Random Thoughts on Modernism

I've been thinking lately about the modernist lens through which I look at art, including novels.  Modernism was a movement in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and one of the hallmarks is that it focused on the method, the process, and the materials by which the art was created.  A Jackson Pollock painting draws attention to the fact that it was made by splattering paint on the canvas.  Post-modernism, on the other hand, has a skepticism of objective reality, meaning that since each individual approaches a piece of art from different situations with different beliefs and experiences, everyone will view the piece differently.  

A simplified way to think about it is that in modernism, the burden of creating meaning is on the author, and in post-modernism, it's on the reader.  A modernist could ask, "What did the author mean by this?"  While a post-modernist would ask, "What does that mean to me?"

I've been thinking about this because I had a conversation with my post-modernist friend where he said a writer can't create meaning, so--as a writer--instead of trying to create meaning, you need to leave space for the reader to create meaning.  His argument was that coming down too hard on what you intended, spelling it out too much will com off as preachy or disingenuous when it doesn't resonate with the reader.  

While I agree that a writer needs to acknowledge that their story will mean different things to different people and should accept that and not assume that their intention will be universally embraced, and while I do think that getting preachy about what you mean is obnoxious, I disagree with the assertion that the writer has no control of the situation and the assertion that the writer has no part in creating meaning save to give the reader opportunities to make their own connections.  I will almost always ask myself about the author's process or what they intended.  That doesn't often affect what I get out of a story, if I got something more out of it than they intended, if it resonates with a struggle in my life that the author couldn't have possibly known, that's great.  That's me adding meaning to what they already lay down.  But I will wonder things like, 

• This author is super proud of these details.  I bet they spent a year and a half researching this.
• This abusive relationship is weirdly romanticized.  I hope the author addresses that later.  I hope the author can recognize abusive behavior in their own life.
• Is the character misinformed about this fact, or is the author misinformed about this fact?
• I wonder if the author talked to any Indian people before writing this.
• This description of X is so visceral and accurate.  I am absolutely positive that this author has experienced it.

I look for the hand of the artist.  I can't help it.  Maybe it's because I'm analyzing everything I read, picking it apart to see how it all works so I can learn from it.  

Maybe it's that these aren't instances of the author creating meaning.  They're more factual.  For example: the author gets the concept of electro-magnetism wrong in their sci-fi story.  That wasn't a place they intended to elicit an emotion, but it created meaning for me and that meaning is "this author is wrong."

And maybe this is me making meaning.  I'm the one asking those annoying questions, the one guessing at the answers, and the one one whose enjoyment is affected by these answers.  My feelings about these answers is informed from my personal experiences.  But there's still something to be said about how the author put this out there first, they presented a work that had meaning to them, then I took that and laid my own meaning on top of it, that meaning informed by their meaning.  The interesting part here is the interaction between the author's intent and the reader's interpretation.  It's a two way street with both involved, a kind of dialogue.  Ignoring the author or ignoring the reader is dangerous.

I was talking about this recently when I elicited the "wrong" emotion in one of my readers.  I can do things to make it so she doesn't feel that way, but I can't change things to make everyone feel the way I want them to.  I can do things that will elicit certain emotions in large groups of people.  I have that power.  But, in true post-modern fashion, it won't hit everyone the same way because they're coming in with different histories.  

And maybe there's something to be said about me and my post-modernist friend's differences in reading preferences. He prefers literary fiction, and in literary fiction the reader is expected to do some heavy lifting to piece things together.  On the other hand, I read mostly YA genre fiction, where the narrative is purposefully transparent and the focus in more on the story than on the method in which the story is told. If you forget that you're reading, it's considered a good thing. So the reader creating meaning in literary fiction makes more sense, because the reader in YA genre fiction is (more often than not) sitting back and enjoying what they're presented with.

But then how do I justify wanting to see the hand of the author, which is especially visible in a lot of literary fiction, while also wanting to forget the author is there, which is something I enjoy in my reading choices?   Oh, what a big jumbled mess of meaning.