Indeterminacy

[nkafkafi]

> Sean:
> This is a quote I fear encourages many an HPfGU fan to avoid the
> wider view of the books; I don't blame them since it's a very
> disappointing gaffe by JKR IMHO, although not without a certain
> irony. If Harry goes off into the figurative desert, I shall have
> to write to the Times.

> Nora wrote:
> 
> > Barthesian hard post-modern indeterminacy is dead.  
> <snip>

>   It is an equally arbitrary offense to 
> > say that "The word of the author is absolute law!" as to say 
> > that "The word of the author is completely meaningless, free 
> > interpretation is everything!".  

> David:
> How very post-modern.  ;-)

Neri:
Perhaps you meant post-post-modern ;-)

Being a non-christian and an atheist, I can certainly identify with 
Sean's fear that JKR is going to build her resolution on some very 
boringly conventional Christian theme. So I just hope that it will be 
universal and original as the series mostly was until now. OTOH I 
never liked the post-modern tendency to dispense with any non-
relative truth, even the fictional truth of the author within her own 
work. So post-post-modern wouldn't apply to me. 

When wearing my theorist's hat I don't feel I have the luxury to 
ignore the author's intensions only because I don't like them myself. 
This would be a sure way to the bottom of Theory Bay. In this hat I 
believe it's my job to reveal the author's ideology and not to impose 
my ideology on her work. For the later we have fanfic (and I leave it 
to others to decide where lit. crit. stands in this). As the goat 
said, it's all depends on what we like to do with the books at any 
given moment.

Neri