'Clue to his vulnerability' (Coming to a conclusion )

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "carolynwhite2" 
<carolynwhite2 at a...> wrote:

> Carolyn:
> I am always curious at this Faith line you take, Nora, of an 
> utterly simplistic face value reading, not only of the books but of 
> the interviews. Without even digressing into the entertainment 
> value of alternative readings, frankly I think you are more 
> familiar than most people as to the many, many layers of meaning 
> that can be buried in text. Conscious or unconscious authorial 
> intent is a pleasant minefield that can lead to endless, profitable 
> and fascinating re-evalutions of books as more information comes to 
> light - whether that derives from one's own more developed 
> understanding of things, or plain new hard facts.

I find it to be my preferred line to take on a work in progress, 
because we're all still arguing about things which I'd consider to be 
fact-based rather than hermeneutic.  There may well be lots of lines 
of inquiry or reading left open when everything is said and done--and 
then we get to play the game of what criteria we're going to read by, 
when everything we're going to get is out on the table.  I tend to go 
for maximal coherence--can I explain the most things without leaving 
any giant gaping holes?

> In 20 years time when it is all over, she could easily write a 
> frank re-evaluation of what she thought she was doing, whether she 
> achieved it, and acknowledge the justice - even truth - of many 
> fandom interpretations. Or she may never actually 'understand' how 
> her simple little morality tale could have been so misunderstood..

I see your point, and I don't think it's invalid.  In my experiences 
in some other areas with this problem, though...okay, I have a good 
one in mind (because I'm prospectusing at the moment), which is 
Strauss and Hofmannsthal's _Elektra_.  Their correspondence and 
commentary are very revealing as to what perspective they took on the 
material, such as the meaning of the ending and some other things.  
All the readings which deliberately go contra their commentary or 
choose to ignore it end up with some interesting conclusions, but 
some really giant holes, or a hell of a lot of "If we assume..." and 
supposition.  [If anyone cares, I'm thinking specifically of 
the "suicide is grand, Elektra is setting herself free!" feminist 
reading of Elektra; I *suppose* you can argue for it, but that means 
you have to ignore a lot of text as well as the tonal structure and 
key symbolism of the work.]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but things like "DD is the puppetmaster 
pulling the strings" are looking not merely for "this is a plausible 
reading of events," but are going the further step of saying "we 
think this may well happen in the text for everyone to see."  Lack of 
overt confirmation/statement may then be taken as space to assert 
that it's a viable reading--I see that.  I'm just skeptical, at the 
moment.

Hey, I'm just calling this one as I see it.  It's such an end-
weighted strategy that I'm not sure what's going to come out, by any 
means.

> Carolyn:
> You don't know he doesn't do any of these things, Neri. The 
> evidence from some of his anguished outcries at different points in 
> the books is that he spends a great deal of his time in black 
> thought about a whole range of such things. 

I think that Neri's point is that all of this about Snape is implied, 
although I wouldn't even call it that...it's a definite blank that a 
reader has to fill in for himself.  As such, it's kinda by definition 
less substantial than the in-text worries and considerably larger 
page time that Harry has.

I have another good music-historical analogue, but I suspect it's way 
on the far side of esoteric (unless y'all like Lully and Rameau), so 
I'll keep it to myself for now. :)

-Nora sits down with a cup of tea and Ariadne