I'm really not a big fan of these kinds of interpretations. When you find a good book, it's like coming across a field of naturally growing fruits. The fruit is sweet, nourishing, and good for...
I'm really not a big fan of these kinds of interpretations.
When you find a good book, it's like coming across a field of naturally growing fruits. The fruit is sweet, nourishing, and good for your health. When you're done visiting the field you are better off than when you first started. These interpretations are like finding that same field and digging it up until you find clay which you can turn it into whatever you want it to be. Of course the things they make out of that clay have a utility all of their own, but the act is detramental to the plants that were there and you have lost some of the value that was there.
Of course, either method has value, but because they are fundamentally different kinds of value, the value you personally attribute to them is completely subjective. And of course, I'll admit that there are works where I've found the analytical approach is superior to taking in the work at face value. There are of course works that are written specifically to be read that way. But I think Alice in Wonderland is one of those books that are better when you take it for what it is.
Critical readings and re-contextualisations such as some of those mentioned in the article in no small part exist to try and find the "what" in the "what it is" that you speak of. You say take...
Critical readings and re-contextualisations such as some of those mentioned in the article in no small part exist to try and find the "what" in the "what it is" that you speak of. You say take Alice for what it is and OK let's do that - but what is it? Is it a series of religious allegories? Unlikely, but possible. Is it a primer on logic and mathematics? You can make a more convincing case for that, certainly. Is it carefully crafted apparent nonsense that hides important life lessons? Is it all of those things, and more, and less, depending on who is reading and when and how? When I read Alice as a child it was different to when I read Alice at school, different again when I studied it at university, different once more when I read it as a parent. Texts aren't, despite their appearance of unmoving letters on a page, static things, because they exist in the mind of the reader as well as shapes on paper. And the mind of the reader exists in a constantly shifting societal context too, which the text is also swimming in (and has it's own from the time of it's creation).
Your analogy of a field doesn't really hold up because unlike in reality, the text's fruits still exist and are equally as delicious (if not sometimes more so) once the field has been dug and it's foundations explored as well. Think of it perhaps as a form of terroir, if we're going to strain the horticultural metaphor perhaps a little too far. The fruit was only the part you could see on the surface, but the clay was also there all along as well, and was just as important in bringing forth that delicious nutrition. Sweet nutrition which isn't growing there naturally, those fruits were created by meticulous thought and deliberate action by the author. Alice didn't just spring from nothing and no-one, a pure tasty story with nothing more to it.
Also while yes, critical readings are to some extent necessarily subjective, you won't get far by just making up any random stuff you fancy from that clay without a convincing justification from the text and the history that goes with it.
I was aware of all of that as I was writing my comment. I've spent a lot of time studying literature. To be clear, I'm not against analysis. I'm just saying that analysis has limits when it comes...
I was aware of all of that as I was writing my comment. I've spent a lot of time studying literature.
To be clear, I'm not against analysis. I'm just saying that analysis has limits when it comes to fiction, and can be detrimental to your experience of a work. Ideas have a saturation point; if a work can mean anything, in a way it doesn't mean anything. Disturbing the soil doesn't necessarily mean distroying the fruit, and you're right that it could end up making the fruit sweeter, but it could also make them less sweet. Or the flavors can be changed in a way that you don't like.
Boy is this metaphor overextended.
As it so happens, my favorite book is Shardik by Richard Adams. It's a fantasy novel about a bear that is discovered washed up on an island. The island people believe the bear is a reincarnation of their God, and they are so empowered that they rise up and fight a war against the seat of an empire; they win and in doing so take over the whole thing. The thing about the bear is that it doesn't ever do anything supernatural. You can read the book with the belief that it is a God, or you can think that everything that happens with that bear is a coincidence that people are reading too much into. In the end, it doesn't matter what you think; the important thing is that you lived through it and experienced everything for yourself.
That's essentially what I'm advocating here. I'm just saying to not get trapped in the weeds and enjoy the story for the simple fact that it's a story that pleases you to read. If you get to the point where you're finding sexual imagery in a children's book, you have probably gone too far.
I was starting to feel that the author was stretching a but with some of the interpretations but thankfully the conclusion recontextualized them. The point, I think, was that those are the kind of...
To peruse the wild and wacky theories that successive generations have dreamt up concerning the "true" meaning of Alice's adventures is to understand how changing social mores can radically alter a text. Of course, it's a testament to the work's essential timelessness that each era has been able to read its own fads and preoccupations into the story. [...]
