the internet is really bad at reading
January 10, 2022 9:57 AM Subscribe
In the internet and social media age, are readers asking a bit too much of those who write what they read?
Some authors and readers feel that we are living in a world where every published piece of writing is treated as the beginning of a conversation—or worse, a workshop piece—by some readers, each of whom feels entitled to a bespoke response. What did you mean by that? Is this supposed to be funny? Did you even consider X? Why didn’t you do this thing the way I would have done it, instead? I’m writing an essay on your book for my high school class—do you have fifteen minutes for an interview about the key themes?*
Celeste Ng's has already requested that teachers stop asking their students to email authors, opening up a slew of views on how much authors owe their readers and the compulsory Twitter storm.
Joanne Harris wrote a polite manifesto about what authors owe readers. Elizabeth Hunter has a shorter list. The angst and demands that GRRM stop faffing around and finish the A Song of Ice and Fire book series is well known.
And where is the line of readers asking too much? A twitter pile-on? ** Is it when it leads a writer to hold off on their publication? Is it stalking? Or is it demanding anything other than some basic ethics?
*This essay mentions the Havrilesky essay previously discussed on the Blue. I will leave it to commenters as to if they want to let that colour this discussion or not.
**Not that authors are not guilty of the same thing
*** Yep, authors do that too, and can even be rewarded for it.
Celeste Ng's has already requested that teachers stop asking their students to email authors, opening up a slew of views on how much authors owe their readers and the compulsory Twitter storm.
Joanne Harris wrote a polite manifesto about what authors owe readers. Elizabeth Hunter has a shorter list. The angst and demands that GRRM stop faffing around and finish the A Song of Ice and Fire book series is well known.
And where is the line of readers asking too much? A twitter pile-on? ** Is it when it leads a writer to hold off on their publication? Is it stalking? Or is it demanding anything other than some basic ethics?
*This essay mentions the Havrilesky essay previously discussed on the Blue. I will leave it to commenters as to if they want to let that colour this discussion or not.
**Not that authors are not guilty of the same thing
*** Yep, authors do that too, and can even be rewarded for it.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup
Sure, blame the authors.
US Department of Education National Center for Educational Statististics: Adult literacy in the United States (pdf)
Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks. This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills:
It's because 1 in 5 Americans can't fukn read lol
posted by adept256 at 10:27 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
US Department of Education National Center for Educational Statististics: Adult literacy in the United States (pdf)
Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks. This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills:
It's because 1 in 5 Americans can't fukn read lol
posted by adept256 at 10:27 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Foucault: the author is dead, not a primary signifier, it is the discourse around the text that matters the most
this essay: hm nah no discourse please but also here's a meta-textual analysis on the discourse surrounding this one piece on marriage that obliterates an entire line of questioning under the pretense of 'trust the craft' because we have to assume and center the author's competence, something that I, as a writer, associate with 'good analysis' so don't come after me even though I keep referencing myself throughout the essay
also where the piece is published really matters says I, the author of the piece, while also prescribing that people learn to read critically
posted by paimapi at 10:33 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
this essay: hm nah no discourse please but also here's a meta-textual analysis on the discourse surrounding this one piece on marriage that obliterates an entire line of questioning under the pretense of 'trust the craft' because we have to assume and center the author's competence, something that I, as a writer, associate with 'good analysis' so don't come after me even though I keep referencing myself throughout the essay
also where the piece is published really matters says I, the author of the piece, while also prescribing that people learn to read critically
posted by paimapi at 10:33 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I occasionally write to authors, but I try to limit those emails to telling them things (not things about how their book could have been better, to be clear!) like about a part of a book that particularly affected me rather than asking them things. I don't expect a reply back, but am pleasantly surprised that I often receive them.
Making any student's grade depend on the actions of a person the student has no influence over is just effing stupid, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on January 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
Making any student's grade depend on the actions of a person the student has no influence over is just effing stupid, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on January 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
Foucault: the author is dead, not a primary signifier, it is the discourse around the text that matters the most
this essay: hm nah no discourse please
This strikes me as, perhaps ironically, a bad-faith reading (of the essay and also of Roland Barthes, who wrote "The Death of the Author," not Foucault). In fact, the line about "awareness that, in writing a piece and publishing it, the author has said what they meant to say and turned the project of thinking about it over to the reader" could stand in as a pretty good summary of "The Death of the Author." The call here is not to stop talking about people's writing, but to stop demanding that they themselves unpack it, interpret it, explain the joke, or provide additional context for you. I suspect Barthes would approve.
posted by babelfish at 10:48 AM on January 10, 2022 [32 favorites]
this essay: hm nah no discourse please
This strikes me as, perhaps ironically, a bad-faith reading (of the essay and also of Roland Barthes, who wrote "The Death of the Author," not Foucault). In fact, the line about "awareness that, in writing a piece and publishing it, the author has said what they meant to say and turned the project of thinking about it over to the reader" could stand in as a pretty good summary of "The Death of the Author." The call here is not to stop talking about people's writing, but to stop demanding that they themselves unpack it, interpret it, explain the joke, or provide additional context for you. I suspect Barthes would approve.
posted by babelfish at 10:48 AM on January 10, 2022 [32 favorites]
Yikes. "Write a letter to this public figure" has been a staple of school writing assignments for a long time, with "and then we'll actually mail them" as a frequent way of trying to generate more engagement.
I had come to terms personally with how easy the internet makes it to bug authors (personal rules: Twitter is only for brief thank-you's mentioning something I liked; email can include my thoughts and ideas that might prompt a response but shouldn't have direct questions that assume the author has time to respond), but I hadn't thought about how much thousands of English classes every year must have changed that ecosystem.
It can be really hard to imagine what someone else's inbox / Twitter mentions looks like.
posted by straight at 10:49 AM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I had come to terms personally with how easy the internet makes it to bug authors (personal rules: Twitter is only for brief thank-you's mentioning something I liked; email can include my thoughts and ideas that might prompt a response but shouldn't have direct questions that assume the author has time to respond), but I hadn't thought about how much thousands of English classes every year must have changed that ecosystem.
