The Telegraph has a piece by Philip Pullman about his new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. The book itself is a fascinating read and retells the journey to the cross: “The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”
What I appreciated in the essay was Pullman’s view that his books belong to their readers. He worries about authors who argue with their readers about what their books mean. “Readers may make of my work,” he tells us, “whatever they please.” And he readily concedes that some have found patterns, connections, and interpretations that escaped him. I’ve always applauded Pullman’s irreverence and his critique of institutional religion, though my students are quick to point out that Pullman, as a secular humanist, develops orthodoxies of his own. Nonetheless, I like the democratic principles at work in his decentering of authorial authority.
The problem with my telling people what I think it means is that my interpretation seems to have some extra authority and that sometimes shuts down debate: if the author himself has said it means X, then it can’t mean Y. Believing as I do in the democracy of reading, I don’t like the sort of totalitarian silence that descends when there is one authoritative reading of any text.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7564066/What-Jesus-Christ-means-to-me.html
I absolutely love that about Pullman. I like how you phrase it — the “democratic principles at work in his decentering of authorial authority.” Three cheers for that.
I agree completely with your democratic principles comment. I admire how articulate (and irreverent about authorial and other orthodoxies) Pullman is about his own creativity and the larger world of books.
I’ve tried reading Pullman’s books, several times. I just do not like them. But his view about writers and their comments on books is spot on.
When I read too much about an author and what he or she thinks, reading the work sort of becomes like watching a music video (which I no longer do)– the ideas of the creator so swamp my own, my imagination and interaction with the work gets cut off.
My blog comments
May 25, 2010:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tatar/2010/05/08/the-democracy-of-reading/
Yes! The creation of meaning through story is a dance between writer (or teller) and reader (or listener). Both partners are needed for that dance to happen.
The idea that there is a single meaning to a story – whether the author’s intended one or a critic’s well-argued one – ignores the cooperative aspect of the making of meaning.
As a student of story, I was taught to seek the “true meaning.” But as a practitioner, I have learned that any story has an infinite number of potential meanings.
As author or performer, I can shape the probability that a reader or listener will create a meaning closer to my own. But each reader is engaged in a creative act of meaning making.
So it’s refreshing that a prominent author like Pullman seems to understand that. Bravo!