tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post436029527489924646..comments2024-01-06T10:36:04.084-05:00Comments on A Commonplace Blog: Concept of the unified textD. G. Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-81208631412570116172009-10-11T17:38:14.871-04:002009-10-11T17:38:14.871-04:00I'd been reading the posts on Carver and Lish ...I'd been reading the posts on Carver and Lish and <i>authorial intention</i> with some interest and now feel I can say, with slightly less self-consciousness (or fear of retribution at least), that I've never read any Carver precisely because Lish's reputation precedes him so. At most, I've flicked through a Carver story because it happened to be in a collection. I've never been sure how I should approach his work and so I never really have.<br /><br />The same sort of logic (or anxiety) is at work behind my not reading much literature in translation. Though I also, for now, feel there's enough in the way of English-language fiction for me to read and re-read (or just the latter if Nabokov is to be believed).<br /><br />However, I will be interested to see David Foster Wallace's <i>The Pale King</i> when it's released next year. You've only mentioned David Foster Wallace a few times on this blog and only ever in passing. Does the upcoming book interest you and do you think it adds anything of interest to the argument you present here? <i>The New York Times</i> claims that there isn't a finished manuscript of <i>The Pale King</i> but that Wallace arranged what he had done in such a way as to suggest a wish that it be published posthumously. According to an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio his long-time editor Michael Pietsch is going through the material now and I read somewhere (unfortunately, I can't remember where) that it will be published with notes, outlines and fragments of drafts where sections seem less complete.<br /><br />Though I imagine Nabokov's <i>The Original of Laura</i> will present more of a challenge for critics who <i>are</i> interested in the source and history and making of a text. How does authorial intention apply to a text that the author wished destroyed?Guy Purseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03389223432095066078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-29947927809426275222009-10-10T17:18:28.464-04:002009-10-10T17:18:28.464-04:00I enjoy your discussion of the wobbly texts of Nab...I enjoy your discussion of the wobbly texts of Nabokov, Melville, and Carver. May I add another author to the discussion of unstable, variable texts: Consider Emily Dickinson. The author's intent (especially with respect to punctuation and capitalization)--whatever that might be worth as being necessary to criticism--had plenty of variations imposed by a hundred years of editors. Should a reader (and critic) rely upon the handwritten originals or the printed variations? Also consider the "new" Hemingway recently published. Then consider this: Might it all be much ado about nothing? After all, no text is perfectly stable because it constantly changes (becomes different for different readers) within its constantly changing cultural and historical contexts. The concern about the instability says more about the reader and critic than it does about the text.R/Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07791522136032565027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-54652210703005086202009-10-09T20:40:57.956-04:002009-10-09T20:40:57.956-04:00You write, “A distinction without a difference, if...You write, “A distinction without a difference, if you’ll pardon the expression, Kevin.”<br /><br />You’re pardoned.<br /><br />You continue, “First, you have not established that the sentences originally written by Carver and then revised by Lish have a semantic meaning.”<br /><br />Sentence meaning, to be more precise. <br /><br />Consider this sentence:<br /><br />“On a certain day in June, 19—, a young man was making his way on foot northward from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood.”<br /><br />What’s the authorial intention of this sentence?<br /><br />I have no clue. <br /><br />Do you? <br /><br />If so, how do you know? <br /><br />Do you deny that it’s a meaningful sentence, a comprehensible sentence, one that gives readers a foothold on the story were they to continue reading it?<br /><br />If you find the sentence utterly meaningless, I can only offer my sympathies.<br /><br />You write, “And you misunderstand Searle in citing him in defense of your position. According to him, what matters in complex utterances such as literary texts are what he calls ‘intentions in action.’”<br /><br />In Searle’s analysis of intentional causation, which is a more general phenomenon under which speech acts are subsumed, he is very careful to distinguish between speaker meaning and sentence meaning. This distinction is the spine that runs through his analysis of intentionality (i.e.,. how the mind relates to the world) and language (i.e., how the mind imposes meaning on acoustic blasts and written symbols). <br /><br />You write, “Authorial intention on my understanding is the intellectual procedure by which meaning is built into a literary text, sentence by sentence as it is written.”<br /><br />But once written, Quixote, for instance, is a complex linguistic artifact that stand on its own.