I suspect this question is as much about the story as anything. Some stories want to be frictionless -- a smooth run from premise to conclusion, like jokes told with ease or thrillers propelled by clear plot twists. However, some texts want to have texture -- a complex microstructure creating different sensations depending on how you run your hand across it. The former runs the risk of not being felt at all, and the latter runs of the risk of leaving people tangled up in a snarl. How you approach it is consequently a consideration of your artistic intent and who you believe your audience to be. After all, it's not surprising students take things too seriously. Their primary instruction is to go find the friction.
"Should readers probe for 'meaning' knowing that chances are at least 50/50 that they'll likely get it backasswards?"
1. Probe for meaning if you feel like it--though i'm not sure what that even means. I read a story (for enjoyment), and if I finish it (meaning I liked it enough to finish), I think, "Oh, wow, that was a good story." In such a case, I don't really probe deeply--I just sort of "get" the story. Maybe I'll lightly think "yes, that's exactly how it goes." Or maybe I'll just put the story down and breathe for a bit. Either way, I'm satisfied. If I don't "get" it--but I still liked the writing--then I may think about it some more or ask someone else if they "get" it, by which I mean "get" the point of the story. Then, discussing it with someone or re-reading it or thinking more about it--I'll often feel my tension relaxing, as I think "Oh, now I see--the story is about how to really love someone when you don't know how." Or whatever. Maybe someone will say "it's about grief" and I'll say "No, i think it's about living for today," and that's just fun to do. There's no right or wrong. Even when someone is completely "wrong," as in the example George gave, I don't think they really ARE completely wrong. The story is no longer George's and if the reader felt the story gave him permission to put his mom in a home, then so be it. That's how the person read it--George be damned.
2. "Should writers care if readers get it wrong?"
I think it can be hard not to care if it seems someone missed the point completely. But overall, no, I don't think a writer should care. Write more obviously if you want everyone to get your direct point! Otherwise, put your art into the world and let it loose. It's not yours anymore.
You bring up great questions, as usual. I think figuring out how a story works isn't quite the same as getting meaning from it. I agree that it's the reader who makes the meaning, but certainly a writer tries to craft something of power? Or beauty? Or significance..As a poet I have adopted the mantra that the poem begins in the writer and ends in the reader. But, I try my best to make something and use tools to do it. Someone else mentioned that the fun is in the analysis for lack of a better word. When I come across a poem that takes the top of my head off, I want to figure out how it was done. Which for me, deepens the poem.
I think figuring out how a story works isn't quite the same as getting meaning from it. I agree that it's the reader who makes the meaning, but certainly a writer tries to craft something of power? Or beauty? Or significance...
Response (-in-progress):
It all works in conjunction, or at different levels, humans being such complex creatures. Sometimes going at a specific point, over and over again, or a bit of language, or toggling between similar usages in a story to figure out a pattern, only half-consciously, leads to the meaning. Having gone at the language, line by line, with one's faculty sharpened and honed by the process, allows for something higher (an elevation of understanding, one might say) to drop in later. Without that going at the story, or the passage, often repeatedly with a particular nudging, the higher will not drop in.
Only after going at the language of Alison ('Victory Lap') for perhaps an hour yesterday did I stumble upon what I think the meaning of the story is. I looked up every ballet term (ballet not being, exactly, part of my background), which is not drudgery by any means. What is a 'skort'? I must have looked up a dozen words. Why a skort, and not shorts, or a skirt? Maybe it's not worth examining, maybe it is.
An example I gave some time ago is from the film *Lawrence of Arabia*. Lawrence is sitting on a dune, overnight, working away at how to take Aqaba. Impossible. The boys following him around dislodge a stone, which slides down the dune, rams into Lawrence ('El Aurens'), and he's got it--the working away all night allowed a small nudge from elsewhere to dislodge the response.
I especially like, "Sometimes going at a specific point, over and over again, or a bit of language, or toggling between similar usages in a story to figure out a pattern, only half-consciously, leads to the meaning." And this morning I'd wondered about this very thing and whether repetitions of certain words expand meaning. But at the same time, to make it seem unintentional and not too obvious? What do you think?