I was starting to feel that the author was stretching a but with some of the interpretations but thankfully the conclusion recontextualized them. The point, I think, was that those are the kind of interpretation people could make if they project the societal values our current time back onto it, which is probably an unavoidable bias during any time period. Should a work be judged by the standards of its time or of our time? I think there's value to both, though not as much for our understanding of the work but for understanding the attitudes of the people making judgement.
I'm really not a big fan of these kinds of interpretations.
When you find a good book, it's like coming across a field of naturally growing fruits. The fruit is sweet, nourishing, and good for your health. When you're done visiting the field you are better off than when you first started. These interpretations are like finding that same field and digging it up until you find clay which you can turn it into whatever you want it to be. Of course the things they make out of that clay have a utility all of their own, but the act is detramental to the plants that were there and you have lost some of the value that was there.
Of course, either method has value, but because they are fundamentally different kinds of value, the value you personally attribute to them is completely subjective. And of course, I'll admit that there are works where I've found the analytical approach is superior to taking in the work at face value. There are of course works that are written specifically to be read that way. But I think Alice in Wonderland is one of those books that are better when you take it for what it is.
Critical readings and re-contextualisations such as some of those mentioned in the article in no small part exist to try and find the "what" in the "what it is" that you speak of. You say take Alice for what it is and OK let's do that - but what is it? Is it a series of religious allegories? Unlikely, but possible. Is it a primer on logic and mathematics? You can make a more convincing case for that, certainly. Is it carefully crafted apparent nonsense that hides important life lessons? Is it all of those things, and more, and less, depending on who is reading and when and how? When I read Alice as a child it was different to when I read Alice at school, different again when I studied it at university, different once more when I read it as a parent. Texts aren't, despite their appearance of unmoving letters on a page, static things, because they exist in the mind of the reader as well as shapes on paper. And the mind of the reader exists in a constantly shifting societal context too, which the text is also swimming in (and has it's own from the time of it's creation).
Your analogy of a field doesn't really hold up because unlike in reality, the text's fruits still exist and are equally as delicious (if not sometimes more so) once the field has been dug and it's foundations explored as well. Think of it perhaps as a form of terroir, if we're going to strain the horticultural metaphor perhaps a little too far. The fruit was only the part you could see on the surface, but the clay was also there all along as well, and was just as important in bringing forth that delicious nutrition. Sweet nutrition which isn't growing there naturally, those fruits were created by meticulous thought and deliberate action by the author. Alice didn't just spring from nothing and no-one, a pure tasty story with nothing more to it.
Also while yes, critical readings are to some extent necessarily subjective, you won't get far by just making up any random stuff you fancy from that clay without a convincing justification from the text and the history that goes with it.
I was aware of all of that as I was writing my comment. I've spent a lot of time studying literature.
To be clear, I'm not against analysis. I'm just saying that analysis has limits when it comes to fiction, and can be detrimental to your experience of a work. Ideas have a saturation point; if a work can mean anything, in a way it doesn't mean anything. Disturbing the soil doesn't necessarily mean distroying the fruit, and you're right that it could end up making the fruit sweeter, but it could also make them less sweet. Or the flavors can be changed in a way that you don't like.
Boy is this metaphor overextended.
As it so happens, my favorite book is Shardik by Richard Adams. It's a fantasy novel about a bear that is discovered washed up on an island. The island people believe the bear is a reincarnation of their God, and they are so empowered that they rise up and fight a war against the seat of an empire; they win and in doing so take over the whole thing. The thing about the bear is that it doesn't ever do anything supernatural. You can read the book with the belief that it is a God, or you can think that everything that happens with that bear is a coincidence that people are reading too much into. In the end, it doesn't matter what you think; the important thing is that you lived through it and experienced everything for yourself.
That's essentially what I'm advocating here. I'm just saying to not get trapped in the weeds and enjoy the story for the simple fact that it's a story that pleases you to read. If you get to the point where you're finding sexual imagery in a children's book, you have probably gone too far.
I haven't read the article yet, but you came up with a remarkably insightful analogy that I will commit to memory. Thanks :)
I was starting to feel that the author was stretching a but with some of the interpretations but thankfully the conclusion recontextualized them. The point, I think, was that those are the kind of interpretation people could make if they project the societal values our current time back onto it, which is probably an unavoidable bias during any time period. Should a work be judged by the standards of its time or of our time? I think there's value to both, though not as much for our understanding of the work but for understanding the attitudes of the people making judgement.