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

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Heck, I have fun speculating on what an author might have been thinking. (Often in the sense of "for christ's sake, man, what were you thinking? you call this a plot?") And sometimes an author's statements can give me a new insight into a text--when I heard Brust talk about his political beliefs and how they influenced Teckla, I looked at it and thought, "Oh, that gives me a new perspective on the text."

But the key is still the text. If George Lucas comes forth and says, "In fact, Star Wars isn't a Campbellian/Jungian journey, it's a metaphor for the gold standard," believe me, I'll quite happily ignore him.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

But it's so obvious! C3PO's trials and tribulations - he even gets sort of melted down a few times! (OK, I'll stop.)