This could be one of a couple of things going on. It could just be the brain as master rather than servant, leading the reader into a cul-de-sac of obsession, or it could be something higher which the conscious part of the brain or mind (they are quite different) can't get, and so it plays with the word or phrase, sees patterns, works with them.
If it's the brain as master (one being taken for a ride), it's just 'junk think,' university puzzle solving perhaps, which means--going nowhere. If it's something else nudging, it could be a higher faculty responding to a bit of real essence (care, understanding, kindness, the author bypassing his/her training, or simply brightness) which has managed to join the artist's efforts. You might not even know what this is, but it calls, and it haunts . . . it keeps returning, even when one puts it down.
It might be what Raymond Carver referred to with words like 'the sideways glance,' that glimpse of something else, not on the surface of the words themselves. Academic theses might destroy this, but it's what any living, feeling person still hopes for.
Some stories may be read and taught (and thus analysed) so often that they may be drained, over years and decades, of their potency too. That is something else to think about . . . although brilliant, they kind of feel tired, exhausted by all the repeated viewing. (These are more esoteric understandings, you could say, of language and human endeavour.)
It's possible to go on and on, and there is a specific name for this, not easily put in a discussion without other platforming, so to speak.
I agree with you. (By the way, the questions are from the Questioner.) Crafting a story is completely different from reading a story. So yes, the writer crafts their work in the way that most resembles their hopes and visions for the work, and also in a way that hopefully resonates in their own heart/soul/mind/forcefield! I agree that the work begins with the writer and ends in the reader. Sometimes the two meet up and merge, but not always. And yes, with some stories that blow my mind I want to figure out "how they did it." And then I might close read or look online to see what others have said. But not every story does this to me. And i don't always want to look for how the mystery came into being. It's like going to a movie and knowing that the effects were done via green screen. I don't want to think about it--i want to get lost in the movie, in the moment. Sometimes when reading (or watching a film), I come out of the "fictive dream" because something is lacking, missing, incorrect. I hate when that happens! I love that dream state so much! Calgon, take me away!
Me too, mostly. I wonder if writers are more susceptible to trying to see under the hood. My father was an actor and I grew up in LA, so when I watch a film I am both moved or whatever, but also thinking about what great acting I'm witnessing!
And how wonderful it must always be when a reader offers a real gob-smacker comment, write out of left field, which provokes a sustained whistle of wonder from the writer on realising that's right, never saw that in the words I wrote, but it surely is there!
As a reader, I actually like stories that intentionally break the fourth wall, forcing me to consider what I'm reading from some external perspective - beyond an omniscient PoV - while I'm reading it (I'm thinking Vonnegut!). It must be extremely hard to do well. But it feels like a true experience of how our brains work. One minute we're pondering how to stack the dishwasher and the next we're yanked into existential thoughts of death and the absurdity of our existence. I agree that understanding the theme (Slaughterhouse Five = PTSD?) is far from understanding the story, but on the other hand... sometimes everything feels both mundane and monumental. I bow in awe to anyone who can do that on the page.
After a brief quote from a Vomiting Soldier, KV writes: "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." Blowing my sixteen year old mind on first reading, just like how he, in Breakfast of Champions, has Kurt Vonnegut enter a scene in a bar to tell something specific to a character.
He used that and variations on it throughout his canon, but fortunately not so frequently as to become overdone or gimmicky. God, now I have to read some Kurt again. I quite literally cannot even estimate the number of times I've read each of his books.
It makes me think of how a line runs through everything. Here it’s between analysis and enjoyment. Is the best answer to move the line to the middle? Out of context here, but I was reminded of Pema Chodron’s “My middle way and your middle way are not the same middle way…Everybody is different. Everybody's middle way is a different middle way.”
I do like stories where the reader has to work at it, but I expect that the writer also has had to work at it. It's a shared responsibility. And there are many short stories that I have read over a dozen times, and found some new gem in it each time. Such a pleasure!
Interesting to come at this question from a (high school) teacher perspective, when we're somewhat "forced" to insert the technical analysis into the reading. Especially when that technical analysis (sometimes overanalysis) is the byproduct of students resisting the "enjoyment" aspect of reading, which then of course makes the analysis even less enjoyable.
