thuviaptarth | Trust the tale, not the teller

Trust the tale, not the teller

Thank you to everyone who responded to this.

I really do think this is the oddest meme. I don't even know how to express what strikes me as so odd about it. The phrasing seems to depend on assumptions about how fiction writers relate to writing, and fiction readers relate to reading, that ... are just so far from the way I have always thought of these things that I don't even know how to say what's off about them. Maybe also about how people present themselves in particular circumstances versus what they really think or feel, too.

Also, either some of you are much better at stripping out what you know of people than I am, or else I haven't made clear things about myself that I think are perfectly obvious. I haven't been able to respond to posts by people I know even a little because I do know them even a little, and unless I remember very clearly my impression of them before talking to them, it's ... no, I can't make it go away.

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I find the meme kind of entertaining, but at least partially that's because...I do, in some ways, learn things about authors through their writing. Just not always the things that the authors would expect I would learn.

Sometimes the things I learn are...kind of obvious, as when someone only writes rape, or only BDSM, or only schmoop. The thing I am learning is simple: what kind of story that person is most into. And...that can interfere with whether I enjoy the story, esp. because sometimes I get the weird feeling that the author is REALLY GETTING OFF on their own writing. I tend to be more comfortable with writers who change things up, because of this; the sensation of, "wait, I have read this one before...three million times...almost like it is the author's favorite masturbation fantasy...eeewwww...." is not a pleasant one, and if I never have it again, I can't say I'll miss it.

Sometime the things I learn are obvious in another way; sometimes people write message-fic, where the characters are mouthpieces, and that's a whole level of stabbity that I don't feel like addressing right now.

And sometimes the things are...different, and interesting, and weird. Like, what if someone uses a lot of structured and layered and overlapping metaphors? It's a style thing, sure, but what I find is that people with that particular style tend to be better educated by quite a bit than those without it - not just in level of education, but in where they acquired it. (So why is that? Do top educational institutions draw those people, or do they teach the kind of thinking that generates that style, or is it a little of both, or what? And, like any generalization, there are exceptions.)

The thing I am learning is simple: what kind of story that person is most into.

Well, I sort of agree. It's just that that's not, in itself, a very ... large ... piece of information. Learning someone gets off on rape stories doesn't tell me that they've been raped, and it doesn't tell me that they've never been raped, because I can see it coming from either situation, depending on too many other factors. And I assumed the meme was making that kind of biographical leap, which I think is misleading.

And sometimes the things are...different, and interesting, and weird. Like, what if someone uses a lot of structured and layered and overlapping metaphors? It's a style thing, sure, but what I find is that people with that particular style tend to be better educated by quite a bit than those without it - not just in level of education, but in where they acquired it.

Huh. This hasn't seemed true to me, but maybe I am not understanding what you mean by the use of metaphor.

I forgot to say: You know, in weird ways I think fanfiction can be more revealing than original fiction, because you have the information about the writer you get from any story, and you have additional informaton about the divergences and commonalities from the source.

But then, by assuming that, I'm assuming a kind of objectivity to the reader's interpretation of canon that I'm not sure can be supported. Maybe the reader doesn't learn more about the writer; maybe they just learn more about themselves. That 's a good postmodernist view, I guess, but I find it uncomfortably solipsistic.

Hm.

I find it hard to state what, exactly, it is that I learn about authors from their fanfiction. I can find out things about what gets them going, emotionally or sexually, but not the whys behind that - you're right. I can't tell why someone's obsessed with rape, or why people are forever making smart-aleck remarks in their stories (uh, guilty), or whatever.

I *will* tell you that some authors, through their fanfiction, make me think I would like them as people, and some make me think I would dislike them. Whether that's because I can see how they see the characters and if it is flat-out whack or not, or what, I don't know.

I do know that I've very rarely been wrong. I read one story of

basingstoke's - her first posted Sentinel story, I think, and thought "damn, I would really like to be friends with her." And as it turns out...she's one of my closest RL friends, now. But I can't quite put my finger on what it was, in that story, that made me think that.

I do know that I've very rarely been wrong.

I should say, when I've had a chance to test the theory. For all I know, I just got a particularly awesome sample. :)

I really do think this is the oddest meme. I don't even know how to express what strikes me as so odd about it. The phrasing seems to depend on assumptions about how fiction writers relate to writing, and fiction readers relate to reading, that ... are just so far from the way I have always thought of these things that I don't even know how to say what's off about them.

That's what I said. It suggests the use of certain very primitive hermeneutic strategies which, frankly, I'd be offended to hear could be effectively applied to me and my work!

Hmm. I'm not offended, and there are some aspects of the hermeneutics which would work; I mean, I would not be surprised if someone determined I was a feminist based on some of the writing, and I am afraid they could tell I wasn't Asian based on the animanga writing -- I've tried to do as much research and pay as much attention to the cultural details I get from the source as I can, given the amount of time I've got and the amount of energy I've got to spare, but I am afraid my foreignness may be all too evident.

