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

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

What would you ask JKR? (I saw your rant!)

I agree. We don't need to know every little detail of what happens next. I'd be more interested if she wrote up what had happened before PS started. I thought she probably got the epilogue about right. There was enough information for those who have no idea without going into details. (And now I know Draco married Mary, I'm quite satisfied). The only concrete information wasn't really anything we hadn't worked out already (Ron married Hermione and Ginny married Harry and they had a few children).

All her comments at interviews suggest to me that she really hasn't got it worked out and is just saying what occurs to her at the time.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Well, this was my contribution to the Thread of Doom:

I'd like to ask her, if she was starting over again, what would she do differently? Are there parts of the books she's unsatisfied with and why? Are there things which she wishes she'd written differently in the earlier books that she felt constrained by when writing the later ones? Does she feel that she's grown as a writer through this process and how will that help her when she starts writing something different?

That's the kind of thing I'm actually interested in knowing. What seventeen years of being a writer has taught her.

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

I didn't read your question. Far more interesting that what colour bathroom curtains Ginny chose! I haven't looked at that thread since the first few questions. It hasn't been very interesting on the whole. But the part about earlier books constraining how she wrote the later ones is very interesting.

So no questions about Charlie's arms and physique then?

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I prefer to use my imagination!