I agree that the inclusion after the fact is disappointing. Why give me something that wasn't explored in the book? And are you trying to have your cake and eat it too, Miss Rowling? Make your money first and then drop what you didn't have the courage of your convictions to include in the text? Trust me, JJ, I am no Rowling fan. I think her work is vapid and without meaning. I've argued as much elsewhere in the forum only to ignite unwitting flame from those who worship her. But that the author has no control, I can't agree with. Your very statement of disappointment, which I share with you, is evidence to that fact. Anyone aware of her statement can chose to give it credence, ignore it, accept it, embrace it, write fan-fiction about it. Totally up to the reader. The one option not open to the reader who knows of the statement is not to process it in some way. You and I, should we chose to read that work again, will not be able to do so without processing that statement in some way shape or form. It's like telling the jury to disregard a compelling or provocative statement. Can they ever really?
[MENTION=3885]Wreybies[/MENTION] - I wouldn't consider that control, per se. No more than you have control of water you just poured out of a bucket. She has every right to drop statements on the masses, but then she can only observe what happens.
I'm not arguing her right to make the statement. I'm trying my best to stick to the original question posed by the OP. Is the author really dead? And I feel that in this day and age, the author is not as dead as he or she once was. Let's take another example of how this wall is eroding, this example an unwitting one. I use this next example with a great degree of trepidation and beg folks to consider it only as an example of a phenomenon in existence, something that is happening, not the rightness or wrongness of said phenomenon. Orson Scott Card and the film based on his book, Ender's Game, is catching flack from a portion of the citizenry. I read these books in my younger years and can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that within the confines of the text there is no homophobic sentiment expressed. None. The story never approaches subjects that would give segue to such sentiments. It's just not there. In the past, Card's world view outside of his books would not even have been known to the general public. Writers of science fiction are rarely media stars worthy of press coverage, so even before the internet but after the advent of other mass media, we still probably would not have known. It would have been what it is, his private business. But we do know, now, in today's world, with today's instant access to whatever kind of information we want, not just the information that is fed to us by network TV, newspapers, and magazines. Card gave voice to a thought that really has nothing to do with the text of his work, but which is becoming inextricably linked to it by the zeitgeist. Could future readers of this work who know of this current dynamic between Card the person and Ender's Game the written work be truly able to extricate one from the other? Will they not be forced, in some fashion, to process a piece of data prior to reading those works that would not have been part of the reading experience for them in the 80's when the first of these books saw print? Whether a person agrees with Card, disagrees with him, whatever. That is NOT my the point. The point is that the dynamic is there and if a person knows of it, how can they read the work without filtering something through that knowledge? Just like now, were I to read Rowling's works again, like it or not, would I not find nuances that weren't there to me before? Would I read an exchange of dialogue between D and some other male character differently? I know that Card's work does not contain the sentiments for which he is catching flack right now, but were I to read them again, and being 100% honest to my flawed state as a human, could I really read the works again and not find something that gives me pause? In these two cases, the Author is alive. I chose what I want to do with the data I know, but have to chose something. I can't just unknow what I know.
See, this is why I pay no attention to authors. Whatever they have to say to me, the reader, should be in the book. We had kind of a mantra in my beta group - "If you have to explain outside the story, you need to clarify inside the story.". In this particular case, if Rowling thought D's sexuality was a motivator, she failed the readers by not including it. One wonders why she didn't. Or - and call me cynical - why she decided to let it out when she finally did.
I agree with what Wreybies wrote above. And because I do care about the authors as well, I tend to read about them, so I will be exposed to their world-views and likely will spot something in their stories they didn't mean to be there. To me, the author is not dead after the novel is written, and the author also has the right to tell everyone later that, by the way, Dumbledore is gay. Before Rowling said this, readers were already wondering about it so the "evidence" is there, inside the books. To me a novel is a shared experience, a constant dialogue between the author and the reader. Sometimes even the author can find things there s/he didn't notice before.
Well, and to play devil's advocate to my own prior argument, I actually think the author should stay dead. I really do. I just don't think it's as viable an option as it once was. I had no choice but to hear Rowling's statement. It was facebooked, texted, and emailed to me from all quarters. Same deal with Card. There was no missing it. And I think things like this will be more and more the norm as data consumption becomes as, if not more, important than any other kind of consumption.
I agree that they are defined by the range of meaning available, but that in itself has been contradicted by Rowling in that she has entered into the binary of gay/straight, when one can only be defined against the other, otherwise, it's only defined as sexuality. Yet as we know, if one is defined by the other, then they are two of the same rather than opposite. In that sense saying Dumbledore is gay means nothing and Rowling has contributed nothing concerning his sexuality since she has attempted to delimit the "irreducible plurality of meaning possibilities." Of course, the problem with all of this is that it is not how we go about our daily lives, nor how we read. Using these reading strategies on a note that my wife gave me would cause serious problems, so I end up reading according to an agreed upon set of definitions. In that sense, I've actually found performative reading to be a good way to go about understanding a text, especially that of a narrative text. I think it better relates to everyday life as well, which is something that the academy has left behind as it falls into its own hyperreality. Without shifting the focus of this thread, that last sentence is really where I feel a number of critical methods and disciplines have disappeared to, including some elements of Gender Studies, Philology/literary studies, the Social Sciences, etc. Every once in a while, "See spot run" literally means, "Watch the dog name spot run," without deeper structures or the need to deconstruct epistemological underpinnings to decenter 3500 years of philological adduced philosophy behind the sentence. At least, that's how I feel about it tonight. I may have more experiences by tomorrow that gives me a completely different understanding.
