Re: [Leica] Salgado

[Guy Bennett <2bennett@wanadoo.fr>]

[snip]
>For examples, there's the well-known story about science and science
>fiction author Isaac Asimov.  One day Asimov was on a college campus to
>give a talk, and was walking the halls beforehand.  Through an open door,
>he heard a class discussing one of his stories.  The professor was going on
>and on about hidden meanings and metaphors and archetypes, and how this
>symbolized that, blah blah blah.  Finally, Asimov could stand it no longer.
>He walked into the class, and said in effect, "I'm Isaac Asimov, and I
>wrote this story, and it doesn't mean any of the things you say it
>does.  The prof shot back, "Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you know
>what it means!"
>--Peter


Though his remark is condesending, I think that the teacher was right in
that Asimov could not possibly predict the various meanings that the text
might have when read by people with widely varying personal experiences,
people who would inevitably see in the story things that Asimov might not
have known were there, though he was the author. To bring the discussion
back to photography, hasn't it ever happened to you that, when you've shown
some one your work, they've seen things in it that you were unaware of? I
seem to recall that some of the PAW shooters had that reaction when people
commented on and/or criticized their work here on the list. Whatever the
case may be, I definitely disagree with the idea that the author alone is
the sole and complete authority on his text, that it means only what he
says it means, and that any reader's personal experience with the piece,
any responsable interpretation he might give of it is wrong if it doesn't
agree with the author's explicit intent. If such things were true, the
fundamentalists would be right: the book means exactly what it says,
nothing more, and to suggest that it does is blasphemous.

There is an equivalent, but opposing anecdote to the Asimov story above. In
his later years, the poet Paul Valéry attended a colloquium given in his
honor. He was present when one scholar presented his interpretation of one
of Valéry's poems. At the end of his talk, the scholar addressed Valéry
directly and asked if he had correctly interpreted the poem. Valéry
responded that he had no idea that the poem could mean all of the things
that the scholar discussed, but that the latter's reading was plausible.
Valéry also said: "My poems have the meanings that people give them." ("Mes
poèmes ont le sens qu'on leur donne.")

Guy