Writers and Readers as Collaborators

Long before the controversial heyday of reader response criticism in the eighties,  I stumbled upon a variation of this idea in 1963.  I turned in a paper on George Eliot's Adam Bede to Dr. Mary Burton, our primary 19th century scholar at the University of Louisville, and received a B+. Her complaint about my paper was that I was too kind in my evaluation of Arthur Dunnithorne, the seducer of Hetty Sorrel.  Now I have never been an admirer or defender of seducers, but I felt that Dunnithorne showed ample penitence for his sin by trying to help Hetty. I was a bit confused by my professor's comment.. Of course, those were the high water mark days of the New Criticism and the idea that a complex work of literature could not be reduced to a moral or simple statement,. yet so often works of literature were analysed as though they were mathematical problems to be solved so that everyone got the same view of a character or action.  I must say that  Dr. Burton did not teach me the novel; I choose it for my term paper. But we disagreed about how one of the major characters ought to be judged. She felt him irreparable; I thought he had redeeming characteristics. (I must also mention that I haven't reread the novel; perhaps if I did so, I would agree with Dr. Burton.)  Hence, we were both allowing our subjective views  to color our understanding of a major character. It seemed to me then that neither one of us could be "proved" wrong. Our sensibilities reacted with and modified in different ways Eliot's portrayal of a character. Hence, each of us in a way was a co-creator with George Eliot. I believed thereafter in this view that situations and characters in novels could be ambiguous, and that readers could been given some leeway in their interpretations. Of course, this view cannot be applied to all characters and all novels.  Some characters are nearly 100% evil, like the Harpe brothers in my Wilderness of Tigers,  Francis Edward Sweeney, the mad butcher in my historicalEliot Ness novel Trickster, and the psychopathic country prosecutor in The Fall of the House of Spade, just to point out that I have created characters who are overwhelmingly evil and shouldn't be applauded by a sane person.. Still, most of my characters are mixtures of good and evil who can be understood in different ways by different readers. The course of action Earl Hollo, my detective, takes in No Marriages in Heaven could create different reactions in different readers. I might point out that I do not believe that all  literary interpretations are equally valid, but this is a very complex matter that perhaps I'll touch on some other day.

What to Work on Next?

A question that has my brain spinning slowly, but still slowly.  I still have a number of books in my head, but I don't know how many years I have left to complete them.  I have been planning three books on Elizabethan literature--my academic specialty--and a book on the nature of God, defending Christianity. I've been working on these for years, adding a bit to them each year.  Since more research is required for such books than for fiction, these take me longer to work on.  Besides, writing fiction is more fun  and I give more time to it.. Moreover, I'd like to write an introductory book on Shakespeare for the general reader. Of course, a number of these are out, but I'd like to do one just for the fun of doing so and to share some of my knowledge about my lifelong specialty.  Moreover, I have several novels written in long hand before computer days that I would still like to publish, as well as several unwritten ones in my head.  I spent the winter adding to my planned nonfiction works.  I plan continuing to do so through the spring, but also want to resurrect one of my early completed novels from the early sixties.  Sometimes I wish I could had a machine that would allow me to slip periodically into another dimension where time did not exist, so I could get all these planned works done.

On rereading Euripides' Suppliant Women

Last week I reread Euripdes’ Suppliant Women,  generally not considered one of his better plays, but an effective one. Like many of his dramas it is fiercely antiwar.  I cannot help remembering Kurt Vonnegut’s quip in Slaughter House Five:  That writing an antiwar novel is like writing an anti-iceberg novel. Euripides fiercely wrote against the Peloponnesian War in his plays. Yet Athens was defested and its democracy suspended temporarily,

More About Ambiguous Writings

During the summer of 1960 I stumbled upon the type of literature I like best. In those days I was an avid reader of modern drama.  I was a bit put off by much of the drama of the 1930s since during the Depression much writing was valued for its social significance; or message—an underlying thesis supposedly showing how to reorganize society. Always a more of an art for art’s sakest, I felt that the work of art itself should be valued for itself rather than whatever message one could extract from it. (Hence, I was pleased to find support from T. S. Eliot and the New Critics—as they were called at the time and later—John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, and company.  One afternoon I was reading Arthur Miller’s play ALL MY SONS.  The basic plot follows. Joe Keller, a successful businessman, a manufacturer of air plane parts, is hosting a backyard barbecue shortly after World War Two.  During the afternoon we learn that Keller’s firm accidentally produced a series of defective parts.  Fearful of the company’s financial loss, Keller hastily decided to send them on to the government. The possibility is made known that the defective mechanisms caused the crashes of several planes and the deaths of several pilots, very likely including that of Larry, one of Keller’s two sons.  Chris, the idealistic second son, becomes aware of his father’s malefaction and demands that Joe Keller turn himself into the police and threatens to report his father if the latter will not do so.  The upshot is that Joe Keller, unable to face the disgrace  and a prison sentence, shoots himself in the head. Chris is horrified at what his noble intentions have caused. The play astounded me. Here was more than a simple disguised treatise on the evils of wealthy businessmen. (And indeed some should be condemned). But here was a play showing that life is complex, complicated—that we are all subject to what has now become called the law of unintended consequences.  Today we commonly demonize those who disagree with us, but Miller portrays Keller with some sympathy.  At the conclusion Keller’s wife urges Chris to forget what happened and live. But, having unintentionally caused his father’s suicide, how can he? The play stunned, excited, and overwhelmed me.  It showed me that life is more complex than I had suspected. Ever since I have generally preferred this type of writing rather than that which sought to promote a specific religious or political doctrine.

Ambiguous Endings

            I mentioned on Face Book some time back that MUIRSHEEN DURKIN has two distinct conclusions. The situation is not that of giving the reader a choice of either one ending or the other. Both “occur.”  How I do this, you’ll have to read the book to find out. But I give the reader a choice as to which ending presents the more realistic view of human existence. I’ve long been intrigued by writings that leave something open ended as far as a thematic conclusion. I don’t care for underlying one-sided messages.  Like Keats, I don’t like a writer who has a design on me, (Not exact quote); that is, seeks to convert me to a certain cause or to make me accept a certain message.)  For me the best writings are open-ended enough to allow the readers to make up their own conclusions in so far as judging the situation. I certainly don’t have all the answers to life’s problems. For me the best writing points to the uncertainly of our knowledge

At last

I have finally received copies of my detective novel NO MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN.  It is available on AMAZON. Within a few days I shall begin selling copies from my website.