Re: Stephenie Mayer -- the next J. K. Rowling

Robert Collins wrote:
> On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 11:54:20AM -0400, Sea Wasp wrote:
>> Robert Collins wrote:
>> >On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 05:12:33PM -0700, Rebecca Rice wrote:
>> >
>> >>And that we all should be reading SF in exactly the same way.
>> >
>> >
>> >In general I am in agreement with your position.  I feel a book should
>> >be read as an excercise in divining the author's intent.  While it may
>> >be fun to lose one's self in a story and enjoy the imagery that is
>> >created by the prose, I am mostly interested in acquiring a sense of
>> >what the writer was thinking when he wrote.
>>     While I have virtually no interest whatsoever in what the author 
>> thought while he/she was writing, aside from any details of the story 
>> that for one reason or another might not have made it INTO the story.
>>
>>     Anyone reading MY stories should not be trying your approach, 
>>     because what I'm thinking during writing is, well, what  you see 
>> on the page, with added "Hmm. How's she getting out of this one? Oh, I 
>> see." commentary. And maybe "Heh, I'll use the name of this obscure 
>> anime character in this line, and three people might get it."
> 
> I was not necessarily referring to the intricate but mundane details
> of plotting and continuity, although the reasoning process involved in
> this aspect of writing will, of course, carry the author's personal
> bias.  When I read I am most often reading with an eye to
> understanding the underlying messages contained in the story, and
> which are often the product of beliefs particular to the author, or
> relevant to his career or life experience, etc.

While I don't particularly care if the underlying messages 
actually reflect the author's beliefs or not.

I agree that an author probably has an agenda when they 
right a story. It is possible that the agenda is not 
entirely known to the author at the time.  (At least, Brust 
took forever to acknowledge that the problems between Vlad 
and Caathi reflected those between himself and his wife.  He 
didn't consciously recognize it when he wrote it.)  But I 
disagree that you can't determine what that agenda or 
viewpoint is without knowing the about the author.  The 
story should stand on its own.

Now, it can be fun to later say "oh... that's why they 
wanted to write that story at that particular time."

As an example, I had a fellow classmate do a presentation on 
Rush's "Trees", that concluded that it was an uplifting 
optimistic piece because the trees finally figured out a way 
of all being equal.  Which is absolutely not what the song 
is about.  So you need to read with enough attention and 
understanding to get what the author is writing about.  But 
whether Rush themselves (or the songwriter) was pro- or 
anti- imposed "equality" doesn't add anything to the 
discussion of the song.

Rebecca