It can be really hard to imagine what someone else's inbox / Twitter mentions looks like.
posted by straight at 10:49 AM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Foucault: the author is dead, not a primary signifier, it is the discourse around the text that matters the most
The Internet: Let's all respond directly to the author and give her advice about her marriage!
posted by straight at 10:50 AM on January 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
The Internet: Let's all respond directly to the author and give her advice about her marriage!
posted by straight at 10:50 AM on January 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
Teachers should stop asking students to mail anybody who hasn't signed up for it. Except maybe national embassies and large corporations. I'm not famous enough to get more than a few a year, presumably picked at random from a university or foundation website. But, each one is frustrating. It's not the kids' fault. But, I already signed up for more outreach than I can possibly handle. Being a slow, inaccurate version of wikipedia for some random kid who was forced to invent three questions they don't care about isn't helpful for anybody. (Having a real interaction with the kid might be. There are organizations that work to make that happen.) I'm sure it's far worse for famous authors. I'm not sure reading comprehension is the solution to that particular problem. That adults do this some thing without prompting is probably not new. But, it is surprising.
(None the less, when time travel is invented, I've got a number of long, angry screeds left over from high-school that I'm going to shout at dead authors. I need to look up the laws regarding duels in 1850s Salem.)
posted by eotvos at 10:52 AM on January 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
(None the less, when time travel is invented, I've got a number of long, angry screeds left over from high-school that I'm going to shout at dead authors. I need to look up the laws regarding duels in 1850s Salem.)
posted by eotvos at 10:52 AM on January 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Some authors and readers feel that we are living in a world where every published piece of writing is treated as the beginning of a conversation
Most businesses involve talking to customers, much less one where you literally put words into someone else's brain.
posted by StarkRoads at 10:52 AM on January 10, 2022
Most businesses involve talking to customers, much less one where you literally put words into someone else's brain.
posted by StarkRoads at 10:52 AM on January 10, 2022
Social media in general definitely has inspired some quick edits to previous rough drafts of daydreams of authorship, to reclusive authorship.
posted by Drastic at 10:52 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Drastic at 10:52 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Some authors and readers feel that we are living in a world where every published piece of writing is treated as the beginning of a conversation
Yeah, I have some very specific regrets about how long it took me to realize that a blog post or a tweet is not a promise to have a conversation with any and all people who read it.
posted by straight at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
Yeah, I have some very specific regrets about how long it took me to realize that a blog post or a tweet is not a promise to have a conversation with any and all people who read it.
posted by straight at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
a bad-faith reading (of the essay and also of Roland Barthes, who wrote "The Death of the Author," not Foucault)
that's because I was referencing Foucault, who was responding to Barthes (or at least responding to the literary theory of the day), in a different essay whose response was a continuation of the original argument - which thus produced an internet comment alluding to Death of the Author first because that's the original thesis and, in the second half of that comment, providing a really short and probably super poor summary of Foucault's point
it's also disingenuous to say that her main point is that people should leave authors alone because people want authors to define the piece - her main point, as she says herself, is that there's a right way to read things and readers who don't read in this way, which is to assume that all authors everywhere know exactly what they're doing with their craft, then you have no idea how to do textual analysis:
But if you trust the author to do her job, and you do yours as a reader, you’ll find a love letter to Bill—and to marriage itself—within all the irony and exaggeration.
[A bad reader] assumes that the writer is not an expert in her craft, making considered decisions about language and tone, but a novice out of her depth—even when she’s a middle-aged professional with a long publication history, and you’re reading an excerpt from her next book in the Times.
posted by paimapi at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
that's because I was referencing Foucault, who was responding to Barthes (or at least responding to the literary theory of the day), in a different essay whose response was a continuation of the original argument - which thus produced an internet comment alluding to Death of the Author first because that's the original thesis and, in the second half of that comment, providing a really short and probably super poor summary of Foucault's point
it's also disingenuous to say that her main point is that people should leave authors alone because people want authors to define the piece - her main point, as she says herself, is that there's a right way to read things and readers who don't read in this way, which is to assume that all authors everywhere know exactly what they're doing with their craft, then you have no idea how to do textual analysis:
But if you trust the author to do her job, and you do yours as a reader, you’ll find a love letter to Bill—and to marriage itself—within all the irony and exaggeration.
[A bad reader] assumes that the writer is not an expert in her craft, making considered decisions about language and tone, but a novice out of her depth—even when she’s a middle-aged professional with a long publication history, and you’re reading an excerpt from her next book in the Times.
posted by paimapi at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Most businesses involve talking to customers
The guy who "talks to customers" by writing copy on the back of the salad dressing bottle does not read and respond to customer reactions to that copy. If anyone has a conversation with customers about the salad dressing bottle, it's because the salad dressing company pays someone to do it.
posted by straight at 11:02 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
The guy who "talks to customers" by writing copy on the back of the salad dressing bottle does not read and respond to customer reactions to that copy. If anyone has a conversation with customers about the salad dressing bottle, it's because the salad dressing company pays someone to do it.
posted by straight at 11:02 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Artists should be distant gods that only interact with their audiences through their work. I am not joking. Audience engagement, especially the kind of engagement that social media engenders, is a cancer that hurts both sides and diminishes art.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2022 [38 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2022 [38 favorites]
Social media in general definitely has inspired some quick edits to previous rough drafts of daydreams of authorship, to reclusive authorship.
That won't necessarily save you from having a well-publicized, multi-part podcast about your sexual preferences and the real people who you "obviously" based your fictional characters on.
And hey, you can be nothing more than an obscure blogger/occasional essayist and still have people send you hate letters and make impossible, entitled demands of your time. Ask me how I know.
posted by thivaia at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
That won't necessarily save you from having a well-publicized, multi-part podcast about your sexual preferences and the real people who you "obviously" based your fictional characters on.
