miker wrote:
"I am one hundred percent behind this, but there are more
than a few readers who think the writer's intentions matter
and that they can be derived not just from the text, but also
from the writer's life. I say leave the writer's life out of
it. The text and only the text. The author is dead, and all
that good stuff."
While I may find some authors' intentions, and/or how their
lives relate to their work (and vice versa), it is only after
the words they put on the page impressed me enough to want to
know more about them and how they came to be put there. I
usually have to have read and been impressed by several works
by an author, and seen certain repeated motifs or themes (for
instance, in Goodis's work), before I will even be curious
about where they came from. Without having been touched by
what was on the page, I would never care about, much less
read, an author's biography (well, unless they were as
notorious for their lives as much as their work like, say,
William S. Burroughs or Phillip K. Dick, not saying I hadn't
already read them both, but their notoriety increased my
extra-literary interest).
And miker, you kind of back this up with your next post,
about the Black Dahlia -- you were curious what Ellroy looked
and sounded like, but you never would have cared if you
hadn't first liked his books (and heard the stories about his
life, which he has used to great effect to intermingle with
and promote his work).
Mark
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