(urth) Problems of Interpretation

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes]

Nice post.

I generally agree with what you say about "the author's stated
intentions or explanations of a text," for two reasons. The first is
what Tolkien and Lewis called the "Personal Heresy," the idea that the
most important tool for interpreting a text is the author's biography;
the second is that I have experienced people finding meanings in texts
of mine which I never (consciously) put there but which, when pointed
out to me, made complete sense.

But that latter is why I refuse the idea that facts about the author
are completely irrelevant. The meaning which was pointed out to me had
to do with some of my most deeply-held beliefs.

My position, then, is this: the writer's worldview cannot help but
inform the way he writes about the world, and the type of meaning s/he
consciously _or unconsciously_ uses to structure his/her materials.

This does not mean, for example, that "the meaning" of every Lupine
text must be Catholic-Orthodox; in fact, given some of his texts, that
would be ludicrous. But it does mean that his deeply held Catholic
beliefs (as well as his other deeply-held beliefs, including his
conservatism and his engineering orientation) _will_ be involved with
his creation of worlds. Just as important, however, is his close
control over what his _narrators_ believe about their worlds.

Take TWK as an example: On the one hand, the cosmology of TWK is
clearly _not_ Christian. On the other, it seems to be a non-Christian
cosmology embedded in a _larger_ Christian cosmology. Does that make
it a "Christian book?" I think not; that "larger cosmology" is too
attenuated to be even visible to most casual readers. Certainly Able
never works that one out.

In this context, I think it is interesting that the only parts of the
Solar cycle in which explicitly "supernatural" events take place is
the Long Sun, and the third-person sections of RttW. The "miraculous"
events in both the New and Short Suns have
quasi-scientific/engineering explanations either on display or shortly
below the surface. (Indeed, even the most important "miracle" in Long
Sun, Silk's enlightenment, is offered a rationalistic explanation by
Crane: though I believe that we are to understand that the narrator
rejects that explanation.) The reason this is important is because
these are precisely the parts of the Solar Cycle narrated by someone
who was not present at the events in question. Wolfe may be making a
point about the mythopoeic process here.

Some specific comments.

> Personally, I
> have to say that any text that can only be understood in relation to something
> outside of it (an interview, a conversation with the author, etc.) is a flawed
> text.

It seems to me that _no_ text can be understood purely on its own
terms. All(?) texts (and this is certainly true of Wolfe) depend on
allusion to other texts to help produce their overall richness.


> Wolfe makes the problem of the intentional fallacy particularly...problematic.

Indeed: but then, I have always regarded it as problematic.
Intentionality isn't a binary function, it's a cloudy range, from pure
allegory (such as _Pilgrim's Progress_), where to ignore the author's
intentions is to misread; to quasi-allegorical works (like Narnia and
"Leaf by Niggle"), where the author's intention controls the reading
pretty closely; to stories (like _To Kill a Mockingbird_) where the
author's intention is clear but other meanings are plausible; all the
way to the sort of work (mostly "pure entertainment" like pulp
fiction) where the author deliberately disclaims any intentions and
attempts to act as a transparent reporter.

Where on this scale does Wolfe fall? (Which Lupine text?)


> With puzzles, the author is always right. With interpretation,
> that's less always the case. But with many of Wolfe's stories, it's difficult to
> tell when we just haven't understood the clues and when we're dealing with an
> ambiguity that requires an act of interpretation on the reader's part. ...
> The difficulty with Wolfe is that it's often hard to tell where the one stops
> and the other begins.

Indeed, in interpreting Wolfe it is often difficult to tell what is a
"puzzle" and what is "interpretation." For example: there is
intriguing (if not necessarily compelling) textual evidence, e.g., for
the "Horn died in the pit/the Neighbors are the trees" set of
theories. _If_ Wolfe deliberately planted this evidence and expects
the clever reader to find it and understand that Horn did die in the
pit and that the Neighbors are the trees, _then_ it's a puzzle. _But_
the answer to that puzzle radically changes the legitimate space for
interpreting the text!


> (To make this relate to Wright, I think he's has every right to read New Sun
> *against* the religious meaning many of us might assume Wolfe intended. If
> that's the reading the text ultimately supports - and, granted, that's the point
> of the debate with him - then that's what it supports. It doesn't matter at all
> what Wolfe thought he was writing or what we'd like it to mean if the text
> ultimately goes in a Wright's direction. Lot of *IF*s there, of course, but I
> think it's just really bad logic to say that Wright has to be wrong, a priori,
> because Wolfe is Catholic or because he's said in interviews that the book has a
> "true" religious meaning, or what have you. It always has to go back to the best
> reading of the books as we have them.)

Agreed so far as you go. But I think that a useful/interesting reading
needs to take the author's worldview into account, even if it
ultimately shows that the author has "betrayed" his/her intentions and
written something inconsistent with them. In fact, if I understand
correctly, the claim that it is (almost) always possible to show that
(almost) any author has done so is the key (one might say the hinge)
of the Deconstructionist movement in criticism. Then -- again, not
having read Wright, this is pure speculation -- if Wright is saying,
"Wolfe may believe X, but his text says ~X," I'm good with that; but
if Wright is simply _ignoring_ Wolfe's worldview, I think he's off the
rails.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes