Short Comment
Do complex, interpretive and multiple responses to a work that may differ from the author's
intent necessarily mean it is a failure to communicate?
Into the labyrinth
The question is a tad bit confusing to me if at all I have to answer, I think it cannot be answered
in binary but rather requires a nuanced understanding of realities that surround it. I would also
like to comment on writing a work not only as an isolated function but also writing as a societal
function. Necessarily because the understanding of one is futile without the understanding of the
another. We all gathered here use writing as an exercise precisely for different reasons. To put it
in context, I believe it is important to understand that writing in itself is completely different to
what happens to the writing when it goes out into the world. When writing I think everyone
writes with different sets of conscious and subconscious cognizance and positionality. Some
write with a position of privilege with subconscious awareness of certain readers that will tend
them no matter what. Some write completely anonymously with no intentions whatsoever nor do
they write for someone except for themselves where you yourself can be an audience. Some
write precisely for the reason that they indulge the taste of their readers. Some write to a limited
and certain audience. And we could go on and on about this.
The commercial literature in the US where people like John Grisham, Stephen King, Greene
write with an intent not only based on the work but to indulge the habits of their readership. The
fear of being misunderstood also then is restricted in context. Someone like David Foster
Wallace has no fear of being misunderstood for his books because his readership is a certain
audience.
In the context of the reading recitatif, the purpose was perhaps to confuse the reader and hold a
mirror. Here it seems to me that intent and response could gel well. In the movie, a quiet passion,
we see how Emily is arguing with the editor for the changes he makes in her punctuations. This
idea proposes that authors generally tend to be control freaks. Another example to add would be
" The ministry of utmost happiness” written by Arundhati Roy where she consciously kept the
text raw with no edits. Here the authors have an intent for something specific with regards to
text.
There could be a different perspective, where in if the intent even matters in the first place. One
could possibly argue once anyone who writes something and publishes it, is like delivering a
judgement, a judgement once delivered becomes a public property.The text then can be assumed
to become a public property, An author of repute then should be open to every kind of reception.
The kind of theory where someone like Roland Barthes would argue in his essay ‘Death of the
Author’.
The capital T Truth seems to me is that no literary theory can possibly argue conclusively for the
ultimate truth. Literary theories and here the author’s intent I believe can only go so far and for
some books but to use it as a template would be using a faculty for what it is not. Writing and
reading are to me inherently surplus activities where writers and readers keep leaking into each
other all the time. I think it is also important to understand that all of us derive different
meanings from the same experience. So when a write up is considered to be good or bad, able or
unable to communicate, who considers, what demographics,what lens and what time everything
to me seems relevant.