And hey, you can be nothing more than an obscure blogger/occasional essayist and still have people send you hate letters and make impossible, entitled demands of your time. Ask me how I know.
posted by thivaia at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I mean, do I think authors should be harassed on Twitter? nah. do I think the guessing at people's marriage is probably a really gossipy, bad way of going about textual analysis? yeah, absolutely
but if you have a platform where a fuckton of people follow you and your opinions then you have a responsibility for the shit you put on your platform(s), whether social or otherwise. a much bigger one than me, with my >100 followers. and if your friend publishes something that people don't like then that discourse shouldn't be shuffled into a corner marked 'wow people suck at reading' leading to the publication of an internet article expounding on how it's readers who don't understand the work
at this point if you don't know your audience and instead want to control how your audience reads while simultaneously blaming them for not knowing how to talk about your work vs say, understanding that the way public education is really shitty and terrible and purposefully doesn't teach critical thinking well, then it's probably a pretty good sign you've burnt out a lil bit and shouldn't be submitting for publication essays on how shitty people are as readers
posted by paimapi at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
but if you have a platform where a fuckton of people follow you and your opinions then you have a responsibility for the shit you put on your platform(s), whether social or otherwise. a much bigger one than me, with my >100 followers. and if your friend publishes something that people don't like then that discourse shouldn't be shuffled into a corner marked 'wow people suck at reading' leading to the publication of an internet article expounding on how it's readers who don't understand the work
at this point if you don't know your audience and instead want to control how your audience reads while simultaneously blaming them for not knowing how to talk about your work vs say, understanding that the way public education is really shitty and terrible and purposefully doesn't teach critical thinking well, then it's probably a pretty good sign you've burnt out a lil bit and shouldn't be submitting for publication essays on how shitty people are as readers
posted by paimapi at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Okay, look, the internet is the issue, not the writing to authors, not whether one can hate/have amnesia about one's husband, not whether the author is dead, etc.
The internet is the issue both because it's much easier to pester authors (email is one-click; a letter takes a printer and a stamp) and because the things that get published are designed for clicks.
If Heather Havrilesky had said, "hey, NYT, I'd like to write a low-key nuanced essay in which I ruminate on what it means to live with another person, sort of a cool, lapidary, distanced kind of thing which would invite the reader to reflect on the human condish", she would never have heard back from them! It's not as though publishing pre-let's-say-2000 was only for careful, distanced and non-inflammatory material, but there simply wasn't so much content so readily available. Havrilesky would either have been writing for a much smaller and more specialized audience of her own generation (suck.com, early Salon, etc) or she would have been writing for a print magazine and either way the incentive to write "do I hate my husband? I just know you aren't going to take this question calmly" would be much less.
It's not that people read better or worse than in the past - there are arguments either way - it's that the way in which we encounter writing is totally different and the kind of writing authors need to produce to pay the rent is totally different.
posted by Frowner at 11:09 AM on January 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
The internet is the issue both because it's much easier to pester authors (email is one-click; a letter takes a printer and a stamp) and because the things that get published are designed for clicks.
If Heather Havrilesky had said, "hey, NYT, I'd like to write a low-key nuanced essay in which I ruminate on what it means to live with another person, sort of a cool, lapidary, distanced kind of thing which would invite the reader to reflect on the human condish", she would never have heard back from them! It's not as though publishing pre-let's-say-2000 was only for careful, distanced and non-inflammatory material, but there simply wasn't so much content so readily available. Havrilesky would either have been writing for a much smaller and more specialized audience of her own generation (suck.com, early Salon, etc) or she would have been writing for a print magazine and either way the incentive to write "do I hate my husband? I just know you aren't going to take this question calmly" would be much less.
It's not that people read better or worse than in the past - there are arguments either way - it's that the way in which we encounter writing is totally different and the kind of writing authors need to produce to pay the rent is totally different.
posted by Frowner at 11:09 AM on January 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
The guy who "talks to customers" by writing copy on the back of the salad dressing bottle does not read and respond to customer reactions to that cop
And speaking as someone who has written the copy on the proverbial salad dressing bottle, the best thing about that industry is that the copywriter is generally (and blessedly) anonymous.
posted by thivaia at 11:09 AM on January 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
And speaking as someone who has written the copy on the proverbial salad dressing bottle, the best thing about that industry is that the copywriter is generally (and blessedly) anonymous.
posted by thivaia at 11:09 AM on January 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
The internet is the issue both because it's much easier to pester authors (email is one-click; a letter takes a printer and a stamp) and because the things that get published are designed for clicks.
the internet also allows into the discourse people who aren't just academics penning white papers which, to the chagrin of many traditional writers, means that there will be fucking plebes ruining everything with their frothings, oh dear, what horror
posted by paimapi at 11:19 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
the internet also allows into the discourse people who aren't just academics penning white papers which, to the chagrin of many traditional writers, means that there will be fucking plebes ruining everything with their frothings, oh dear, what horror
posted by paimapi at 11:19 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is reminding me of reading that my favorite author was getting harassed for referring to a certain trans actor by their deadname--in a book that was written several years before the actor came out. How the hell was she to know that information? Perhaps check the copyright date? But people read it and lose their minds. People are losing their minds over the slightest of shit. I don't know how anyone deals with living a public career/life these days when the smallest of things or stuff you said years ago in perfect innocence or literally whatever can get you ruined.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:31 AM on January 10, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:31 AM on January 10, 2022 [19 favorites]
the internet also allows into the discourse people who aren't just academics penning white papers which, to the chagrin of many traditional writers, means that there will be fucking plebes ruining everything with their frothings, oh dear, what horror
Well, it's not so much allows as incentivizes - I don't think that the hoi polloi would, left to our own devices, necessarily find every text a source of ready, simple anger, send death threats, bond together to create forums in which to hate and stalk people, etc. I don't think that frothing is the natural state of the plebe.
posted by Frowner at 11:32 AM on January 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
Well, it's not so much allows as incentivizes - I don't think that the hoi polloi would, left to our own devices, necessarily find every text a source of ready, simple anger, send death threats, bond together to create forums in which to hate and stalk people, etc. I don't think that frothing is the natural state of the plebe.
posted by Frowner at 11:32 AM on January 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
And speaking as someone who has written the copy on the proverbial salad dressing bottle, the best thing about that industry is that the copywriter is generally (and blessedly) anonymous.
