| But shouldn't someone at least try?I don't think so. On a really simple level, I get a similar reaction when I pick up the DVD for a film I love, and read the precis on the back. It's not only a reaction against somebody misinterpreting something (everybody has their own response to things, so it's pretty much inevitable that I'm not going to agree with a 100 word description of some film masterpiece written by some advertising executive) but also the feeling of awkward translation that misses the point. Anything of worth in a given medium draws most of its power from its use of that medium, and translating across media never works (there must be exceptions, I can't think of any off the top of my head). The film of The Name of the Rose wasn't attrocious (at least as far as I remember - my film sensibilities have only recently start to refine themselves, and it's been a while since I saw it) but was no way near the book. It seems to be a particularly logocentric tendency (maybe getting out of my depth here, it's been a while since I read Derrida) that we need to fill in all gaps, rationalise and posit everything into a binary structure. But the things that move me the most, and continue to move me, are the things that I have resisted this urge with. Of course we're going to ask questions, and want to know how everything links up, but it seems to me to be a dubious undertaking to set everything down in stone as the structure and meaning when the author has deliberately introduced elements of mystery. All this debate really becomes centred on things like The Invisibles. I haven't heard your theory about John a Dreams before, and whilst it's interesting enough, it doesn't resonate with how I've used the comic, intersecting with my own predelictions and thoughts, to create something greater. Clearly for you this idea does exactly that. And both our interpretations are equally valid, as reader responses to a text. But I don't want to argue which is right - they both are. It's not something, at least according to my reading, which it is necessary to argue about - the text is open to infinite variations of imaginative fill-in because these are the areas that are muddy, unclear and mysterious. If somebody produced a text which attempted to say exactly where all the pieces fit, and what is a correct interpretation of the narrative and what isn't, then that would seem to me to belitte the entire piece by trying to make it conform to a certain logic.For whomsoever started this thread, and may still be trying to read itSorry if I'm pissing you off, but I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Morrison has talked (sorry, no direct reference) about using styles and fashions to create a viral idea, hence he's not too angry about The Matrix, and it occured to me that a viral structure for the story itself is a much more powerful way of doing this than manipulating mis-en-scene.All of which is not to say that people shouldn't treat the material in whatever way they feel like, but just that I personally doubt the importance of trying to make a finished jigsaw out of the pieces. So, if nobody has anything else of worth to add, I suggest that we just leave this here, as my input is obviously getting on people's nerves. Agree to disagree? |
And of course, he names his teddy bear "Boody" - the closest the poor guy gets to having the love of Christ/Buddha next to him in his life's journey.