(urth) academic commentary

[António Pedro Marques]

I'll take this opportunity to present a couple of points:

Craig Brewer wrote (01-12-2010 17:25):
> I generally agree. Or rather, I absolutely agree about things internal
> to the text.
>
> When it comes to the author's stated intentions or explanations of a
> text, though, I'm more conflicted. That's particularly true with Wolfe.
> 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.

I disagree. That's just a property of the text.

(But I think that Wolfe's not such a case.)

> But the opposite extreme can also be a difficulty when people impose
> biographical information on a text.

That usually results in inferior work - because the biographical drive is
stronger than the creative -, but it's not usually the religious writers who 
do it.

(But I think that Wolfe's not such a case.)

> An author has every right to tell us we're wrong about what happens; he
> has less right to tell us we're wrong about what it means.

Maybe even none at all, and even what happens may be open to discussion.

> (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.

I strongly disagree. If we susbtitute reader intent for author intent we're
no better off than where we started.

> 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.

The issue is also that such a rich text can support all kinds of meanings. 
*But only* arrived at through thorough examination. Analysis that stops half 
way will always be half way, even if its same conclusions might be arrived 
at by a further, more thorough, analysis.

> 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.)

It's just that I haven't seen anyone say that the books have to be read a
certain way because Wolfe intended them that way. The most I've seen is that
they should be read a certain way because they're richer that way.