But the meme has a sense of the authorial persona as presented in the writing as being equivalent to the social persona presented in, say, real-life conversation, and ... I don't actually believe in that.

ranalore said elsewhere that when she was a kid she thought the writers of her favorite books would be her best friends, and maybe that's it; because that never once occurred to me. I was focused on the characters being my imaginary best friends, and I was very conscious of the authors themselves being strangers.

I really do think this is the oddest meme. I don't even know how to express what strikes me as so odd about it.

If it helps, the meme originated because a Harry Potter fan posted a rant about how J.K. Rowling was a hypocrite, since she wrote on her website about female body issues (young girls under tremendous pressure to be thin) and yet, in her book, all fat people are evil*. Thus this makes JKR, in addition to her many other sins against fandom, a hypocritical fatphobe, and consequently, someone the ranting fan would hate in real life, since she is surely anti-feminist too.

In response to this rant, another irate fan posed the question in her LJ, and it developed into a meme. But there was an agenda behind it, and perhaps that's what you're getting.

*pointed out to her by commenters that this was not true.

Huh. You're right, I didn't know that.

(Snacky! Are you going to be in Boston in the next few weeks? Can I meet you if I come up to stay with Vee?)

Ooo, yes, you can definitely meet me! How fun!

::is jealous::

(::reminds self will see Vee in May, is less jealous::)

It really is odd. I was noticing while I was trying to comment on both yours and

edonohana's that I was probably picking up things that I particularly liked about your fic, so it was probably saying more about me than about you!

Oh the brain, it boggles.

It's also very strange, because I've had so many instances of reading essays by authors I like and finding that they hold views that are very contrary to what I thought they would hold, given what I'd read of their works.

I can do it backwards better: I can pick out things in

edonohana's fic that make me go, "Oh, yes! She got that from there!"

I wonder if the meme would work better the other way around: what do you think your fiction says about you?

I agree: there's something deeply strange in the way it asks for you to guess social/political positions based on somebody's fiction. Which probably explains the degree to which people who try to respond to it find themselves talking about stuff that has nothing to do with positions on pressing social issues.

I do think that a large enough body of work is going to say things about the writer beyond what her artistic interests are, although not in a straightforward way, and not to the same extent that a body of nonfiction would. But what we say and how we say it, how we present characters, what we show to be important to them and whether or not the narrative supports their own evaluation of that thing's importance, how other characters respond, what kinds of stories we tell -- all of that, and indeed everything in a story, is shaped by the assumptions about the world and the people in it that we each carry around with us. Some of that shaping will be invisible, because anyone who can read a work in such a way that it's intelligible will have been shaped by the same culture, and will share some of the writer's assumptions on a level below consciousness. But not all of it's invisible, and there are readers who'll be aware of a great deal of it, either because they're wired that way or because they've had training that inclines them to it.

Which isn't to say that any reader can't or won't get her reading totally wrong. But I do think that there's a lot more information there in the text than people necessarily give it credit for.

I've been able to answer for...three people now, only one with any degree of seriousness.

I don't like this post! It's against the way I was reading the meme, which was that it wasn't serious. As far as entertainment goes, wrong anwers are just as good as right ones. (Although reading

snacky's comment above, I appear to have been wrong about the non-seriousness of it.)

More importantly, you did ask -- and because you asked, people answered. Not necessarily because they thought the meme was valid, or were somehow more comfortable with the its assumptions than you were, or had thought at all about the question beforehand.

It's unfair to ask people to answer a meme if you're going to post about how uncomfortable it makes you afterward. It forces defensive answers from people who shouldn't have to defend themselves. I doubt there are many people on your flist, at least, who don't know the difference between the tale and the teller.

Ahhh, I feel better now. No offense intended, by the way.

*blink* I didn't say the meme made me feel uncomfortable. I said I thought its assumptions were odd in a way I found difficult to define. I wouldn't have posted the meme if it made me uncomfortable, and I didn't feel uncomfortable because of people's answers, although I am not so frightened of discomfort that that would necessarily have been bad. I don't feel uncomfortable. I feel puzzled. Entertained, but also puzzled.

I'm sorry the follow-up post made you feel tricked .

Ah. Sorry for the misunderstanding! You're right, you don't say anything about feeling uncomfortable.

I think the problem came in because of this:
I said I thought its assumptions were odd in a way I found difficult to define.

Since you're usually more articulate about your opinions, it seemed like in this case there was a reason you were avoiding saying what you "really" thought. I read this post as fairly evasive, mostly because I couldn't see any reason for the elipses and vagueness, since "trust the tale, not the teller" is, to me, a fairly orthodox viewpoint that isn't difficult to state clearly.

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