clarifications
Date: 2009-02-07 12:22 am (UTC)Depends on why you are writing the story. Or what your underlying purpose is. If you only write stories to entertain - than sure, that's true. But, not all stories are told for enjoyment or entertainment. The story I told above about my teacher wasn't meant for entertainment, after all. And, I left items out regarding the teacher and teaching. Because it was not a story about my teacher. The post really isn't about my teacher at all.
One of the items I left out of the story, because it was not relevant to my post but it is relevant to how you may have interpreted it - is that this was one of my favorite teachers. He encouraged my writing, helped it along, and challenged me to write better. He may well be one of the best writing instructors I've ever had. If the post were about him, it would have been different.
I picked his reaction to Just A Bunch of Ants and the other stories I'd written, merely as an example - because what I was attempting to demonstrate is how we project on to the work or read things into the work things, plots, views that simply may not be there, and do not always take the time to read it carefully, or think through our analysis of it logically or with an eye to intent. To add to what you say above, not only do we think we are the perfect writers - we also think we are the perfect readers or audience, we believe our perception is clear and precise and our ability to analyze unquestionable. It's not, of course. We screw up all the time. Often misreading or miswatching something. We also have a tendency to want to read more into a work of art than may actually be there or see a story that is not being told. We extrapolate from the work those items that we identify with, that we are interested in, or that upset us, often, and not always intentionally or even consciously, ignoring the rest.
To some extent reading more into a work of art is not a bad thing - as the writer of The Kite Runner said in an interview a while back - I'm not going to tell you what I meant by such and such metaphor - because if I told you I didn't mean anything, you'd get disappointed and I will have hurt your experience of the novel. But when you completely misread what the person is saying - then miscommunication and misunderstandings can be the results.
Unlike lj or that creative writing course - the writer doesn't get the chance to tell the reader - no I wasn't writing about a nuclear holocaust survivor. Or in your case, no - no one thought Just a Bunch of Ants was about "the Holocaust". They thought it was about "a nuclear holocaust" or perhaps nuclear disaster/WWIII would have been a better phrase - since a lot of people associate the word "holocaust" with WWII and nothing else. They thought nuclear disaster - based on the fact that the lead character was bald and sending his hair to his girlfriend. (Which I guess could have been interpreted in that manner, it was hard for the teacher or some of the students to imagine shaving their heads just for the hell of it. And yes, you could argue that I, as the writer, should have stated that he just shaved his head. But I knew the character wouldn't say that.)
My purpose for writing "Just A Bunch of Ants" was not to entertain the reader. My intent was to show a certain point of view, to get inside this character's head and take the reader with me. I didn't care if they enjoyed it. I don't write to entertain. While I occassionally read to be entertained, I usually want more than that from my books. I write to well communicate my ideas and thoughts. To share them.