Having said all this, for younger readers, I do think there's something to be said for building the skills to enjoy reading both purely aesthetically and technically, and maybe we experienced readers take for granted our ability to innately and subconsciously uncover those otherwise recondite symbols and metaphors and all other manner of literary technique.
Yes, same here. And moods, too. I remember once a theater critic wrote an article admitting that sometimes his personal mood impacted his experience and the review he wrote.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea of "pleasure at first reading." Sometimes, it takes time to get used to new colors, flavors, textures, rhythms, shapes, landscapes, gravity pulls, sounds, connections... There is something like taste education. Many of the books (and films) that are now my favorites elicited an averse reaction from me on the first reading or the first watch. Sometimes even indignation. I think that more important than initial pleasure is impact—the lingering in your mind, the awakening of curiosity, and—yes—the promise or suggestion of future pleasure. This pleasure (in my case, at least) comes with further readings. This depends very much, I'm afraid, on the kind of reader you are (or aspire to be) and the effort you're willing to put into educating your taste.Just a couple of hours ago, I posted an article on my Substack somewhat related to this discussion. Here's the link, if you're curious about it: https://shocktherapy.substack.com/p/against-certainty.
I will also add that reading simply for pleasure, as a writer, is actually pretty hard for me to do. My writer mind is always looking to appreciate writing choices and learn from them. Sometimes I wish I could read for pleasure only…
Hard for me as well. I will often read a paragraph that I admire over and over to suss out its spirit (and to see if I can spot any wrenches, hammers or nails). And some books will puzzle me or throw me at first, like Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore," but when the spell is fully cast, as with that work, I am spellbound. (And still trying to figure out how he did it.)
Absolutely! I'm always analyzing, too. In my case, though, analysis is a part of the pleasure. The hitch is that it makes me a slow reader, which is damn frustrating.
Read for pleasure first, then look at the story again to figure why you reacted to it the way you did. This identifies a style point you can use in your writing.
Yes, I feel this too. I think of 'liking' and 'enjoying' a story as two quite distinct emotions. I don't even know if this is a standard idea... it's the same with films and music. Anyway, it's clearly possible to enjoy reading a story in the moment but not actually 'like' it. Or vice versa, find it not particularly enjoyable but like it as a whole, seen from a bit of a distance. That implies some reflection and analysis. If I had to choose, I'd always go with the latter. They're the ones that stick.
Absolutely agreed. The same goes for food. There are things that are very enjoyable to eat but leave you feeling empty or, worse, with a stomach ache. Then there are the things that leave you satisfied and well-nourished. The more you eat the latter, the less you care for the former.
I've picked up books and after reading a few pages will say, "I can't, I don't want to do this." Then I'll pick it up again later and, although the author is challenging me to work harder, I'll conclude that it's a great book.
I just wanted to say that I never think 5-6 posts analysing a story is too much. Usually I feel like I want more - that some significant chunk of it hasn’t even been talked about! And then I read about 300 comments and feel slightly more satisfied but still sometimes feel like a point that was really important to me doesn’t get the attention it deserves. I get significantly more out of a story after we’ve analysed it together. I’m also always amazed at how differently people can view the same thing based on their own experience. A sort of obvious but still surprising observation whenever I have it!
After the 5 to 6 weeks of analyzing a story, I always end up loving the stories we read--even the ones I didn't particularly care for when I read them the first time by myself. The close readings really open them up.
Enjoyed reading all the quotes at the start. They got me thinking of possibilities with our writing and they are effective as inspiration. I write poetry and often there's a duality in meaning or there are possible ways of interpretation. If it is cryptic or not I am not sure. I know what I mean but I want readers to make their own interpretation. I'd hate it for someone to say we read your piece and thanks to that finding a reason to put their mum in a care home. Is that not just finding someone else to take the responsibility for someone we cannot or want not to be responsible for? Hmm this got me thinking.
