WHOSE DD is he? (Was: Re: Should JKR shut up?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178704

CJ wrote:
> > HP, the WW, DD -- they're all part  of a fictional creation which
> doesn't exist outside the pages of the books.
> 
Rowena replied:
> > It would perhaps be more accurate to say they don't exist outside
JKR's imagination.

Carol responds:
That statement (that they don't exist outside JKR's imagination) was
only true before the books were published (or rather, before the first
editor read them and they became part of his or her imagination).
Granted, JKR created them, but the moment they entered other readers'
minds via the printed word, they ceased to exist solely in JKR's mind.
CJ's (Lee's) statement is closer to correct, in my view--they don't
exist outside the pages of the books--except in the imaginations of
the readers, and on film, and in fanfic, and in various permutations
all arising from the words printed on the pages of the books (in many
different languages). They have long ceased to exist solely in JKR's
imagination. Otherwise, why would we be writing about them? Dumbledore
and Snape and Harry and all the rest exist in *our* minds as well as
JKR's, and in the minds of everyone who has ever read the books exists
there, just as Winnie the Pooh and Captain Ahab and Elizabeth Bennett
and Hamlet and Apollo and Frodo and Huckleberry Finn and thousands of
other literary and mythological and dramatic and otherwise fictional
characters exist there but never exactly the same for any two readers.

JKR has created characters that live in the minds of her readers, and
that's certainly a great accomplishment. But she has no more right to
control how her readers perceive them, IMO, than the authors of the
U.S. Constitution had to control how future Supreme Courts would
interpret it. Nor could she do so even if she had the right because of
the great variety of possible responses determined by age, culture,
personality, mental capacity, education, and personal experience of
her many readers. Other authors have understood that their creations
are greater than they are and have not attempted to restrict
interpretation to their own intentions, particularly intentions that
are not detectable within the work itself. As Percy Bysshe Shelley
said of a great poem (meaning a great work of literature), "Veil after
veil may be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never
exposed. A great poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the
waters of wisdom and delight; and after one person and one age has
exhausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar relations
enable them to share, another and yet another succeeds, and new
relations are ever developed, the source of an unforeseen and an
unconceived delight."

JKR's books are hardly literature on the scale that Shelley was
talking about, but nevertheless, critics and perceptive readers can
find different levels of meaning by analyzing various elements of her
works (the depiction of House-Elves at the moment, religious imagery
or Harry's development or any of the various conflicts or narrative
technique being just a sampling of possibilities. Maybe, in honor of
Halloween, which plays a rather important role in most of the books,
we could examine the effects that she uses to create horror or terror
in some of the spookier chapters--Nagini!Bathilda. Shiver!!!).

Th point is, an author's intentions, especially those revealed after
the fact and not detectable, or only barely detectable to readers
alert to certain possible interpretations, should not be the only or
even the primary lens through which we view a literary work. Tolkien,
for example, made clear that he was not writing allegory or sending a
message. He was just writing a very long story, which he regarded as a
segment of feigned history:

"As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the
author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. . . . I cordially
dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so
since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer
history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought
and experience of the readers."

Odd and unfortunate that JKR doesn't seem to understand the concept of
"applicability."

The story and characters really are *not* hers any longer, except as
far as copyright laws extend. They are as much a part of our
experience as the places we have visited, which exist in our minds
separately from the physical location we visited and inseparably from
our experiences during the visit, which are different from those of
anyone else. (My London is assuredly not the London of someone who has
lived there, nor is their London mine.) JKR can no more control the
reaction of any of her millions (billions?) of readers to her books,
or their interpretation of a particular character or incident than I
can control your reaction to my fruitcake if you were to eat a slice.
(Bboyminn, with his prejudice against fruitcake, would probably hate
it, and all my assertions that I worked hard on it and *intended* it
to be delicious would be for nothing. :-p) 

Seriously, I realize that my analogy is flawed (fruitcake isn't really
subject to interpretation to the extent that literature is, though a
food critic might dispute that remark), but the various
interpretations of any scene in HP or any work of literature on this
list alone show how unsupportable JKR's position is. Once a work of
art or literature is published, it becomes public property (with
regard to interpretation, not use of the author's creations in a
published work). I'm free to see nothing but squiggles and splatters
in a Jackson Pollock painting that others, for whatever reason, see as
a masterpiece, regardless of whatever Pollock himself may have said
about his intentions regarding that particular painting. And
Shakespeare's or Chaucer's intention of (merely) retelling an old
story in a new and interesting way by no means limits the possible
interpretations of their works in their own time(s) or ours. JKR's
(unstated) intention in finishing the series was to meet a contractual
obligation and to make more money. She may also have intended (despite
earlier statements to the contrary) to convey a moral or political
message. But readers will find their own meaning (or lack of it) in
the books regardless of what JKR intended, not to mention that
intentions change, stories and characters take unexpected directions
(even Lockhart is more than a caricature of someone JKR used to know,
and Snape is far more than that former Chemistry teacher dressed in
black robes and given magical abilities), and intentions, even when
they're relevant to the reader's interpretation, are not always
apparent in the finished work, nor are all intentions conscious. Much
of what goes into a literary work comes from the author's
*unconscious* assumptions. Stored memories that we didn't know we had
appear, transformed, in what we write, whether it's a novel, a poem,
or a post to HPfGu.

