Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to have something published for anyone to read. I can only imagine the amount of stress and anxiety that goes into the months or possibly years of writing something that was once only a figment of the author’s imagination, and then meticulously writing and rewriting it for only their eyes to see. Then, one day, it’s finished and sent out into the world, and author has absolutely no control over who reads it or how they interpret it. Once something is published it no longer belongs to the author, but to the reader, because the author has no control over how their reader will interpret the text.
In an interview with Percival Everett, he stated, “I have pretty strict rules about interpreting my own mission or my own works. It’s not my place. I’m a writer. I make novels, and then I stand away and let the novel do the work. What I think it means, what I want it to mean, it’s not only useless, but it’s pointless. It doesn’t affect it. It doesn’t matter.” Any reader will come to a book with their own experiences, thoughts, and opinions, meaning that no one will read anything exactly the same way. Like how I mentioned in a previous blog post, when I first read, “The Dura Mater,” and “The Weight of the Encephalon,” I immediately saw my migraines reflected in these poems, even though most of the poem has to do with sex. Because I am unaware of what he was thinking at the time of writing these poems, I only have my experiences to relate these texts.
The idea of books having a different meaning than the original idea created by the author comes from the concept of deconstructionism. Jacques Derrida thought of this theory as a way to respond to a series of theories made by other literary theorists which stated works could only draw meaning from an established system, either from society itself or from the structure of a work. Because there are so many points of view one could have due to individualized experiences and perceptions, there can be no “objective reality” upon which a work can be based — there is no one, single, absolute way of seeing things and, therefore, there cannot be one, singular meaning (such as the author’s intent) to a piece.
If Everett, or any other author, reveals their intentions behind why they wrote something, this may invalidate what the reader was feeling at the time they read it, or as Everett stated, it might not matter. I first saw the phrase, “Books belong to their readers,” years ago in the back of the book, Looking for Alaska, by John Green. This means that the reader has some sort of ownership over the books they read and the experiences they have while reading. To the reader, their own interpretation of the text will most likely be the one that is most important to them, because it is the one they can relate to the most.