True! You're not selling your personal brand in that situation. Freelancers generating creative works with a byline are (not always) going to have someone else to do their PR.
posted by StarkRoads at 11:32 AM on January 10, 2022
True! You're not selling your personal brand in that situation. Freelancers generating creative works with a byline are (not always) going to have someone else to do their PR.
posted by StarkRoads at 11:32 AM on January 10, 2022
The fundamental thing that gets elided here is not, I think, the education/status of the envisioned reader, not their right to comment, not whether the piece itself stands on its own:
the thing these people are eliding is context. And context is a product of familiarity and experience. The less shared context two people have, the more potential there is for misreading, either because the writer fails to adjust for the expectations of the audience or because the reader fails to follow the intentions of the author. The more widely we open our tent and invite people with very different life experiences inside, the more likely that we need to be particularly careful in our communication to avoid misunderstandings and failures to follow "obvious" contextual cues.
The internet erodes context just by sharing links and connecting people who may or may not have much shared context in its capacity as a communication modality, especially in the way that it facilitates much faster sharing of given pieces without the accompanied contextual expectations coming along for the ride. I can see wanting to be able to communicate, for artistic reasons, with deeply dense contextual references, because the heady swells of feeling seen--and making something wonderful to look upon!--are a deeply powerful experience for many people. But it's also worth knowing that not only will that context get lost as the piece gets brought about as a disconnected text, but also readers approaching the text will now be shaped by the context not of the original writer or publisher, but by the context of the way that the reader's social atmosphere has framed the piece. For example, I hated Lord of the Flies as a novel I was being forced to read in high school, full of high-minded Jesus allegories and brutalist declarations about essential and universal truths of human nature. The framework I encountered as an adult, in which the novel is a satirical response to a very cozy shipwreck fantasy of British schoolboys who would obvously "civilize" everyone around them, makes it much less noxious.
There's no fixing this except through sharing useful bits of context with one another and trying to practice listening as well as talking: insisting that all readers who should be allowed to comment share the same universal context means either kicking a whole bunch of people out of our tent, or else restricting our own reading lists to only works that fundamentally share our own values, worldviews, expectations and opinions. Instead, I try to inform context by explaining mine, listening to others, and thinking about how the reactions different people have to different writing is shaped by their perspectives in a way that helps me understand the perspective itself.
In other words: insofar as everyone is a yelling, uneducated potential plebe, everyone is also at the same time a potentially interesting teacher with new insights to share. The less context I have for a piece of writing, the more work I have to do in order to understand it--but the more opportunity I also have to widen my contextual nets and add a new shiny lens to my collection.
posted by sciatrix at 12:00 PM on January 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
the thing these people are eliding is context. And context is a product of familiarity and experience. The less shared context two people have, the more potential there is for misreading, either because the writer fails to adjust for the expectations of the audience or because the reader fails to follow the intentions of the author. The more widely we open our tent and invite people with very different life experiences inside, the more likely that we need to be particularly careful in our communication to avoid misunderstandings and failures to follow "obvious" contextual cues.
The internet erodes context just by sharing links and connecting people who may or may not have much shared context in its capacity as a communication modality, especially in the way that it facilitates much faster sharing of given pieces without the accompanied contextual expectations coming along for the ride. I can see wanting to be able to communicate, for artistic reasons, with deeply dense contextual references, because the heady swells of feeling seen--and making something wonderful to look upon!--are a deeply powerful experience for many people. But it's also worth knowing that not only will that context get lost as the piece gets brought about as a disconnected text, but also readers approaching the text will now be shaped by the context not of the original writer or publisher, but by the context of the way that the reader's social atmosphere has framed the piece. For example, I hated Lord of the Flies as a novel I was being forced to read in high school, full of high-minded Jesus allegories and brutalist declarations about essential and universal truths of human nature. The framework I encountered as an adult, in which the novel is a satirical response to a very cozy shipwreck fantasy of British schoolboys who would obvously "civilize" everyone around them, makes it much less noxious.
There's no fixing this except through sharing useful bits of context with one another and trying to practice listening as well as talking: insisting that all readers who should be allowed to comment share the same universal context means either kicking a whole bunch of people out of our tent, or else restricting our own reading lists to only works that fundamentally share our own values, worldviews, expectations and opinions. Instead, I try to inform context by explaining mine, listening to others, and thinking about how the reactions different people have to different writing is shaped by their perspectives in a way that helps me understand the perspective itself.
In other words: insofar as everyone is a yelling, uneducated potential plebe, everyone is also at the same time a potentially interesting teacher with new insights to share. The less context I have for a piece of writing, the more work I have to do in order to understand it--but the more opportunity I also have to widen my contextual nets and add a new shiny lens to my collection.
posted by sciatrix at 12:00 PM on January 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
I thought Kate Harding’s essay was good (which is the uncredited first link). I liked Havrilesky’s too, though I had a really hard time following what was going on in the middle part.
But I thought Harding’s essay was most interesting when stepping away from the hook of Twitter discourse. The reflections on how we change as readers in step with how we change as human beings was really intriguing.
I don’t reread books very often, partly because what’s new is shiny, and partly because I read so slowly that I need to make careful choices in what I read. But in the few instances where I have read books again, I recognize that it is a profoundly different experience.
For instance, last year I read an Icelandic saga I had read once before, at age fifteen for school. It’s a fun, and funny story, which is why it’s assigned to teens. But reading it again was different enough that it was as if I had never read it before, because me at forty and me at fifteen are barely the same human being. The moral complexity which had completely eluded me then, struck me very forcefully now. But the bleak humor of the story was undercut by my instinctive empathy for the people on the wrong side of the joke.
Harding’s puppy analogy is maybe a bit overdone, like all good exaggerations it does reach some truth that more restrained analogies don’t.
I often think back to something Samuel R. Delany said in an interview. He noticed that his university students suddenly stopped being able to pick up on the clues in older books which indicated that characters were having sex, because in the stories they were used to reading, nothing of the sort was left unsaid.