I’ve always thought that an author does well to leave enough space in a short story to allow for a reader’s unique interpretation even if s/he lands in Ten Sleeps Wyoming instead of Boston. Or (the writer) designs layering as a game the reader may follow easily or not at all. A reader’s Personal Timing could also come in to play in interpretation when a reader reads the same work at different stages of life (or lives? lol). It’s not the responsibility of the writer to manipulate or cajole or control the reader it’s just to leave space so the reader can have an experience. The most accomplished short stories and poems do this (my idea of accomplished). The writer creates a shared/common thread for all readers but the rest is wilderness (the open space) to explore on our own. And good luck standing on what the writer thinks it is about because maybe they don’t know or after writing it realize they had been writing about something deeper/different about themselves or there material they weren’t aware of at the time. I think the best we can do is figure out how they made this open space happen. I thought that is what we were doing here. It doesn’t seem to me that George is trying to pin anything down and that we are just looking at the butterfly. I mean he’s not chasing a butterfly with a pin to pin it down (or a net). It’s amazing how many interpretations of process about what we are doing here and suggestions of how to do it have just been presented including my own. A verification that we are in a rare variety of open space in this course. Which means all is well.
This is a topic I've thought a lot about. I majored in English Literature at University and often got the sense that we were building a scaffolding of analysis around stories that had little to do with the intent of the author. I.e. finding monastic symbolism in a novel where the author had no connection to such ideas. This disenchanted me for a stretch, but this receded when I got closer to the writing process and realized how hazy the relationship is between what a writer is setting out to write vs what actually comes out on the page. I perhaps leaned into that way of thinking a little bit too far, assuming it was all unconscious and you have no choice what comes out. I'm now at a point (which could well be a state of extreme centrism) where I see room for both. Some authors err to the latter, some are closer to the former with a more engineer like approach to their writing. As George says above, I sense it's important to maintain a moderation in how much it occupies your thought. It's easy to go down this rabbit hole of analysis and convince yourself you're working, but if it stops you from writing, it's time to hang it up.
It also reminded me of a funny story regarding García Márquez's No One Writes To The Colonel, when a student that was fond of his son (Rodrigo) was asked in a Literature Masters to write an essay on the meaning of the rooster in the story. So he went to Rodrigo and ask him to ask his father, and Garcia Márquez said it meant nothing. And so he wrote in his one-line essay without revealing his source. When he was confronted by the teacher in front of all the class he let the guy unroll his thick interpretation of the rooster for almost half an hour, just to let him know his essay was not an essay, but a direct and fresh quote from THE AUTHOR! LOL
I read to give my brain something to do. She has become more particular, coincident with a decline in attention perhaps, I seldom finish a book anymore. She gets bored, or feels like there's nothing to be gained going further. When I write something I'm seldom aware of meaning or a point. I write so she ( my brain) has something to do. So far as I know there's nothing to "get" about something I write, but words have meanings, and combining words makes more meanings possible, and since we all have life experiences and are trying to figure out what we're doing here we're inclined to figure out what things mean. I guess.
You are too humble. I've read many of your Excepts and would say the most recent one about the county fair was a mirror-like view of the human condition, and other posts are representations of your close relationship with the natural world.
George...you make me laugh and any day now you are going to write another Xmas Carol in one go^^.....like that replaced cat in that Hemingway story. Can tell your dad could throw a good fast ball, You are probably good at first base and have a good arm too. Meanwhile keep seeing things in clouds. It is a fact you are an amazing writer and teacher...I can hear the ocean too, like the lady and her dog.
The distant sound of the sea is, for me, whether on first reading or subsequent readings, such a beautiful (and meaningful) part of Lady with Doggy. Thank you for reminding us of it.
Hi John, hope all is well in your world. It is always good to read what you comment on. I am always walking by the sea or eternity. I am finally try to listen more, silence is golden but it is special to have company that understands^^
The Christmas Carol reference reminded me of something I thought just yesterday - that Lincoln in the Bardo (amongst other great things) has the best ghosts since Dickens.
I also thought writing that book was impossible, until George wrote it.
I suspect this question is as much about the story as anything. Some stories want to be frictionless -- a smooth run from premise to conclusion, like jokes told with ease or thrillers propelled by clear plot twists. However, some texts want to have texture -- a complex microstructure creating different sensations depending on how you run your hand across it. The former runs the risk of not being felt at all, and the latter runs of the risk of leaving people tangled up in a snarl. How you approach it is consequently a consideration of your artistic intent and who you believe your audience to be. After all, it's not surprising students take things too seriously. Their primary instruction is to go find the friction.
I love this!
