Smart writers, smarter readers

I think readers are always smarter about books than writers. And that's good. If the writer knows everything and plots it all out, especially in a novel, it's just not as organic, and it's not as interactive. I think of Emily Bronte. Did she understand all the many psychological pieces of Wuthering Heights? I don't think so. That's why it's such a fascinating puzzle. You as a reader put in your own vision.

Alice Hoffman, interview, Pages magazine, July/August 2004

Bert G. Hornback

I have an old book (1972) by Bert G. Hornback, a University of Michigan literature professor, called Noah's Arkitecture: A Study of Dickens' Mythology. Here's a sample excerpt about Little Dorrit: "In terms of his mythic vision, the destruction of the world is always compromised by Noah and the Ark."

So was Charles Dickens thinking about the destruction of the world when he wrote this or any of his novels? Were Noah and his Ark even on his mind? I doubt it. But does that mean Hornback was full of baloney? Maybe he was, but probably not.

As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so meaning is in the mind of the beholder, or the reader in this case. Alice Hoffman may have overstated the case when she said "readers are always smarter about books than writers," for I'm sure many writers pack their novels with meaning and metaphors, then wonder why their readers  never seem to catch on. (I have been told by more than one writer that I was the only reviewer to understand what he or she was trying to say.) That's because readers are finding their own insights that the authors probably never thought of.

The better the writer, the greater the variety of meaning that can be found in a novel. That's why literary scholars continue to find new insights into Little Dorrit, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Scarlet Letter, Wuthering Heights and other literature of note. Their authors were smart, but their readers, at least as a group, are smarter.