conuly

I have this wierd problem with most literary interpretation: namely that I can't really do it. I'm very unwilling to "read into" things, because it just seems too much like pretending guesswork is really facts.

I like to read what authors say about their own work, because then I feel I have a bit more to go on. Like JKR explicitly said in one of her interviews that Lupin's lycanthropy is supposed to be a metaphor for illness and disability. But an awful lot of people have assumed that it's a metaphor for homosexuality. I have a hard time assuming stuff like that, precisely because I figure I can never really know what's going on in an author's mind.

I have the feeling this carries over into my relationships with other people sometimes as well. Like I see the signs. but I'll refuse to interpret them because there's just too many different meanings they could have. Though I think I'm getting better, largely because there seems to be some standard interpretations for some things.