"Should readers probe for 'meaning' knowing that chances are at least 50/50 that they'll likely get it backasswards?"
1. Probe for meaning if you feel like it--though i'm not sure what that even means. I read a story (for enjoyment), and if I finish it (meaning I liked it enough to finish), I think, "Oh, wow, that was a good story." In such a case, I don't really probe deeply--I just sort of "get" the story. Maybe I'll lightly think "yes, that's exactly how it goes." Or maybe I'll just put the story down and breathe for a bit. Either way, I'm satisfied. If I don't "get" it--but I still liked the writing--then I may think about it some more or ask someone else if they "get" it, by which I mean "get" the point of the story. Then, discussing it with someone or re-reading it or thinking more about it--I'll often feel my tension relaxing, as I think "Oh, now I see--the story is about how to really love someone when you don't know how." Or whatever. Maybe someone will say "it's about grief" and I'll say "No, i think it's about living for today," and that's just fun to do. There's no right or wrong. Even when someone is completely "wrong," as in the example George gave, I don't think they really ARE completely wrong. The story is no longer George's and if the reader felt the story gave him permission to put his mom in a home, then so be it. That's how the person read it--George be damned.
2. "Should writers care if readers get it wrong?"
I think it can be hard not to care if it seems someone missed the point completely. But overall, no, I don't think a writer should care. Write more obviously if you want everyone to get your direct point! Otherwise, put your art into the world and let it loose. It's not yours anymore.
You bring up great questions, as usual. I think figuring out how a story works isn't quite the same as getting meaning from it. I agree that it's the reader who makes the meaning, but certainly a writer tries to craft something of power? Or beauty? Or significance..As a poet I have adopted the mantra that the poem begins in the writer and ends in the reader. But, I try my best to make something and use tools to do it. Someone else mentioned that the fun is in the analysis for lack of a better word. When I come across a poem that takes the top of my head off, I want to figure out how it was done. Which for me, deepens the poem.
I think figuring out how a story works isn't quite the same as getting meaning from it. I agree that it's the reader who makes the meaning, but certainly a writer tries to craft something of power? Or beauty? Or significance...
Response (-in-progress):
It all works in conjunction, or at different levels, humans being such complex creatures. Sometimes going at a specific point, over and over again, or a bit of language, or toggling between similar usages in a story to figure out a pattern, only half-consciously, leads to the meaning. Having gone at the language, line by line, with one's faculty sharpened and honed by the process, allows for something higher (an elevation of understanding, one might say) to drop in later. Without that going at the story, or the passage, often repeatedly with a particular nudging, the higher will not drop in.
Only after going at the language of Alison ('Victory Lap') for perhaps an hour yesterday did I stumble upon what I think the meaning of the story is. I looked up every ballet term (ballet not being, exactly, part of my background), which is not drudgery by any means. What is a 'skort'? I must have looked up a dozen words. Why a skort, and not shorts, or a skirt? Maybe it's not worth examining, maybe it is.
An example I gave some time ago is from the film *Lawrence of Arabia*. Lawrence is sitting on a dune, overnight, working away at how to take Aqaba. Impossible. The boys following him around dislodge a stone, which slides down the dune, rams into Lawrence ('El Aurens'), and he's got it--the working away all night allowed a small nudge from elsewhere to dislodge the response.
I especially like, "Sometimes going at a specific point, over and over again, or a bit of language, or toggling between similar usages in a story to figure out a pattern, only half-consciously, leads to the meaning." And this morning I'd wondered about this very thing and whether repetitions of certain words expand meaning. But at the same time, to make it seem unintentional and not too obvious? What do you think?
Hi Joan,
This could be one of a couple of things going on. It could just be the brain as master rather than servant, leading the reader into a cul-de-sac of obsession, or it could be something higher which the conscious part of the brain or mind (they are quite different) can't get, and so it plays with the word or phrase, sees patterns, works with them.
If it's the brain as master (one being taken for a ride), it's just 'junk think,' university puzzle solving perhaps, which means--going nowhere. If it's something else nudging, it could be a higher faculty responding to a bit of real essence (care, understanding, kindness, the author bypassing his/her training, or simply brightness) which has managed to join the artist's efforts. You might not even know what this is, but it calls, and it haunts . . . it keeps returning, even when one puts it down.
