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David wrote:
What does it mean, and how is it possible to say, that say) 'Dumbledore is evil' is an unlikely reading of canon, or a perverse one? How can we say that a given interpretation is 'subversive'? If I assert that the reading you find subversive is my instinctive reading (something of the sort must occur on the R/H - H/H divide, I think), are you reduced to saying 'fine for you, David', or have you any rational basis for persuading me different?
Well, subversion itself is really in the mind of the beholder (as is instinct). "Cupid's Snitch," the Sirius/Florence-as-Mrs.-Lestrange backstory that I once proposed here, for example, was a subversive reading of the canon because I thought it subversive. It is perfectly possible, however, that somebody else could have come by that same reading on their own as an automatic interpretation of the story (as indeed, there is plenty of evidence for it in the text). To that person, it would not be subversive but instinctive, and so he would probably become very cross with you if you accused him of deliberately perverting JKR's intent.
Indeed, my initial emotional response to the discovery that one of my own instinctive understandings of the story ("Snape is still emotionally invested in his old DE colleagues") was not only a minority opinion, but also assumed by many to be deliberate subversion, was to feel both taken aback and rather out of sorts. (My secondary response, of course, was to become fascinated by the issue and so to pester everyone on the subject until they all got tired of it -- but that's just me.)
One man's painfully earnest reading is another man's subversion.
So, yes. "Fine for you, David" really is about as far as that particular dispute can go.
Generally speaking, though, when people stand accused of favoring "subversive" or "perverse" readings on this list, they respond by trying to point out the ways in which the text does indeed support their instinctive reading. In short, they launch into literary analysis.
Most literary analysis operates under the assumption that texts suggest meaning to readers in accordance with fairly consistent and predictable rules, and that that this process is therefore, while admittedly not nearly as quantifiable as physics or chemistry, nonetheless still explicable. Literary analysis attempts to "defend" a given reading by showing how the text adheres to established rules of authorial conveyance.
So, for example, while I did not myself find Draco/Hermione at all an instinctive reading of the text, once I learned that so many people had found it to be one, I was tempted to return to the text to try to figure out how it had managed to suggest that possibility to so many of its readers. Similarly, while H/H is not at all an instinctive reading for me, its vast popularity leads me to believe that the text is indeed offering its readers something to support that reading. The shipping debates on this list offer quite a few insights into the specific critical "rules" that have led so many to come by this reading. (Ebony's recent reference back to her Lacanian analysis of H/H is an excellent example of how someone might choose to do this in an explicit, deliberate, and academic fashion.)
Of course, literary criticism is not a science but an art, which means that not only the rules themselves but also the way in which they are prioritized can vary tremendously depending on the "school" of analysis one favors. A Jungian critic will privilege certain rules of textual suggestion very highly indeed, while devaluing (or even rejecting completely) others. Critical approaches also go change with the era, they go in and out of fashion. As Penny pointed out, most of the popular schools of contemporary literary criticism don't accord the author's conscious intent much pride of place at all when it comes to prioritizing the rules. The same could not be said a century ago, and whether it will still hold true a century from now is anyone's guess. Life is short, art long, and literary criticism something in between. ;-)
The above thinking does not bother me very much as far as Harry Potter is concerned, but I think it has the potential for making me feel very lost and alone if it is applied to speaking, writing, and reading outside fiction.
I'd advise you to avoid the post-modern theorists. They will likely distress you.
Miscommunications are, alas, a fact of life. Surely that's the reason that we have laid in place so very many social constructs which are designed to avert or to mitigate their emotionally harmful effects? It seems to me that nearly all of what we usually call "etiquette" is really designed to...well, to clarify the author's emotional intent, so to speak.
Is anybody out there?
Not really. We're all just constructs of your own mind.
After all, sollipsism is a very popular reading of reality among the text's adolescent readership. There therefore must be something, either embedded in the text itself or in the way in which the text interacts with cultural and societal factors, that is serving to encourage that reading. Right?
—Elkins
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on May 30, 2002 10:56 AM
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