Item — HN Reader

> What does the author wanted to tell us with this story." Because -> The author never wrote that down. And deriving their intentions from a fictional text felt just like making shit up

It’s an exercise in engaging intellectually with the work. It’s not about knowing for a fact what the author wanted to communicate. Art is about engaging with human emotions and thoughts, not about deriving specific facts.

2 comments

> Art is about engaging with human emotions and thoughts

Exactly. Still, that does actually not contradict what I wrote. You can still do this from a viewpoint of Structuralism, Formalism, Reader Centric Schools of Interpretation and Author Centric Schools of Interpretation.

Non of those are less intellectually" engaging with the work. Differently - and in my personal opinion more or less intellectually rewarding - yes. But not less or more.

It's not just the reader engaging in the work, but the author. If the author can't or is unwilling to put in any actual work, and also lies about it, I've lost all respect and interest in them. Saying you only care about the message and not the messenger is sort of like saying you only care about the words coming out of your friend's mouth but not your friend.

True, but that does not mean that the average teacher won't grade you badly if your interpretation is completely opposed to their and what was discussed during lessons.

There are bad teachers, sure. There are also bad students who think that the issue was that they weren't being taught when it was actually that they weren't trying to learn.

Bad teachers are the default, and good ones exception, maybe 10:1. It's an underpaid, overworked job mostly.

Yeah, I had similar bad teacher experiences. But also had good ones who pushed us to come up with our own interpretations and defend them