It might be what Raymond Carver referred to with words like 'the sideways glance,' that glimpse of something else, not on the surface of the words themselves. Academic theses might destroy this, but it's what any living, feeling person still hopes for.
Some stories may be read and taught (and thus analysed) so often that they may be drained, over years and decades, of their potency too. That is something else to think about . . . although brilliant, they kind of feel tired, exhausted by all the repeated viewing. (These are more esoteric understandings, you could say, of language and human endeavour.)
It's possible to go on and on, and there is a specific name for this, not easily put in a discussion without other platforming, so to speak.
Best wishes,
Brian
I agree with you. (By the way, the questions are from the Questioner.) Crafting a story is completely different from reading a story. So yes, the writer crafts their work in the way that most resembles their hopes and visions for the work, and also in a way that hopefully resonates in their own heart/soul/mind/forcefield! I agree that the work begins with the writer and ends in the reader. Sometimes the two meet up and merge, but not always. And yes, with some stories that blow my mind I want to figure out "how they did it." And then I might close read or look online to see what others have said. But not every story does this to me. And i don't always want to look for how the mystery came into being. It's like going to a movie and knowing that the effects were done via green screen. I don't want to think about it--i want to get lost in the movie, in the moment. Sometimes when reading (or watching a film), I come out of the "fictive dream" because something is lacking, missing, incorrect. I hate when that happens! I love that dream state so much! Calgon, take me away!
Beware of Calgon, the evil bastard son of evil Sauron in LOTR 96, fathered on that big spider thingy.
Do not misunderstand this vital point or you will end up in very deep water indeed.
Hahaha! Thank you for the warning!
Me too, mostly. I wonder if writers are more susceptible to trying to see under the hood. My father was an actor and I grew up in LA, so when I watch a film I am both moved or whatever, but also thinking about what great acting I'm witnessing!
And how wonderful it must always be when a reader offers a real gob-smacker comment, write out of left field, which provokes a sustained whistle of wonder from the writer on realising that's right, never saw that in the words I wrote, but it surely is there!
As a reader, I actually like stories that intentionally break the fourth wall, forcing me to consider what I'm reading from some external perspective - beyond an omniscient PoV - while I'm reading it (I'm thinking Vonnegut!). It must be extremely hard to do well. But it feels like a true experience of how our brains work. One minute we're pondering how to stack the dishwasher and the next we're yanked into existential thoughts of death and the absurdity of our existence. I agree that understanding the theme (Slaughterhouse Five = PTSD?) is far from understanding the story, but on the other hand... sometimes everything feels both mundane and monumental. I bow in awe to anyone who can do that on the page.
After a brief quote from a Vomiting Soldier, KV writes: "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." Blowing my sixteen year old mind on first reading, just like how he, in Breakfast of Champions, has Kurt Vonnegut enter a scene in a bar to tell something specific to a character.
He used that and variations on it throughout his canon, but fortunately not so frequently as to become overdone or gimmicky. God, now I have to read some Kurt again. I quite literally cannot even estimate the number of times I've read each of his books.
Like when Marshall McLuhan enters the movie in Annie Hall.
Thanks for that. The book is on my shelf, so now I'm going to go get it and read it.
Yes, yes as Vonnegut. And Alastair Gray.
It makes me think of how a line runs through everything. Here it’s between analysis and enjoyment. Is the best answer to move the line to the middle? Out of context here, but I was reminded of Pema Chodron’s “My middle way and your middle way are not the same middle way…Everybody is different. Everybody's middle way is a different middle way.”
I do like stories where the reader has to work at it, but I expect that the writer also has had to work at it. It's a shared responsibility. And there are many short stories that I have read over a dozen times, and found some new gem in it each time. Such a pleasure!
I think the writer has meaning in mind that deserves respect. E.g. George's example. He would have saved the woman from going into assisted living.
“Art is fire plus algebra” - Jorge Luis Borges
Dam!! those letters in Algebra are always out foxing me^^
Interesting to come at this question from a (high school) teacher perspective, when we're somewhat "forced" to insert the technical analysis into the reading. Especially when that technical analysis (sometimes overanalysis) is the byproduct of students resisting the "enjoyment" aspect of reading, which then of course makes the analysis even less enjoyable.