I’m young enough to be of the generation who absolutely misses those clues. But the more I’ve read of early to mid 20th-century fiction, and the more academic articles I’ve read about fiction from that era, the better I am at seeing them. But I needed to be taught, I didn’t learn on my own.
I doubt that Harding had any problems with the middle section of Havrilesky’s essay that I found so confusing. And I’m sure that if I had read more of the latter’s work, I would have breezed through just fine. But I didn’t really understand that I was having a hard time following the story because the style was unfamiliar to me, until I read Harding’s essay. It taught me quite a lot about Havrilesky’s methods as a writer.
This reminds me of another thing I think about from time to time. Twenty or so years ago I took a university class on literary theory. In a discussion of genres, the professor mentioned that he and another professor, had taken part in this project where lots of different universities all taught the same class, with the same syllabus. There was lots of fairly heavy literature on there, French surrealist novels, Anglophone modernist door-stops, bleak Eastern European epics, and the final book was Neuromancer by William Gibson, then fairly recently published. The two professors breezed through all of the syllabus, until they got to Neuromancer, which they could make neither heads nor tails of. Years later the professor who was teaching my class went back to it, and loved it. But that was after he had absorbed some of the style and tropes of Neuromancer from other works.
Literacy isn’t a simple thing, because literature isn’t a simple thing. Literature, if only because there’s just so damn much of it, might be the most complicated system humanity has ever produced. It takes a lifetime to learn to read, and even then, we only ever learn to read a fraction of what there is to learn to read, because there is, functionally speaking, an infinity of different varieties of literature.
So of course we don’t know how to read, because there are always texts out there we don’t have the learning to understand. But if we keep learning, there is an infinity of joys for us to discover.
posted by Kattullus at 12:09 PM on January 10, 2022 [33 favorites]
But I thought Harding’s essay was most interesting when stepping away from the hook of Twitter discourse. The reflections on how we change as readers in step with how we change as human beings was really intriguing.
I don’t reread books very often, partly because what’s new is shiny, and partly because I read so slowly that I need to make careful choices in what I read. But in the few instances where I have read books again, I recognize that it is a profoundly different experience.
For instance, last year I read an Icelandic saga I had read once before, at age fifteen for school. It’s a fun, and funny story, which is why it’s assigned to teens. But reading it again was different enough that it was as if I had never read it before, because me at forty and me at fifteen are barely the same human being. The moral complexity which had completely eluded me then, struck me very forcefully now. But the bleak humor of the story was undercut by my instinctive empathy for the people on the wrong side of the joke.
Harding’s puppy analogy is maybe a bit overdone, like all good exaggerations it does reach some truth that more restrained analogies don’t.
I often think back to something Samuel R. Delany said in an interview. He noticed that his university students suddenly stopped being able to pick up on the clues in older books which indicated that characters were having sex, because in the stories they were used to reading, nothing of the sort was left unsaid.
I’m young enough to be of the generation who absolutely misses those clues. But the more I’ve read of early to mid 20th-century fiction, and the more academic articles I’ve read about fiction from that era, the better I am at seeing them. But I needed to be taught, I didn’t learn on my own.
I doubt that Harding had any problems with the middle section of Havrilesky’s essay that I found so confusing. And I’m sure that if I had read more of the latter’s work, I would have breezed through just fine. But I didn’t really understand that I was having a hard time following the story because the style was unfamiliar to me, until I read Harding’s essay. It taught me quite a lot about Havrilesky’s methods as a writer.
This reminds me of another thing I think about from time to time. Twenty or so years ago I took a university class on literary theory. In a discussion of genres, the professor mentioned that he and another professor, had taken part in this project where lots of different universities all taught the same class, with the same syllabus. There was lots of fairly heavy literature on there, French surrealist novels, Anglophone modernist door-stops, bleak Eastern European epics, and the final book was Neuromancer by William Gibson, then fairly recently published. The two professors breezed through all of the syllabus, until they got to Neuromancer, which they could make neither heads nor tails of. Years later the professor who was teaching my class went back to it, and loved it. But that was after he had absorbed some of the style and tropes of Neuromancer from other works.
Literacy isn’t a simple thing, because literature isn’t a simple thing. Literature, if only because there’s just so damn much of it, might be the most complicated system humanity has ever produced. It takes a lifetime to learn to read, and even then, we only ever learn to read a fraction of what there is to learn to read, because there is, functionally speaking, an infinity of different varieties of literature.
So of course we don’t know how to read, because there are always texts out there we don’t have the learning to understand. But if we keep learning, there is an infinity of joys for us to discover.
posted by Kattullus at 12:09 PM on January 10, 2022 [33 favorites]
There's no fixing this except through sharing useful bits of context with one another and trying to practice listening as well as talking: insisting that all readers who should be allowed to comment share the same universal context means either kicking a whole bunch of people out of our tent, or else restricting our own reading lists to only works that fundamentally share our own values, worldviews, expectations and opinions.
It seems to me that this would look like (1) asking authors not to get bent out of shape when people with different context read their work in ways they did not intend (2) authors responding to out-of-context criticism by offering more context, and (3) asking readers to consider their own possible lack of context when they comment.
That seems to be a lot of what happened with the Havrilevsky thing. (1) Her main response on Twitter to all the criticism was to make jokes about how these people don't realize she's actually married to John Hamm; (2) Her blog post responding to all the discourse was offering more context about the essay, saying she's grateful people are talking about her book at all, and quoting her husband as saying who cares if strangers misunderstand you; (3) This essay addressed to readers asking them to pay more attention to context when they read. But it would be better if so much of it weren't framed as "People who don't get the context are bad at reading."
posted by straight at 12:15 PM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
It seems to me that this would look like (1) asking authors not to get bent out of shape when people with different context read their work in ways they did not intend (2) authors responding to out-of-context criticism by offering more context, and (3) asking readers to consider their own possible lack of context when they comment.
