Good News Friday

[handful_ofdust]

First off, in this amazing Book Smugglers entry, I get on somebody's Christmas recommendations list. Since there's only two other entries, that's particularly chuffing...oh, and I guess and the review's pretty good as well, what with comparing my writing to opium and aphrodisiacs, and all.;) Find it here (http://thebooksmugglers.com/2010/12/smugglivus-2010-guest-blogger-harry-of-temple-library-reviews.html).

In other news, I've also been nominated for a DarkScribe Black Quill award in the Small Press Chill category, here (http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/4th-annual-bqa-nominees/2010/12/2/and-the-nominees-are.html). Note fellow CZPer and generally great-ass writer P.G. Tremblay being similarly represented, in the collection category! We publish good book, people.

Otherwise, I'm still blazing my way through Avatar: The Last Airbender (I'm now on Disc One of Fire), and feeling...okay, if not spectacular. Sort of sweaty and odd, but blessedly awake, even after getting up at 5:00 A.M. because my back was hurting. I've done a bunch of chores and am still making lists. Picked up The Velvet Vampire yesterday. Oh, and I'm feeling a bit bad about having apparently "made" various people see Centurion, especially after their reviews proved so negative, but eh (shrugs): To each their own. It's always possible I see things in stuff that other people don't see, and vice versa--for example, I really do not think the undercurrent of the film is "oh noes, the poor Romans, getting fucked over by those lousy Picts [just because they fucked them over first]! Those blue-painted meanies!" Still--can't prove it one way or the other, unless we call up Neil Marshall...and as I recall, in this SJ-jargon-inflected world, authorial intent does't matter anyhow, so maybe even that wouldn't necessarily help.;))

Now it's off to Flickr, to upload some new Cal photos. And man, now that Rope's in bed, I absolutely do need to start updating Music at Midnight again; May's on its way, after all. Like everything.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Don't feel bad about making *me* see Centurion (I haven't posted about it, but I did mention in passing in my discussion of Iron Man 2 that I hadn't liked it). I was glad for the chance, and it was interesting for me cinematographically, because I saw it with my brother-in-law, who's in media, and he was able to explain to me about the technique they used when filming the battle scenes (which I thought was pretty cool and was then able to see a little of in, frex, Iron Man 2. Not all tastes mesh; I've liked most things you've recommended a whole lot.

whoops, oh, and

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

--LOL, such a self-centered response on my part. Sorry about that. I completely neglected to congratulate you on your nomination.

Congratulations!

Re: whoops, oh, and

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Hey, no problem! I didn't take it that way at all, and thanks.;)

[kmarkhoover.livejournal.com]

congrats on the nomination!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the nomination!

On the rest... I actually don't think authorial intent matters much, tbh. Readers/viewers get what they get out of stuff, and I don't think they ought to change their minds just because the creator meant something else by it.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I just have a problem with that whole concept, generally. You can indeed interpret anything any way you want, but taking the author to task for saying things they are not actually saying--not even just "things they don't know they're saying", which is a bit more defensible, though they should also have the opportunity to debate where or not that's true, either--is, to my mind, problematic at best.

I remember being told once--in "Sent Down", the story that reminded me of Centurion, actually--that because I'd made a guy who at one point commits rape the protagonist/POV character of the narrative, I was obviously privileging rapists over rape victims and/or saying rape was okay. As opposed to what I was actually saying, which was: "Perhaps you want to like this guy because he's the main character and you're seeing everything through his eyes, but guess what? His POV is fairly alien, and the mistakes he makes because of it will be on his own head." I don't know how you could make it to the end of that story and go: "Hey, and you know what was a real good idea? Raping that girl! And also coming to Britain, in the first place. Ave, y'all!"; you'd have to have some pretty massive blinkers on, let's put it that way.

And why do I get to say that? Because I wrote the story, so if you tell me I was just writing a stealth version of Gladiator and somehow didn't know it ('cause I'm just dumb, and shit), I'm sorry--I'm going to have to correct you on that one, on the plain and simple basis that you are wrong.