Having said all this, for younger readers, I do think there's something to be said for building the skills to enjoy reading both purely aesthetically and technically, and maybe we experienced readers take for granted our ability to innately and subconsciously uncover those otherwise recondite symbols and metaphors and all other manner of literary technique.
Sometimes my husband and I see the same event, and we have different interpretations. We bring our experiences and expectations into play.
Yes, same here. And moods, too. I remember once a theater critic wrote an article admitting that sometimes his personal mood impacted his experience and the review he wrote.
Thank you.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea of "pleasure at first reading." Sometimes, it takes time to get used to new colors, flavors, textures, rhythms, shapes, landscapes, gravity pulls, sounds, connections... There is something like taste education. Many of the books (and films) that are now my favorites elicited an averse reaction from me on the first reading or the first watch. Sometimes even indignation. I think that more important than initial pleasure is impact—the lingering in your mind, the awakening of curiosity, and—yes—the promise or suggestion of future pleasure. This pleasure (in my case, at least) comes with further readings. This depends very much, I'm afraid, on the kind of reader you are (or aspire to be) and the effort you're willing to put into educating your taste.Just a couple of hours ago, I posted an article on my Substack somewhat related to this discussion. Here's the link, if you're curious about it: https://shocktherapy.substack.com/p/against-certainty.
I will also add that reading simply for pleasure, as a writer, is actually pretty hard for me to do. My writer mind is always looking to appreciate writing choices and learn from them. Sometimes I wish I could read for pleasure only…
Hard for me as well. I will often read a paragraph that I admire over and over to suss out its spirit (and to see if I can spot any wrenches, hammers or nails). And some books will puzzle me or throw me at first, like Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore," but when the spell is fully cast, as with that work, I am spellbound. (And still trying to figure out how he did it.)
Yes, that sounds about right:)
Absolutely! I'm always analyzing, too. In my case, though, analysis is a part of the pleasure. The hitch is that it makes me a slow reader, which is damn frustrating.
I also enjoy analysing! So true! But there is also an appeal to staying innocent to technique… :)
Read for pleasure first, then look at the story again to figure why you reacted to it the way you did. This identifies a style point you can use in your writing.
Sometimes I'll read for pleasure, but then I will say, How did the author do that? And study the wordplay.
Yes, I feel this too. I think of 'liking' and 'enjoying' a story as two quite distinct emotions. I don't even know if this is a standard idea... it's the same with films and music. Anyway, it's clearly possible to enjoy reading a story in the moment but not actually 'like' it. Or vice versa, find it not particularly enjoyable but like it as a whole, seen from a bit of a distance. That implies some reflection and analysis. If I had to choose, I'd always go with the latter. They're the ones that stick.
Absolutely agreed. The same goes for food. There are things that are very enjoyable to eat but leave you feeling empty or, worse, with a stomach ache. Then there are the things that leave you satisfied and well-nourished. The more you eat the latter, the less you care for the former.
I've picked up books and after reading a few pages will say, "I can't, I don't want to do this." Then I'll pick it up again later and, although the author is challenging me to work harder, I'll conclude that it's a great book.
I just wanted to say that I never think 5-6 posts analysing a story is too much. Usually I feel like I want more - that some significant chunk of it hasn’t even been talked about! And then I read about 300 comments and feel slightly more satisfied but still sometimes feel like a point that was really important to me doesn’t get the attention it deserves. I get significantly more out of a story after we’ve analysed it together. I’m also always amazed at how differently people can view the same thing based on their own experience. A sort of obvious but still surprising observation whenever I have it!
After the 5 to 6 weeks of analyzing a story, I always end up loving the stories we read--even the ones I didn't particularly care for when I read them the first time by myself. The close readings really open them up.
Enjoyed reading all the quotes at the start. They got me thinking of possibilities with our writing and they are effective as inspiration. I write poetry and often there's a duality in meaning or there are possible ways of interpretation. If it is cryptic or not I am not sure. I know what I mean but I want readers to make their own interpretation. I'd hate it for someone to say we read your piece and thanks to that finding a reason to put their mum in a care home. Is that not just finding someone else to take the responsibility for someone we cannot or want not to be responsible for? Hmm this got me thinking.
