Authors. Feh.

[cnoocy]

Apparently Ray Bradbury has been saying that Fahrenheit 451 is not a book about censorship, but one about television. And everyone is up in arms about it trying to prove that he once said different.

Can I just say it doesn't matter? If there was ever a clear piece of evidence that the author is not the ultimate authority on a work, it's right here. Stop paying attention to Bradbury and talk about the book. Talk about the book as an anti-censorship work. Don't rebut Bradbury in terms of his brain. It's kind of his turf, so it's not going to go well for you.

I notice that a lot of the people commenting on this are themselves authors, so maybe they have trouble letting go of their own, um, authority. If you're an author, learn to be one of many readers of the book you've written. Find and read Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill's "Pharaoh's Daughter" because she's an author who gets it.

Comments

[mildmannered.livejournal.com]

There is a wonderful story in Dandelion Wine about a woman giving up the people she was in the past, realizing that those people don't exist anymore, and that the only real person is the old woman she is now. She throws out all the stuff she's collected - ticket stubs, playbills - and gives her other possessions to the children who insist that she was never young.

Bradbury is no longer the man who wrote Fahrenheit 451 or Dandelion Wine or the Martian Chronicles, a fact made clear by his really terrible reworking of his Family stories into a book length travesty a few years ago. That person is gone. It's too bad he doesn't know it.

[thedan.livejournal.com]

When Adam made his director's proposal for One Down, he pointed out several themes in the play which I didn't intend but are pretty clearly there. Not that I'm anywhere near as talented as Ray Bradbury, but I think some ideas weasel their way in without the author noticing.

[colorwheel.livejournal.com]

as a professional book critic, i ignore author intent.

sometimes there is TEXT intent -- a book can set out an intent (and then accomplish it or not). but that's different.

Doing my part

[prog.livejournal.com]

Just today, in fact, I changed the section header of the novel's Wikipedia article from "Critical misinterpretation" to "Critical interpretation vs. authorial intent". (I think it is notable, in the WP sense, that the author throws so much pushback in the face of his own readers, so the section itself can stay.)

And it was y'all who taught me the difference in the LJ-ified annals, I'm pretty sure. :)

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I think it matters, in that you can't say "Fahrenheit 451 was written about censorship". (Assuming what he says now is true-- there may be enough evidence to suggest that he's either lying or forgetful.) But you can still use Fahrenheit 451 to make a point about censorship.

When people talk about ignoring authorial intent, it makes me think of Reagan using "Born in the USA" as a campaign song. What is the difference? Is it just that Springsteen's interpretation of his song is shared by most of his fans, while Bradbury's is probably not? (This isn't a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely confused.)

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

He never said anything about prunes, either.

[tablesaw]

I'm siding with Bradbury here.

I just got back from vacation, so I ahve no idea what "everyone" is saying. But it sounds to me like Bradbury is talking abot the germ of the book and the backstory of the book's present. It's easy to find parallels between Fahrenheit and 1984, but Bradbury seems to suggest that the situation in Fahrenheit is more a result of the citizens than of the state. The end result, the censorship state is the same, but the causes are very different. And it's easy to argue that the erosion of the quest for wisdom is more of a threat in modern America than the pointed establishment of a totalitarian state.