The Text’s the Thing
Jonathon Coe in the introduction to his excellent biography of novelist B.S. Johnson suggests that we no longer read literature, but rather cross examine it in light of its writers’ lives, ‘assuming that it’s in the gaps…between theory and practice that the real truths about human nature will emerge…People now know more about Philip Larkin’s political beliefs, or Ted Hughes’s treatment of his wife, than they know (or care) about their poetry.’
It seems, says Coe, that although literature is nowadays discussed more than ever before, it has never been less valued. Ironically he blames literary biography ‘for which the British have a unique passion’ for this state of affairs, and quotes Milan Kundera dismissing the genre, thusly: "the novelist destroys the house of his life and uses its stones to build the house of his novel. A novelist’s biographers thus undo what a novelist has done, and redo what he undid. All their labour cannot illuminate either the value or the meaning of a novel, can scarcely even identify a few of the bricks. The moment Kafka attracts more attention than Joseph K, Kafka’s posthumous death begins."
Now let’s peel back a century or so and get our old buddy Arnold Bennett’s take on this matter: "It is extremely important that the beginner in literary study should always form an idea of the man behind the book. The book is nothing but the expression of the man. The book is nothing but the man trying to talk to you, trying to impart to you some of his feelings. An experienced student will divine the man from the book, will understand the man by the book, as is of course, logically proper. But the beginner will do well to aid himself in understanding the book by means of independent information about the man. He will thus at once relate the book to something human, and strengthen in his mind the essential notion of the connection between literature and life."
I’ve always believed in sticking to the text, getting meaning and insight directly from it, rather than from any pervading social, political, even personal context. This said, it seems only natural that if you love the works of a particular author you’re going to want to learn more about them. You’re not necessarily going to discard his or her (…yes women do write novels) words in favour of an interpreter’s when searching for meaning, or an understanding of the author’s ‘feelings’. You’re simply indulging a curiosity. And this doesn’t make you a beginner.
I suppose problems arise when readers pay more attention to the words of interpreters than those of the original creators. Where self important theorists assume more importance than the legitimately important writers themselves.