I’ve always thought that an author does well to leave enough space in a short story to allow for a reader’s unique interpretation even if s/he lands in Ten Sleeps Wyoming instead of Boston. Or (the writer) designs layering as a game the reader may follow easily or not at all. A reader’s Personal Timing could also come in to play in interpretation when a reader reads the same work at different stages of life (or lives? lol). It’s not the responsibility of the writer to manipulate or cajole or control the reader it’s just to leave space so the reader can have an experience. The most accomplished short stories and poems do this (my idea of accomplished). The writer creates a shared/common thread for all readers but the rest is wilderness (the open space) to explore on our own. And good luck standing on what the writer thinks it is about because maybe they don’t know or after writing it realize they had been writing about something deeper/different about themselves or there material they weren’t aware of at the time. I think the best we can do is figure out how they made this open space happen. I thought that is what we were doing here. It doesn’t seem to me that George is trying to pin anything down and that we are just looking at the butterfly. I mean he’s not chasing a butterfly with a pin to pin it down (or a net). It’s amazing how many interpretations of process about what we are doing here and suggestions of how to do it have just been presented including my own. A verification that we are in a rare variety of open space in this course. Which means all is well.
This is a topic I've thought a lot about. I majored in English Literature at University and often got the sense that we were building a scaffolding of analysis around stories that had little to do with the intent of the author. I.e. finding monastic symbolism in a novel where the author had no connection to such ideas. This disenchanted me for a stretch, but this receded when I got closer to the writing process and realized how hazy the relationship is between what a writer is setting out to write vs what actually comes out on the page. I perhaps leaned into that way of thinking a little bit too far, assuming it was all unconscious and you have no choice what comes out. I'm now at a point (which could well be a state of extreme centrism) where I see room for both. Some authors err to the latter, some are closer to the former with a more engineer like approach to their writing. As George says above, I sense it's important to maintain a moderation in how much it occupies your thought. It's easy to go down this rabbit hole of analysis and convince yourself you're working, but if it stops you from writing, it's time to hang it up.
It also reminded me of a funny story regarding García Márquez's No One Writes To The Colonel, when a student that was fond of his son (Rodrigo) was asked in a Literature Masters to write an essay on the meaning of the rooster in the story. So he went to Rodrigo and ask him to ask his father, and Garcia Márquez said it meant nothing. And so he wrote in his one-line essay without revealing his source. When he was confronted by the teacher in front of all the class he let the guy unroll his thick interpretation of the rooster for almost half an hour, just to let him know his essay was not an essay, but a direct and fresh quote from THE AUTHOR! LOL
I read to give my brain something to do. She has become more particular, coincident with a decline in attention perhaps, I seldom finish a book anymore. She gets bored, or feels like there's nothing to be gained going further. When I write something I'm seldom aware of meaning or a point. I write so she ( my brain) has something to do. So far as I know there's nothing to "get" about something I write, but words have meanings, and combining words makes more meanings possible, and since we all have life experiences and are trying to figure out what we're doing here we're inclined to figure out what things mean. I guess.
Love that your brain is a she.
You are too humble. I've read many of your Excepts and would say the most recent one about the county fair was a mirror-like view of the human condition, and other posts are representations of your close relationship with the natural world.
George...you make me laugh and any day now you are going to write another Xmas Carol in one go^^.....like that replaced cat in that Hemingway story. Can tell your dad could throw a good fast ball, You are probably good at first base and have a good arm too. Meanwhile keep seeing things in clouds. It is a fact you are an amazing writer and teacher...I can hear the ocean too, like the lady and her dog.
The distant sound of the sea is, for me, whether on first reading or subsequent readings, such a beautiful (and meaningful) part of Lady with Doggy. Thank you for reminding us of it.
Hi John, hope all is well in your world. It is always good to read what you comment on. I am always walking by the sea or eternity. I am finally try to listen more, silence is golden but it is special to have company that understands^^
The Christmas Carol reference reminded me of something I thought just yesterday - that Lincoln in the Bardo (amongst other great things) has the best ghosts since Dickens.
I also thought writing that book was impossible, until George wrote it.
Each story has a God or Goddess..... that is the writer^^