<br /><br />It has an existence independent of its creator. <br /><br />We can read the words, sentences, and story; we can study its grammar, methods, and techniques, as well as its unfolding pattern of meaning WITHOUT reference to the private contents of Cervantes’ mind or to the unique intellectual procedure by which he built a glorious fictional world.<br /><br />Now you can confabulate about the inner workings of his mind when he composed Quixote if you want.<br /><br />I choose not to — it’s an extra-textual activity that’s not necessary for inhabiting the splendors of Quixote and being transformed by it, etc.<br /><br />Lastly, you write, “That some nonsensical short fiction is celebrated under the name of Raymond Carver is deeply troubling to me.”<br /><br />Especially if its quality is superior to the Carver-Lish Franken-beast.<br /><br />Regards,<br />Kevin<br /><br />P.S. As a side note, I got my copy of Home by Robinson and will be reading it this weekend — and avoiding the Internet.Kevinhttp://jkneilson.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-65010639433657672092009-10-09T18:30:08.160-04:002009-10-09T18:30:08.160-04:00The post regarding page breaks in "Lolita&quo...The post regarding page breaks in "Lolita" was hi-sterical; thanks for that. The question of authorial intention is certainly an interesting one. Few writers get into print without an editor (or copyeditor) putting his own stamp onto the work. I have read statements from fiction editors at large publishers discussing their "vision" of what a work should be, and how <i>authors are failing to grasp that vision.</i> At what point does the author's original work become nonsense?<br /><br />I don't argue against the claim that Lish's edits moved Chandler's stories away from Chandler's authorship in some way, but I have doubts, possibly, about the underlying idea that edited works lack some sort of "true meaning" found in the original. Unless I am mistaking your meaning.<br /><br />As I say, it's an interesting problem.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-69007189659591977242009-10-09T17:22:50.118-04:002009-10-09T17:22:50.118-04:00Fascinating and highly educational. I'm glad I...Fascinating and highly educational. I'm glad I've added you to my feedreader.Cara Powershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15629469295992958988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-30176259534445806892009-10-09T17:03:15.809-04:002009-10-09T17:03:15.809-04:00A distinction without a difference, if you’ll pard...A distinction without a difference, if you’ll pardon the expression, Kevin.<br /><br />First, you have not established that the sentences originally written by Carver and then revised by Lish have a semantic meaning. <br /><br />And you misunderstand Searle in citing him in defense of your position. According to him, what matters in complex utterances such as literary texts are what he calls “intentions in action.”<br /><br />Secondly, then, you and I are not talking about the same thing when we talk about authorial intention. It is not a prior plan that the writer carefully follows. That is what Wimsatt and Beardsley called intention in order to declare its existence a fallacy. About that much they were right. And that is what you seem to mean by the term <i>authorial intention</i>.<br /><br />It is not what I mean, however. Authorial intention on my understanding is the intellectual procedure by which meaning is built into a literary text, sentence by sentence as it is written.<br /><br />To lose the thread of that intention, whether by misreading typos as the author’s words or mistaking an editor’s revisions for the author’s words, is to create nonsense. <br /><br />That some nonsensical short fiction is celebrated under the name of Raymond Carver is deeply troubling to me.<br /><br />Lish damaged or destroyed Carver’s early stories, and instead of trying to retrieve them from destruction, critics seem interested only in repeating again and again the chant of Carver’s greatness (his prose, says one critic sagely, is “unforgiving”) without any interest whatever in its source.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-31890996347705578792009-10-09T16:10:15.282-04:002009-10-09T16:10:15.282-04:00"In disputing Lish’s editorial revisions with..."In disputing Lish’s editorial revisions with Kevin Neilson, who maintains that he is not troubled by them, I have repeatedly asked for an interpretation of the phrase impossible changes. He would not satisfy my request, but since then I have found one."<br /><br />Dear Professor Myers, you've mischaracterized my view.<br /><br />I think Lish's edits are heavyhanded in the extreme; I see very little or no justification for them.<br /><br />I'm not troubled by the relationship between Carver's authorial intent (i.e., his speaker meaning) and the semantic meaning of the words, sentences, and stories that go under his name (i.e., the Lishified material that made Carver famous). <br /><br />You're troubled by it; I'm not.<br /><br />That's all.<br /><br />Regards,<br />Kevin<br /><br />P.S. Would you like to go Between the Lines? I think you'd bring a very unique perspective to literary experience. Let me know, and I'll send you questions offline.Kevinhttp://jkneilson.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com