Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (09/07/89)
Really-From: microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net This note got eaten by my computer a while ago, and I didn't know it was still on the machine so I could try it again. Here goes... I have an amusing story about intention verses interpretation, dating back to my Freshman Honors English class. All through the semester I had been writing my honest interpretations of the books and the authors' intentions. I was getting mainly B and C grades (I hope those terms don't confuse non-U.S. readers), even though I was writing fairly well in both content and writing quality. I got tired of those kind of grades, and decided to try an experiment (not #4). The professor often highlighted Biblical (mainly Christian) and Freudian interpretations of the books we studied, some of which were probably intended, but many of which I found very questionable. My experiment was to try to apply those type of interpretations to a book which I saw no such interpretations, and believed the author had no such intentions either. The book we were reading at the time was _Being There_, by Jerzy Kozinski (I may well be misspelling his name), which was also adapted into a great Peter Sellers movie. First I read the book with the primary intention of enjoying it, and the secondary intention of keeping up with discussions of it in class, rather than the literature student's usual intention of interpreting a book. Later I simply paged through it at random, and read from the point that I opened the book until I came across something that I could warp into either a reference to the Bible or Freud. The main theme in my paper were that to Chance (the main character), television (the book's main theme) was God. I forget what my main Freud theme was, but I had a lot of ``evidence'' there too. I just kept searching for stuff until I had the volume of material I needed to write a paper of the expected length. My bogus evidence was voluminous enough that I almost convinced myself! The professor received the paper extremely well. She gave me a heavily weighted A on it, and used it as one of the examples in discussion. I ended up getting a B+ in the class because the paper was the last major project in the class, weighed heavily in the grade, and showed lots of ``improvement'' over my previous work in the class. I was proud of the good grades I got from that project. I was proud also of figuring out what it took to get good grades in that class. I was however somewhat disillusioned to find that honest opinions and my writing and interpretation ability didn't matter so much as my ability to write for the intended reader. Looking back, I value that class quite highly. Not because it taught me anything about literature, but because it taught me an important art in writing, the art of writing for a specific audience. Depending on the context, that art can be either ``readability'' or ``bullshitting''. I also got a nice story to tell about school from that class. Steve Schonberger microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net "Working under pressure is the sugar that we crave" P.S. Can anyone identify my signature quotation before I reveal it? (I've already revealed it to some people.)
Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (09/09/89)
Really-From: tracyr@uunet.uu.net (jane smallberries) In article <8909072221.AA12741@uunet.uu.net> microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.netove-Hounds@GAFFA.MIT.EDU writes: > > > Steve Schonberger microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net > "Working under pressure is the sugar that we crave" > >P.S. Can anyone identify my signature quotation before I reveal it? > annabel lamb, ofcourse. really, steve, do you underestimate us so? -tracy uunet!sco!tracyr, tracyr@sco.com
Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (09/09/89)
Really-From: Grey@apple.com (Laura Grey) In article <8909072221.AA12741@uunet.uu.net> Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU writes: > The professor often highlighted Biblical (mainly Christian) > and Freudian interpretations of the books we studied, some of which > were probably intended, but many of which I found very questionable. My > experiment was to try to apply those type of interpretations to a book > which I saw no such interpretations, and believed the author had no such > intentions either. > > The book we were reading at the time was _Being There_, by Jerzy > Kozinski (I may well be misspelling his name), which was also adapted > into a great Peter Sellers movie. First I read the book with the > primary intention of enjoying it, and the secondary intention of > keeping up with discussions of it in class, rather than the literature > student's usual intention of interpreting a book. Later I simply paged > through it at random, and read from the point that I opened the book > until I came across something that I could warp into either a reference > to the Bible or Freud. I, too, have had profs who want you to regurgitate instead of use your mind, and I know what it's like to have a prof who's fixated on something to the point where he or she sees the favorite theme being mirrored in every book, painting, song or thought. (I had one who saw either the Virgin Mary or existentialism in everything. Sartre and saints--what a combo!) However, I do find it funny that you should feel that you had to make up religious symbolism in "Being There," since you and your prof aren't the first to find the many references to religion in it. The most glaring example can be seen at the end of the movie version, when Chance literally walks on water. (To make the message as clear as possible, he even plunges his umbrella into the water, watching it disappear below the surface while he stays afloat.) The idea that the world is so hungry to see what it wants that it makes a messiah out of a mentally retarded man has appeared in many reviews of the book and of the movie. So although you may have been clever enough to make up lots of connections that you didn't really see, Jerzy Kozinski seems to have been clever enough to write a novel in which many others did see the religious allusions. Hey, let's drag Freud into this while we're at it: the doctor would probably say that your subconscious DID see the religious significance. Hmm, why don't you just lie down on this couch here and tell me about your childhood . . . . -Laura Grey : ) _____ Potential senders: I can view the net and post to it, but I can't receive mail. (But thanks for the thought!) And as Anne Elks says, "This theory that I have is mine." My comments don't reflect the opinions of Apple Computer or anybody else--just me.
Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (09/09/89)
Really-From: henrik@eddie.MIT.EDU (Larry DeLuca @ The Bandykin Server)
I guess I've been luckier than most, as I haven't really encountered the
*this* is the interpretation attitude.
Another thing that I'd found helped a lot of time spent
directing (which I used to do a fair amount). The approach to
plays from the literary standpoint is (at least the way I have been
trained and my own personal philosophy has developed around) a much
more subjective thing. While one acknowledges that the author probably
had an intent, and that it is the director's job to ferret that intent
out (like a good detective), a specific interpretation is not so important
as a consistent, well-thought-out one. Much of this is also most likely
because theater is such a collaborative art (between the author, the
director, the designers, the actors, etc.), and the script is really
the skeleton that is fleshed out by the rest of the company.
It is indeed a rare and special treat to actually have the author
present and accounted-for - from what I know of professional theater
they generally sit in the back tearing their hair out quietly over
what's been done to their play, but working in an amateur setting I
have found their interpretations, intentions, and interpretations of
my interpretations to be quite revealing and useful indeed.
I am often what I consider to be somewhat conservative in my intepretation
of the director's role in the theater - regarding |>oug's and IED's
discussion - I think the author's intent carries a *LOT* of weight,
and do wish I could find out more often what it *really* was ("Hey,
Bill, like, why did you name him Coriolanus and not Fred?"). You
do have the advantage, though, that their work is just a starting
point, unlike listening to another artist's finished album, which is
much more of an end in itself (unless you decide to cover a few tunes
from it).
larry...