Story Reviews » SA Reviews #84 · 11:57pm May 22nd, 2016
Seattle's Angels is a group that promotes good stories with low views. You can find us here.
Four hundred miles off the coast, somewhere beneath the Great Slush Pile...
"Did you know that unpublished fics never stop losing and regrowing pages?" Red chattered as he looked at the book that was three sizes too big for his lap. The only sound besides his talking was the spin of the engines, the ping of the grammarine's sonar, and the uncertain noises being made by Cerulean Voice beside him as he piloted their boat through the darkness. Outside the cramped, pen-shaped vessel was the dark of the Deep Browse, chock full of strange and unseen stories, the spines of ancient volumes spinning listlessly in the water.
"Did you know that the average fic will shed its typographical shell up to seven times before achieving symbiosis with an editor?"
"Uh."
"Did you know that Biblionauts like us usually die from stress more than on-the-job accidents?"
"Er."
"Did you know that an unedited fic can strip a sentence of meaning in less than two clauses?"
"Well."
"Did you know what the average grammarine only has a maximum lifespan of three hundred stories before they start to buckle?"
"That's all very interesting, but we need to keep an eye on the sonar," CV muttered, flicking a few switches for lack of anything better to do. "There's the library to look out for, and all."
"Oh, yeah. The legendary library under the Slush that can bring a grown man to his knees for the sheer amount of above average-ness that can be found."
"No, not that," CV grunted. "Intelligence. Erudition. Something to make this all worth it."
"The trip, or being stuck in a grammarine with me?" Red said with a smirk.
CV didn't answer. His eyes had fallen on a large ping that had just started to sound in their sonar. As Red nattled on, he slowly pointed out of the forward viewing bubble of their boat, through the morass of dead, unfinished fics and the swirling plagiarizers scavenging their corpses, through the shoals of new fics all grouping together for mutual attention.
There were pillars in the dark. “We’ve found it,” whispered CV. “Get the review net ready.”
ROUND 84
When delivering a gift to a sick Twilight, Pinkie finds herself lacking a sense of ground…
...in the most literal way possible.
Twilight is sick and Pinkie must send her a get well card. Then she gets kidnapped by her own balloon.
This story is about ten pies worth of adorable. Pinkie is written exquisitely, with a manner of thinking that wouldn’t be out of place in a Terry Pratchett book, full of non-sequiturs that somehow make more sense just because its Pinkie Pie. Little gems like “the sun was feeling extra yellow” and explanations for the ground being so far down including “as if it thought she hadn’t showered” abound, and they make the story a very fun read. There are quite a few added and missing words, but not so much that I felt I needed to take this story down a peg. After all, it is a story about going up. The turns of phrase, the atmosphere, the descriptions, are all quintessentially Pinkie Pie, random without being too much, cute without being too schmaltzy. Errors aside, this is someone who knows a character and knows how to write them.
It’s rather a pity that 4EverfreeBrony isn’t around currently. For those who may not know, he makes some absolutely fantastic music, and is probably most well-known for Chant of Immortality – a hauntingly beautiful ballad – and his Pinkie-centric concept album, The Pink Side of the Moon, themed around, you guessed it, Pinkie Pie in space.
Why would I mention that? What does it have to do with Literal Rise and Fall? Nothing directly, I suppose, but 4EB really seems to like the idea of Pinkie being higher up than everyone else, because he just straight-up channelled his inner A.A.Milne with this story. The result is an adorable little fic that could very well be used as a visual gag in the show, and feels completely within the bounds of a kind of mess that Little Miss Pie might actually be capable of getting herself into.
Pinkie is Pinkie through and through, all giggles, gumdrops, and sunny smiles, even in the most ridiculous situation. But if you’ve ever thought that maybe she needs to turn down the dial on her helium usage a bit, this is a convincing case. Literally.
Most non-winged ponies would probably have a heart attack from fear if they were put in a similar situation to Pinkie’s. Not Pinkie, though. No, this is just a minor inconvenience stopping her from cheering up her sick friend and getting back to work on time. It’s just so her, the way that she remains fixated on the happiness of others rather than her own safety. A moment even arrives when she could have easily gotten out of her predicament, but it’s played more for light-hearted laughs, resulting in a missed opportunity; yet I couldn’t call her an idiot because it was so in-character.
The writing itself is a little patchy in places: some missing or duplicate words here and there, a few style choices I might normally narrow my eyes at. But when a story is nice and smiley and YELLOW like this one, it’s harder to really care about such things. The ending just wraps it all up in a neat little yellow bow… or does it?
Ponyville. That is where my fall from grace began. Twilight Sparkle and her insurmountable talent exposed me for the charlatan I was. After that inauspicious day, my shows were no longer a thunderous triumph of magic and trickery. They were a blighted sideshow—a mockery of the splendor they had once been.