So yes, I privilege the creator over the critic; always have, always will. The "author is dead" theory is just B.S., in my book...most especially so if, in fact, they are not.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Taking the author to task over something is indeed tricky and maybe shouldn't even happen - did someone actually tell you that directly, or did they write that in a review?

Of course the author also has the right to correct people who are wrong about their intent - it would be ridiculous if the author didn't have the right to say something about their own work. And obviously the author is a better judge of what their own intent was than Anonymous Reader.

I would have a problem with what you're describing in re: "Sent Down," too - but I've also been on the other end, as a reader that, say, read something that I saw as offensive/racist/sexist. And although I wouldn't send the author an email about it or necessarily accuse the author of being a bad person, I would say to myself that it was whatever I thought it was. Just because the author doesn't mean it that way doesn't mean it didn't come out that way (execution matters, after all). It also doesn't make me automatically right (I could just be lazy, or I could have baggage). It just makes that the impression that the work gave me.

There are many stupid readers out there who misinterpret things on a regular basis, and I understand that misinterpretation sucks. I guess what I mean by saying authorial intent doesn't matter is that I don't think it's going to make any difference for these readers if a writer says "but that's not what I was doing at all." And that's kind of the whole gamble of exposing creations to people, is that they might respond to these creations in ways you do not want them to.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Absolutely true. And yet it can so very easily degenerate into a back-and-forth of: "Well, I didn't read it that way, because you're a bad writer"; "No, you didn't read it that way because you're a bad reader", with thev alues of "bad" being A) technically incompetent vs. B) infected with baggage that causes you to see things that aren't inherent in the material. Which is why I mainly try to stay out of it now...though obviously, I don't don't always succeed.;)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and those conversations are pretty impossible to resolve, especially when ultra-emotional things like race and rape, etc. are involved.

I think we generally agree on this, I'm just not as ballsy as you, and I don't want to confront people about it. I also haven't had that kind of thing happen to me yet, so who knows how I will respond at that juncture.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Also, I applaud you for having the stones to write that kind of story. I think people have a gut-reaction to any instance of rape in fiction that makes it extremely difficult to get a story like that out and into people's brains as you intend it. I'm still debating whether or not to take that path with my novel's protagonist (and believe me when I say it would be worse than what I gather you did with "Sent Down") - I really feel the need to because I'm trying to make a point that I think is important - but I also know it's the kind of thing that many people just will not tolerate. I mean, I feel like I would be shooting myself in the foot in re: readership. Or even publication.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I could always send you the story and you could say how you saw it, I guess...I mean, it goes by pretty quick, and it's not like watching Irreversible, or anything. More an institutional facet of Roman occupation, than anything else. But I will say that one way or the other, it didn't stop me from getting published; I placed it the first time I sent it out.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

It isn't something that gets my hackles up in general (obviously - although I don't think I could handle Irreversible, b/c visuals affect me more) so I doubt I would react badly. But I'm always happy to read anything you've written.

And that is good to know, about the publication.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

It's been a few years since I read it, but there was also some implication, at least in my reading, that the priestess and her goddess had allowed the rape in order to lure the protagonist into their trap (which is pretty much in character for the gods); but then I'm also twistedly optimistic/romantic enough to read his eventual fate as a fortunate one.

[baggyeyes]

I wouldn't mind misinterpretation - it would give me a different pov of my stuff, but this:
obviously privileging rapists over rape victims and/or saying rape was okay..
Is putting something into someone's heart and head, not the text. That is not only stupid, but wrong. That's the damn labelling I get so riled up over.

>.

[sovay]

I've also been nominated for a DarkScribe Black Quill award in the Small Press Chill category

That's cool!

[baggyeyes]

Yes! That is cool! Man, I'm foggy. Sorry for neglecting that, Gemma.