That seems to be a lot of what happened with the Havrilevsky thing. (1) Her main response on Twitter to all the criticism was to make jokes about how these people don't realize she's actually married to John Hamm; (2) Her blog post responding to all the discourse was offering more context about the essay, saying she's grateful people are talking about her book at all, and quoting her husband as saying who cares if strangers misunderstand you; (3) This essay addressed to readers asking them to pay more attention to context when they read. But it would be better if so much of it weren't framed as "People who don't get the context are bad at reading."
posted by straight at 12:15 PM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Remember that British author that got millions of 12yos to read multiple 700 page books? Wouldn't it be lovely if she just closed the laptop after that and enjoyed her billions without twatting about gender.
posted by adept256 at 12:51 PM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 12:51 PM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
But it would be better if so much of it weren't framed as "People who don't get the context are bad at reading."
I've been hesitant to get involved in either this thread or the one on Havrilesky's piece, but the thing about this is that the history of literature goes on for centuries and the popular internet is what, thirty years old? When I was in high school I made it a third of the way through A Clockwork Orange, figuring out what things meant from context, before I overheard a classmate talking about how slow going it was, having to hit the glossary (that Burgess didn't want) in the back of the book all the time.
The ability to reach out so easily to a contemporary author is new, and the ability to use social media to brigade them with ignorance (either real or disingenuous and weaponized) in real time is newer still, basically a blip on that centuries-old timeline. I'm not sure it's incumbent on an author to lay out all the context for somebody who needs the help. Even though life isn't a college literature class, people still shouldn't be relying on the expectation that the author is just going to do their homework for them.
In the Costello & Nieve box set Elvis Costello riffs on this problem in the introduction to All This Useless Beauty:
posted by fedward at 1:28 PM on January 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
I've been hesitant to get involved in either this thread or the one on Havrilesky's piece, but the thing about this is that the history of literature goes on for centuries and the popular internet is what, thirty years old? When I was in high school I made it a third of the way through A Clockwork Orange, figuring out what things meant from context, before I overheard a classmate talking about how slow going it was, having to hit the glossary (that Burgess didn't want) in the back of the book all the time.
The ability to reach out so easily to a contemporary author is new, and the ability to use social media to brigade them with ignorance (either real or disingenuous and weaponized) in real time is newer still, basically a blip on that centuries-old timeline. I'm not sure it's incumbent on an author to lay out all the context for somebody who needs the help. Even though life isn't a college literature class, people still shouldn't be relying on the expectation that the author is just going to do their homework for them.
In the Costello & Nieve box set Elvis Costello riffs on this problem in the introduction to All This Useless Beauty:
The song's about many other things, but that's where it starts. You know, people are always asking, 'what does that song mean?' And if I could say it in other words, or in the song, I would have written another song, wouldn't I?Sometimes people just have to figure out for themselves what things mean, and maybe that means identifying gaps in their own knowledge and, y'know, filling them in. Sometimes art is a way of provoking those thoughts.
posted by fedward at 1:28 PM on January 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
But also I read "Ask Polly" back when it was at suck.com, I'm in the same age group and social cohort as Havrilesky and probably consumed a lot of the same media during our mutual formative years, I've been with my wife for eighteen years, and I sneeze with such force that the cats run away when I inhale (how the cats know the difference between a pre-sneeze inhalation and just a regular deep breath is a mystery). I needed neither additional context nor a literary degree to figure out that Heather Havrilesky does, in fact, love her husband. I am a poor judge of whether people who didn't like her piece do or don't suck at reading.
posted by fedward at 1:38 PM on January 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by fedward at 1:38 PM on January 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
Sometimes people just have to figure out for themselves what things mean, and maybe that means identifying gaps in their own knowledge and, y'know, filling them in. Sometimes art is a way of provoking those thoughts.
Also (and I say this as a writer and a Lit Major), limiting the discussion/understanding of the work to pure authorial intent takes away a lot of the fun of reading and talking about literature.
posted by thivaia at 1:41 PM on January 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Also (and I say this as a writer and a Lit Major), limiting the discussion/understanding of the work to pure authorial intent takes away a lot of the fun of reading and talking about literature.
posted by thivaia at 1:41 PM on January 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Artists should be distant gods that only interact with their audiences through their work.
To which add, chances are at least even that you wouldn't like the artist if you met them in person.
And vice versa, it occurs to me.
And they may or may not be helpful. I had professor once who told an anecdote about a reader's asking T.S.Eliot what a certain passage of his work meant. Eliot, whether puckish or weary or philosophic, replied that thus and such a critic thought it meant A, while such and thus thought it meant B.
The ability to reach out so easily to a contemporary author is new...
True, but if an author wants to be hard to get, they can be. An email address or equivalent on line is kind of an invitation. Back in the Olden Times, you had to write a real letter to the publisher.
For the most extreme example of the open author, I refer you to Winter 1945 edition of Partisan Review, in which George Orwell ends his regular London Letter with the comment: "I am always happy to meet with any reader of PR. I can generally be got at the offices of the Tribune, but failing that, my home number is CAN 3571".
(Partisan Review an American journal, but bear in mind that in Winter 1945, England was hosting a good number of US servicemen and others. You have to wonder how many took him at his word.)
posted by BWA at 1:41 PM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
To which add, chances are at least even that you wouldn't like the artist if you met them in person.
And vice versa, it occurs to me.
And they may or may not be helpful. I had professor once who told an anecdote about a reader's asking T.S.Eliot what a certain passage of his work meant. Eliot, whether puckish or weary or philosophic, replied that thus and such a critic thought it meant A, while such and thus thought it meant B.
The ability to reach out so easily to a contemporary author is new...
True, but if an author wants to be hard to get, they can be. An email address or equivalent on line is kind of an invitation. Back in the Olden Times, you had to write a real letter to the publisher.
For the most extreme example of the open author, I refer you to Winter 1945 edition of Partisan Review, in which George Orwell ends his regular London Letter with the comment: "I am always happy to meet with any reader of PR. I can generally be got at the offices of the Tribune, but failing that, my home number is CAN 3571".
