--- Rene Ribic <
rribic@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> I agree that it is of academic interest and of
>
interest in as much as we like to know about certain >
authors but you certainly can't find out about the >
personal life of every author before you read his/her
> work even if you wanted to.And you're going to
have
> an opinion of the books you read even if you don't
>
know anything about the author.I mean to say, how do > we
know that every crap book written doesn't have a >
personal tragedy behind it? Does it mean we should >
abandon having opinions on these books?
No, of course not. I'm not saying that anything excuses bad
writing--bad writing just is. (I'm feeling very Zen today.)
I'm just saying that knowing details about the author or the
specific circumstances of a novel's writing enhances context,
and enhancing context is, IMHO, always a good thing. I don't
mean to say that increasing a reader's understanding of
context always increases enjoyability of the read--if that
were true, every book would start with a 10 page essay
entitled "Who I Am and How I Came to Write This Book." I'm
just saying that understanding the context is a good thing,
and that it CAN contribute to the enjoyment of a novel, i.e.,
that it's not necessarily irrelevant to our assessment of a
novel.
G.
===== George C. Upper III, Editor The Lightning Bell Poetry
Journal http://www.lightningbell.org/
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