Authors, readers and texts

[girlyswot]

Often I find myself thinking about the HP fandom when I'm supposed to be working and vice versa. Partly this is because of an interesting overlap in terminology - I'm reading through books on the formulation of the New Testament canon at the moment. Someone recently described JKR's interviews as 'deuterocanonical' and, of course, we're all accustomed to the terminology of canon in the HP world.

For the book that I spend most of my days and hours and weeks and years studying (the Christian bible), there is no possibility of interviewing the long-dead human authors. The only way to establish what they meant in their books is by means of the text itself (once the relevant historical, linguistic and other analyses and comparisons are done). The text must stand alone in creating meaning, telling stories, establishing characters and so on.

I think perhaps this is why I am so ambivalent about, oh all right, opposed to, treating JKR's interviews as if they are 'canon'. Someone recently made a comment about the HP characters only existing in JKR's head and that she knows them better than anyone and that's why we should listen to her interviews and take her comments as absolute.

I disagree. I don't think Harry Potter lives in JKR's head. I think he lives in the text of the seven books. I profoundly hope that JKR will never be tempted to write 'book 8' but if she ever were to take on such a task, I think she'd quickly discover that some of these things she's saying just wouldn't work in the world and with the characters who already live on the pages of her books.

I also think that we as readers shouldn't need to ask her questions. Before book 7, yes of course - there were questions that we knew we needed answers to (and we also knew they were the ones that wouldn't be answered in interviews) but now we have the whole story, the completed canon. And it is quite clearly complete. I thought DH was a tour de force and I have to say that it has changed my opinions of Rowling as a writer quite significantly. She has told a great story, one that has real depth and meaning, and one that has power to change its readers' minds and hearts. The story is done and should be allowed to speak for itself. The answers to all the questions we need to know are there already in the text and it's lazy to ask JKR to spell them out for us.

Comments

[gabrielladusult.livejournal.com]

The answers to all the questions we need to know are there already in the text and it's lazy to ask JKR to spell them out for us.

That's why, despite the fact that she says George never gets over Fred's death, I know that George is going to be OK. His ear was a metaphor for Fred -- the ear can't grow back, and there's a gaping hole where it once was, but George bounced back, told jokes, managed without it. He's going to be fine, not the same, but fine.

I think like some of her backstory notes (the class list, etc.) what JKR says in interviews is kind of like WIP notes. This is what she's imagined, but she hasn't written it all out yet to see if it would work/make sense. Suppose book four was the last book and she said in an interview, "Well, I've always imagined Arthur Weasley would die in Harry's fifth year." Then she goes on to write the fifth book and finds out, you know what, Arthur dying doesn't fit -- well, that's it. She didn't lie, she changed her mind -- and if she was ever to write, "Harry Potter and the Peaceful Nineteen Years" she may find that Harry, while still wanting to fight dark wizards and dark magic, just can't manage to do it in even a revolutionary uncorrupted Auror department (he was never one for a chain of command and organization)-- or maybe he'll follow Ginny around as a Holyhead Harpy groupy and solve mysteries on the side...but I think that the future is open no matter what JKR's interviews relate.

[rhetoretician.livejournal.com]

You have to wonder what "getting over" Fred's death would mean, in this context, anyway. I don't think anyone ever fully gets over the loss of a loved one, but most of us are able eventually to become functional and even happy afterwards. Indeed, if I can go all mystical on you, the knowledge of the loss makes the eventual happiness all the more profound.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think you're exactly right about Fred and the ear.

WIP is a really good way of thinking about the interviews. It's not that she hasn't thought about some of these things at all, just that she hasn't worked out the whole picture in the way you need to when you're actually writing. I hope you'll find some way to write the stories you want to within the framework that book 7 has left.