(Partisan Review an American journal, but bear in mind that in Winter 1945, England was hosting a good number of US servicemen and others. You have to wonder how many took him at his word.)
posted by BWA at 1:41 PM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I did some online coaching in English Literature during the lockdown and I found that some people really struggle with verbal irony. The idea that a writer or speaker might say one thing but mean something else (e.g., "For Brutus is an honourable man"), does not occur naturally to them, and even when prompted, they struggle to formulate a hypothesis about the beliefs and situation of the speaker that would explain why they would not just come out and say what they mean. I have no particular theory about why some people find verbal irony difficult, I just observe it as a fact.
posted by cyanistes at 2:01 PM on January 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by cyanistes at 2:01 PM on January 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Ask vs Guess culture, maybe? Would it be possible to sort college students on askingness—guessing ness and then see what kind of literature they can read more easily?
posted by clew at 3:16 PM on January 10, 2022
posted by clew at 3:16 PM on January 10, 2022
I get a LOT of these requests because I do YA fiction. It's probably frustrating for the kids' teachers, but my answer to these questions is:
"I only write half the book. You write the other half when you read it. So whatever you think the answer to your question is-- you're correct."
Same answer for "what happens after the book?" e-mails or "What job/hobby/etc would X character have now?"
I'm accessible, yes, but I can't give anybody the part of the book I wrote. I already did. They have it now. And it's frustrating and embarrassing and taken a bit personally, when you're the kid whose author didn't respond.
Basically, I wish people wouldn't gamble with kids' feelings by giving this assignment.
posted by headspace at 3:25 PM on January 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
"I only write half the book. You write the other half when you read it. So whatever you think the answer to your question is-- you're correct."
Same answer for "what happens after the book?" e-mails or "What job/hobby/etc would X character have now?"
I'm accessible, yes, but I can't give anybody the part of the book I wrote. I already did. They have it now. And it's frustrating and embarrassing and taken a bit personally, when you're the kid whose author didn't respond.
Basically, I wish people wouldn't gamble with kids' feelings by giving this assignment.
posted by headspace at 3:25 PM on January 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
The Kate Harding essay is a bit... odd? I was following until her departure discussing the recent Havrilesky piece, which felt almost at cross-purposes. The author has stepped away and said all they will ever need to say... except that some works require the intervention of a random third-party authority (a comrade-in-arms of the author, from the same professional scene) to tell you that your reading was objectively wrong?
posted by dusty potato at 3:46 PM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by dusty potato at 3:46 PM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
My entire writing life has had me in more or less constant contact with at least some part of my reading audience, first as a journalist and now as a novelist who is active on social media (and who has a blog of close to a quarter-century of standing). I generally enjoy the contact, otherwise I wouldn't do it, but there are bits of it that aren't great, and I've had my share of people who have gone out of their way to be unpleasant, for reasons ranging from mental illness to envy to the fact that some people are just plain dicks.
The thing that I have found useful over the years in dealing with all of this is realizing that for nearly everyone who reads me, I am essentially a fictional character who lives in their head; their formulation of who I am is based on what I write and/or what others have written about me and/or what they may have seen of me, usually on the Internet but occasionally live. That person may or may not have a whole lot to do with the actual me, but short of me devoting substantial personal time to each and every one of them (which would leave me little time for people I actually like and care about, much less, you know, writing), it will have to do. Moreover, this fictional version of me is in a parasocial relationship with the reader; they know (or feel they know) me to some degree or another, whether positively or negatively, and this familiarity leaks into how they respond to me.
Knowing that I am, effectively, a fictional acquaintance has made it a lot easier in dealing with how people approach me, most obviously when they're being negative, but even when they're being positive (since the version of me they have in their brain is no less fictional even if they like that imaginary take on me). And part of my way of helping readers understand me is to make them aware that their version of me isn't real, and whether it's positive or negative, the actual version of me is going to be different, and more complicated, than they expect. I've been doing this long enough that I think it's sunk it at least a little with the people who follow me for any amount of time.
I don't generally mind when people pepper me with questions, although at this point I largely point them to FAQs that I've written up over the years, or keep the answers to tweet length. I'm also fine with people deciding that an essay or other piece I've written is an invitation to have a discussion with me about it, in part because I'm also fine with declining the invitation if I don't feel like participating. Because that's another thing I try to remind people of: My participation in any discussion is voluntary, and I'm happy to walk away at any point. Again, most people seem to get it.
posted by jscalzi at 7:57 PM on January 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
The thing that I have found useful over the years in dealing with all of this is realizing that for nearly everyone who reads me, I am essentially a fictional character who lives in their head; their formulation of who I am is based on what I write and/or what others have written about me and/or what they may have seen of me, usually on the Internet but occasionally live. That person may or may not have a whole lot to do with the actual me, but short of me devoting substantial personal time to each and every one of them (which would leave me little time for people I actually like and care about, much less, you know, writing), it will have to do. Moreover, this fictional version of me is in a parasocial relationship with the reader; they know (or feel they know) me to some degree or another, whether positively or negatively, and this familiarity leaks into how they respond to me.
Knowing that I am, effectively, a fictional acquaintance has made it a lot easier in dealing with how people approach me, most obviously when they're being negative, but even when they're being positive (since the version of me they have in their brain is no less fictional even if they like that imaginary take on me). And part of my way of helping readers understand me is to make them aware that their version of me isn't real, and whether it's positive or negative, the actual version of me is going to be different, and more complicated, than they expect. I've been doing this long enough that I think it's sunk it at least a little with the people who follow me for any amount of time.
I don't generally mind when people pepper me with questions, although at this point I largely point them to FAQs that I've written up over the years, or keep the answers to tweet length. I'm also fine with people deciding that an essay or other piece I've written is an invitation to have a discussion with me about it, in part because I'm also fine with declining the invitation if I don't feel like participating. Because that's another thing I try to remind people of: My participation in any discussion is voluntary, and I'm happy to walk away at any point. Again, most people seem to get it.
posted by jscalzi at 7:57 PM on January 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
A major issue in the US is how students are not taught constructive and/or critical thinking skills. Technology encourages skim reading and picking up salient pieces of information that are often taken out of context and deemed true/fact. America is listed 22nd in reading levels. See here. With literacy levels they scrape in at 15th. See here.
Many colleges still find that they need remedial classes to teach spelling/grammar/writing skills. The enforcement of any spelling or grammar rules is deemed by many to be 'elitist'. Equally is the ability to present a balanced point of view in a manner understood by the broadest spectrum of people. Add into this mix the inability to focus on a subject for an extended period.
