[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione's name

[Aberforth's Goat]

No: HPFGUIDX 31294

Steve:

> It's from the National Press Club Q&A session from October, 1999.
> It's not available as a transcript, [...]

OK - you've got a pint of butter beer coming! (I had an idea it might be in
one of the sound files but didn't have time to listen to them all.)

> The point is perfectly clear, however. Sometimes I think
> we ascribe more deep meaning than JKR intended. We assign allusions
> after the fact which were never there in the first place. It's a
> nice parlour game, but hardly authentic. I'm not suggesting that we
> stop enjoying the game, but let's keep it in perspective.


Doesn't that depend on the rules of the game, though? Who's to say that a
reading JKR intended for us to find is intrinsically more authentic than one
she never thought of? A postmodernist critic might be happy to point out
that no text is truly capable of conveying its author's presence, that it's
simply a jumble of signs that rumaged themselves together in the author's
head.

I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to interpret stop signs in this
fashion, but I think a work of art *may* in fact be a little bigger than the
sum of its parts - including even its author's conscious - or even
subconscious - intentions for it Again think of the patinae on the statue or
the park in which it is placed: they *are* significant in our experience of
it, even if the sculptor never thought of them.

BTW, in this sense, perhaps even fanfics and filks are just as valid an
interpretive form as HPfGU discussion - they just explore the text from a
different perspective. (That not everyone has to dig that particular
perspective goes without saying!)

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been
bravery...."