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conuly
Gee, lots of thoughts today.
My feeling on books, and stories, is that they exist in a way independantly of their creators and tellers. I don't think much of "well, the author's wishes are..." because, in my mind, stories belong to the people reading them. Words on a page are just words on a page. Words in your head, now... then you have this story that blends with all your memories, and all your ideas, and all your feelings - it can't help but change from whatever the author was thinking when s/he wrote it.
Way back in high school, I remember reading about an oppressive Chinese dynasty. The Emperor had ordered thousands of scholars killed, and their works destroyed. Some of the scholars buried their books in order to save them.
When I read this story, I didn't feel too bad on the part of the scholars - they'd be dead by now anyway, right? - but I was very upset to hear about the writings. Destroying books? How low can you sink! It is literally a nauseating thought, to destroy a book.
Around the same time, I read Fahrenheit 451. I'm sure you remember the ending - he's going around with his group, and they all have bits and pieces of books memorized, brought to the place safe inside their heads where they couldn't be destroyed.
Except that words on a page stay still. Words in your head, they have to change. You misremember a word here, you exaggerate this story there, you alter the language to fit your rhymes, your understandings. Even if you're determined to keep things word for word the same, your own mind will betray you. The story will force itself to change.
Languages are living things, after a fashion. When a language stops changing, we call it dead. The speakers of a language bend it and turn it to suit their own needs.
When we do that to a story, we're stretching it to fit our minds, turning it for how ever many people need to read it. That's not bad, or wrong. That's what stories are for. Words have to change.
I remember reading that Shakespeare's plays over the years were performed in the vernacular. Now, they're high art, and so we can only read them in the original. That's all well and good, but very few people can begin to understand that dialect. Maybe Shakespeare would have prefered his plays to be performed exactly as written (after his death, no less), but I suspect he'd rather have them understood. If I read a story, and understand it, but the author says I understood it wrong, why should I believe that? I know what goes on in my mind, and I'm the one reading it.
This is such a ramble, and again, I apologise. Lots of thoughts, not enough words.
My feeling on books, and stories, is that they exist in a way independantly of their creators and tellers. I don't think much of "well, the author's wishes are..." because, in my mind, stories belong to the people reading them. Words on a page are just words on a page. Words in your head, now... then you have this story that blends with all your memories, and all your ideas, and all your feelings - it can't help but change from whatever the author was thinking when s/he wrote it.
Way back in high school, I remember reading about an oppressive Chinese dynasty. The Emperor had ordered thousands of scholars killed, and their works destroyed. Some of the scholars buried their books in order to save them.
When I read this story, I didn't feel too bad on the part of the scholars - they'd be dead by now anyway, right? - but I was very upset to hear about the writings. Destroying books? How low can you sink! It is literally a nauseating thought, to destroy a book.
Around the same time, I read Fahrenheit 451. I'm sure you remember the ending - he's going around with his group, and they all have bits and pieces of books memorized, brought to the place safe inside their heads where they couldn't be destroyed.
Except that words on a page stay still. Words in your head, they have to change. You misremember a word here, you exaggerate this story there, you alter the language to fit your rhymes, your understandings. Even if you're determined to keep things word for word the same, your own mind will betray you. The story will force itself to change.
Languages are living things, after a fashion. When a language stops changing, we call it dead. The speakers of a language bend it and turn it to suit their own needs.
When we do that to a story, we're stretching it to fit our minds, turning it for how ever many people need to read it. That's not bad, or wrong. That's what stories are for. Words have to change.
I remember reading that Shakespeare's plays over the years were performed in the vernacular. Now, they're high art, and so we can only read them in the original. That's all well and good, but very few people can begin to understand that dialect. Maybe Shakespeare would have prefered his plays to be performed exactly as written (after his death, no less), but I suspect he'd rather have them understood. If I read a story, and understand it, but the author says I understood it wrong, why should I believe that? I know what goes on in my mind, and I'm the one reading it.
This is such a ramble, and again, I apologise. Lots of thoughts, not enough words.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 07:27 am (UTC)I asked a few others, and all the professionals that I asked, agreed.
I don't see how a published non-play would be any different, but I do see how a non-playwriter might be completely unaware of the power of that dynamic and might have an idea that he or she 'controls' those characters, and that what he or she thought of as the interpretation was The One True One.
Even among playwrights, one of the most famous (Samuel Beckett) thought that way. He was a control freak from hell and would be horrified at the idea of community theaters mangling hos precious plays.
It's late. I'm rambling in your journal. Forgive me. I'm going to bed now.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 01:54 pm (UTC)and many artists are a little obsessive.
hard to sustain such commitment for so long otherwise.
some do let their babies go free.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 07:44 am (UTC)"Boil that dust-speck! Boil that dust-speck! . . ."
:-D
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 01:50 pm (UTC)no author can control how you read or interpret their work.
the best one's not only don't want to try, they're fascinated by what the reader does with the story.
it's generally not the author who gets pissy about fan-fic, but the publisher - who's almost always the one making the real money off the copyright.
the destruction of books is a visceral pain to me. even the shitty ones. though there are a few books around that i wish had been rewritten in the vernacular a little more frequently, and others that never survive the experience/torture. [i agree with you re billy wagglestick. almost impenetrable in elizabethan english.]
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 07:27 am (UTC)I asked a few others, and all the professionals that I asked, agreed.
I don't see how a published non-play would be any different, but I do see how a non-playwriter might be completely unaware of the power of that dynamic and might have an idea that he or she 'controls' those characters, and that what he or she thought of as the interpretation was The One True One.
Even among playwrights, one of the most famous (Samuel Beckett) thought that way. He was a control freak from hell and would be horrified at the idea of community theaters mangling hos precious plays.
It's late. I'm rambling in your journal. Forgive me. I'm going to bed now.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 01:54 pm (UTC)and many artists are a little obsessive.
hard to sustain such commitment for so long otherwise.
some do let their babies go free.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 07:44 am (UTC)"Boil that dust-speck! Boil that dust-speck! . . ."
:-D
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 01:50 pm (UTC)no author can control how you read or interpret their work.
the best one's not only don't want to try, they're fascinated by what the reader does with the story.
it's generally not the author who gets pissy about fan-fic, but the publisher - who's almost always the one making the real money off the copyright.
the destruction of books is a visceral pain to me. even the shitty ones. though there are a few books around that i wish had been rewritten in the vernacular a little more frequently, and others that never survive the experience/torture. [i agree with you re billy wagglestick. almost impenetrable in elizabethan english.]
no subject
Date: 2005-08-08 08:05 pm (UTC)