A writer writes and having written moves on... for people to believe that an author is able to recall a passage from a book written x years ago is naive. Nor may they even give a damn about the why and wherefore of a characters specific behavior. The role of the writer is to present a series of words in a manner which a reader will enjoy or which transmits through the written word a specific message/information. Part of that joy is triggering the synapses to think beyond the words and let the mind paint a picture. Whether fact or fiction, words are useless if the person reading them simply does not have the ability to understand how and why they are used. As the writer opened their essay "Not every piece of short nonfiction writing is an opinion piece, crafted to advance a particular argument.".
Any writer is not writing specifically to and for you and your reading of a specific sequence of words does not give you permission or authority to connect with them. Get over it and just enjoy the words.
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 8:05 PM on January 10, 2022
Many colleges still find that they need remedial classes to teach spelling/grammar/writing skills. The enforcement of any spelling or grammar rules is deemed by many to be 'elitist'. Equally is the ability to present a balanced point of view in a manner understood by the broadest spectrum of people. Add into this mix the inability to focus on a subject for an extended period.
A writer writes and having written moves on... for people to believe that an author is able to recall a passage from a book written x years ago is naive. Nor may they even give a damn about the why and wherefore of a characters specific behavior. The role of the writer is to present a series of words in a manner which a reader will enjoy or which transmits through the written word a specific message/information. Part of that joy is triggering the synapses to think beyond the words and let the mind paint a picture. Whether fact or fiction, words are useless if the person reading them simply does not have the ability to understand how and why they are used. As the writer opened their essay "Not every piece of short nonfiction writing is an opinion piece, crafted to advance a particular argument.".
Any writer is not writing specifically to and for you and your reading of a specific sequence of words does not give you permission or authority to connect with them. Get over it and just enjoy the words.
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 8:05 PM on January 10, 2022
The author is not really saying there is only one way to read or interpret but for people to please stop being so literal and also to think more before engaging and whether they even should.
posted by blue shadows at 10:49 PM on January 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by blue shadows at 10:49 PM on January 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
I did some online coaching in English Literature during the lockdown and I found that some people really struggle with verbal irony. The idea that a writer or speaker might say one thing but mean something else (e.g., "For Brutus is an honourable man"), does not occur naturally to them...
If this extends beyond reading literature, such people would struggle in any British workplace I know of. I can understand not quite having picked up the motivations of a character but I've rarely come across the complete inability to get it at all (except in literature/tv/film). Very interesting.
posted by plonkee at 4:05 AM on January 11, 2022
If this extends beyond reading literature, such people would struggle in any British workplace I know of. I can understand not quite having picked up the motivations of a character but I've rarely come across the complete inability to get it at all (except in literature/tv/film). Very interesting.
posted by plonkee at 4:05 AM on January 11, 2022
The internet is bad at reading, based on an essay by a writer who takes four fscking paragraphs to get to the point, condescening all the time.
Honey no, you're bad at writing.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:47 AM on January 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Honey no, you're bad at writing.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:47 AM on January 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
"I really would like to be able to explain, but the film ends up being the explanation." -- David Lynch
posted by Acey at 1:35 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Acey at 1:35 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm a visual artist, somewhere on the spectrum of surrealism / symbolism. I really don't like it when people ask me 'what does it mean?' That's literally the point of experiencing art: figuring out what it means to you. I could be painting something inspired by my relationship to nature and what that feels like to me, but maybe you see a connection to how you feel about your weird ex-boyfriend or a bonding moment you had with your dad. I did the thing, now it's your turn to have it as an experience for yourself. I sometimes think an artist's intention is important to know for very abstract work, if the artist thinks it's important to convey that to an audience, but I don't like this idea that an artist owes the viewer / reader a conversation unless the artist initiates it.
posted by ananci at 3:38 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ananci at 3:38 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
The author is not really saying there is only one way to read or interpret but for people to please stop being so literal and also to think more before engaging and whether they even should.
For sure. But I think Harding is assuming an extremely low level of sophistication on the part of people who read Havrilesky's piece differently. Nobody (I hope) read that piece and took it at complete face value; it's obviously intended to be some sort of self-effacing look at the ambivalence of marriage. But many people (like myself) came away with the critical sense that the author was not as self-aware as she positioned herself to be, and that the satire was underpinned with genuine misery. I can imagine the same piece being written in a way that does suggest the author actually loves their partner, but for me, that one wasn't it. So honestly, I would say Harding is the one being too literal, or maybe too faithful to the author, in insisting that the thing the author tries to say is the thing that ends up said.
posted by dusty potato at 3:52 PM on January 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
For sure. But I think Harding is assuming an extremely low level of sophistication on the part of people who read Havrilesky's piece differently. Nobody (I hope) read that piece and took it at complete face value; it's obviously intended to be some sort of self-effacing look at the ambivalence of marriage. But many people (like myself) came away with the critical sense that the author was not as self-aware as she positioned herself to be, and that the satire was underpinned with genuine misery. I can imagine the same piece being written in a way that does suggest the author actually loves their partner, but for me, that one wasn't it. So honestly, I would say Harding is the one being too literal, or maybe too faithful to the author, in insisting that the thing the author tries to say is the thing that ends up said.
posted by dusty potato at 3:52 PM on January 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Neal Stephenson's website has featured "Why I am a bad correspondent" for as long as I've known that he had a website. Which is about as long as there have been websites, AFAICR.
posted by adekllny at 10:37 AM on January 13, 2022
posted by adekllny at 10:37 AM on January 13, 2022
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I’m still chagrined three decades later, and now only ask authors those sorts of questions if they are at a Q&A session or if I know them personally.
(My favorite Q&A: I asked a friend about the deeper meaning of a obscure, self-referential in-joke/meme SEAHORSES4EVA in her novel and got the reply that her boyfriend at the time had inserted it into her manuscript without her knowledge, and it had been missed throughout the proofing and galley stages.)
posted by infinitewindow at 10:15 AM on January 10, 2022