No two readers imagine exactly the same Dumbledore or Snape or Harry
or Kreacher or even Cornelius Fudge. Our interpretation is based on an
interaction between our own minds and the words on the page, with the
author's intentions (surprising us through withholding information or
through various forms of misdirection, amusing us, scaring us, moving
us) succeeding or failing depending in part on her skill and in part
on the individual reader's personality and beliefs (and skill at
detecting misdirection). But to say "he is what he is" shows a huge
degree of misunderstanding of the process of reading. "He" (or
"she")--any given character, not just Dumbledore--is what the words on
the page say he is, shaped by the reader's own assumptions,
preconceptions, processing of previous information, awareness or lack
of awareness of the limitations of point of view. He or she is *not*
what JKR says he is--except to her and to readers for whom her
intentions for a given character succeeded. Is Snape a "deeply
horrible person"? Not to me or to many other readers. Was that ever
really JKR's intention, or did she merely intend to make him *appear*
to be "deeply horrible" so that we would be surprised by the depth of
his love and the immensity of his courage? And what about Dumbledore
as "the epitome of goodness"? Does any reader (well, I do know of
one--winks at Tonks_OP) really still hold that view? Did JKR, who now
calls him Machiavellian, ever hold it herself? Can quintessential
goodness and Machiavellian means by reconciled and is that what JKR
wants us to see in DD? 

Do her intentions even matter? I say they don't. The books exist to be
read, enjoyed (or hated) and interpreted, and her words should not,
IMO, control or limit our freedom of interpretation. Only what's on
the page should limit us, always with the awareness that what we think
we "see" and "hear" may not mean what we think it means because we're
limited to Harry's pov (or a dramatic pov preventing us from entering
the  characters' minds), and the characters (not just Harry) are
sometimes mistaken in their assumptions (or telling something less
than the full truth). Even knowing what we know from "The Prince's
Tale" about Snape, we can still read "Spinner's End" differently. For
that matter, we can and do read "The Prince's Tale" differently
--regardless of what JKR says about Snape. There's no reason, then,
that we have to read the DD/GG relationship in light of JKR's post-DH
revelation. It still reads like primarily an intellectual infatuation,
with two brilliant and arrogant boys seeing each other as mirrors of
their own grandiose ideas (and DD blinding himself to GG's faults as
Severus blinded himself to Mulciber's and Avery's) with no sexuality
necessary to my understanding of the work, or to a teenager's reading
of it, except to the degree that JKR's pronouncement colors my
reading. And the aged DD of the HP series still seems as asexual to me
as he does to Harry. 

As an aside, Snape seems asexual, too--celibate, repressed--with his
canonical love for Lily as explanation for his buttoned-up
personality, with sarcasm and an occasional outburst of anger as his
only release. I hope JKR never tells us that he had a loveless fling
with some other woman before Lily's death. That would ruin my
interpretation, or my imagined view, of his personality. Really, JKR,
I'd rather not know what you think may have happened off-page to him
or to anyone else. I don't want to know whether Tonks and Remus or
Bill and Fleur consummated their relationship before marriage, either.
Really, I don't. Such information would detract from rather than add
to my pleasure in reading the books. And, given that many of the
readers are children, I don't think it would be appropriate to reveal
those particular details, either.

At any rate, to the extent that I can, I choose to ignore JKR's
revelations. If it's not in the books, it's not "real" or "true."
(there are enough flaws and inconsistencies in the books themselves
without bringing interviews into the interpretation of the books
unless the point is to discuss whether JKR succeeded or failed in
transferring a particular intention from her mind to the page, which,
for me, is not relevant. 

For those who haven't yet read it, I highly recommend Jeffrey Weiss's
article from the Dallas Morning News, "Harry Potter and the Author Who
Wouldn't Shut Up":

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-rowlingcolumn_1024gl.State.Edition1.2292bdc.html

Carol, who doesn't accept Coleridge's dismissal of "Kubla Khan" as
nothing but a vision produced by opium, either, whether or not opium
was involved