Black and white and read all over.

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 116816


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

<snip>

> Kneasy:
> Huh. And what are you going to do with these wonderful analyses and
> interpretations? Sit tight and then declaim on your insight when 
> all is finally revealed? In this instance analyses and 
> interpretations are tools to lever open the plot structure, not 
> ends in and of themselves. 

Here we must agree to disagree.  I want the plot structure revealed 
so I have more information to work with on interpretation.  You, it 
seems, do not care so much about that, as about the ultimate 
revelation of the plot.  Non disputandum de gustibus.

At least I will have something left to really think about when the 
series is over and lo, the mystery is gone.  I'm sitting and working 
on what I have now, pondering the different possibilities that 
different revelations will make--because I can't analyze what I don't 
have, I can only analyze the meaning of a possibility.

> Because quite frankly I think that many of the current 
> interpretations are misleading or plain wrong. All the information 
> is not yet in, things will change, surprises will be sprung. 

Here I agree completely.  I know my own interpretations have 
significant holes, and I do think I try to label them as such and 
will readily admit to their weaknesses.

<snip>

> Sitting meekly waiting to be spoon-fed is not something I'm 
> comfortable with. I don't mind being beaten, I don't mind being 
> wrong, but doing nothing is not acceptable. It implies that one is 
> happy not to think, that existing canon is the be-all and end-all 
> of HP so close down and put your mind in neutral. 

Kneasy.  It's not mindless to work through a text in other ways than 
just trying to figure out what's going to happen.  Anyone doing 
interpretation knows very well that existing canon is not the end 
all.  I can only speak for myself, again--but I am not deeply 
interested in speculation--or rather, that's not what I'm interested 
enough to take the trouble to write it out.  It stays primarily to 
myself.  But I am mildly annoyed by your implication that to not put 
the mechanics of the plot first is to become a spoon-fed reader.  
Unless you're a rabid deconstructionist, you have to rely upon your 
text, to some degree.  And, for the moment, any interpreter must work 
with what he has.  I happen to particularly enjoy trying to work 
through the meanings, implication, and structure of what we know so 
far, rather than wondering so much about the future events.  This 
doesn't meant that I don't wonder and speculate at times, but again, 
that's not my main interest.
 
<snip> 

> Kneasy:
> All love songs belong in a minor key - they all end up with a loss, 
> sooner or later.
> And if you're keen on hermeneutics then why are you arguing against
> theorising?  It is after all concerned with - what? Theories of 
> course.

I'm not arguing against theorizing per se.  I'm just saying that I 
find considerations of what things mean (hermeneutics) more 
interesting than speculations on the factual end of 'what's doing to 
happen' (pretty much everything in TBAY).

Hermeneutics often has theory behind it (all hail Gadamer), but no, 
it overwhelmingly deals with actual existing texts--not with 
speculations about things that are not yet extant.  It's one of the 
few nice things about it.

-Nora notes that one of the most famous songs of loss is very, very 
firmly in the major mode