In my desperation to retain the life I once held, I stooped lower and lower. I finally hit rock bottom on a remote rock farm. There, I assumed the life of some ordinary, mundane pony, hammering away at boulders until nothing but pebbles remained. It was beneath me, humiliating and degrading. The days dragged on, but my dignity fell no further. It was the bottom, the very bottom, where nothing could fall any lower.
If I had it to do over again, I would have clung to that humble bottom. I would have held on and never let go.
I made the worst mistake imaginable. In my desperate bid to claw my way back up to the graces I once knew, I put my faith in dark magic. While I may have found the bottom on that rock farm, that accursed amulet drug me even deeper, pulling me into the abyss of hell.
No, it’s not the title of the latest summer slasher shlock, though it’s fairly on the nose as far as titles go. I’ve seen a lot of fics about the mental torment inflicted by Trixie upon herself in the pursuit of vengeance, but few seem to take such a hard left turn into utter darkness as this fic.
I’m not one for darkfics, usually, but this is dark in that it’s about the dark season of a pony’s soul rather than sheer bloody gore and bodily destruction, which is why I gave it a shot. Trixie’s handling of the Alicorn Amulet has given her a severe god complex, and she realizes that she is falling into the depraved clutches of the artifact, and all too willingly. To lose oneself to base feelings, the tragic irony of using anger to redeem your old self only to have the anger become you, are age-old tropes that, while not light reading, are still entertaining from an ousiders’ perspective.
This is, more than anything, an attempt to explain the descent into madness that we saw in the show, and while it cranks up the angst to eleven, that’s nothing that didn’t keep me from finding the story as an interesting take on a character who normally finds the worst of their suffering to be getting shipped with Twilight.
What is Hell? A prison far below the surface, where sinners suffer untold torment for all eternity? A prison where only the most dangerous beings are kept, locked away from their would-be victims? Or, or is it a more personal prison, one in which we are both inmate and warden?
Trixie certainly found out; and through careful poking and prodding, DemonBrightSpirit managed to extract an interview out of her, so that we might know as well. She has given such an interview a rare handful of times in the past, but with two years having passed from her initial ordeal at the time of writing, Trixie was comfortable enough to open up more.
Descent Into Hell has one of the most thorough, deeper depictions of an internal struggle that I’ve seen, at least for the length of content. All the events – from the moment Trixie coveted the Alicorn Amulet to the moment she wished never to remember it again – are laid bare, in a chilling way. To a point, Trixie is in control and loving it. She has everything she could ever want. The trouble begins, as it does with anyone, when what was already good enough begins to feel insignificant. Greed and lust hold terrible power.
Trixie’s descent begins at the top of a slippery slope as it is, but it’s as she begins to slide faster toward the bottom that we come to a standout moment: my personal favourite scene. It’s a real hand-to-mouth, “Wow that just happened” experience, roughly halfway through. You’ll know it when you see it.
One of the mistakes that a lot of people make with Trixie is accidentally forgetting to keep her manner of speech consistent. This is not to say that she must always speak in third person, only that there needs to be a good reason for her to slip into or out of either. Trixie doesn’t speak in third person here, at least not at first. However, as we go deeper down the rabbit hole that is her ever-changing confused, arrogant, scared, selfish, desperate, megalomaniacal mind, we see this transition between first and third person happening seamlessly, with the latter picking up steam and eventually replacing the former almost exclusively. The execution of this little detail is superb, adding so much more weight with its presentation, particularly with another smaller writing change introduced late to cement her developing God Complex.
This is more than just Magic Duel from Trixie’s viewpoint. The events within allow a rare glimpse of just how a person can lose their control, lose their mind, lose any and all sense of morality, simply by desiring more. Always more. It’s a scary thing to see someone lose all sense of self; it’s a scarier thing to know that they are letting it happen willingly.
I was glad that season six brought Trixie back to Ponyville for at least some kind of redemption. Because I remembered this story, how it ended, and it made me happy for reasons you can only discover inside these virtual pages.
STORY 3
Do No Harm, by Holy
Daring Do has had many dangerous adventures in her career, but never once in all those years has she had to resort to taking another life.
In her line of work, that couldn't last forever. Faced with no other option, she finally has to kill.
I like to think that somewhere in Indiana Jones’ mind he still gets a little ruffled by all the Nazis he’s mowed down in his heyday. Action heroes like him usually don’t give a second thought about death, or at least the death they inflict on other people. But death is a heavy issue, often even for those surrounded by it, and they have to deal with it sooner or later. Daring Do does in this fic.
An assassin has been hunting her for the bounty on Daring’s head, and she is forced to kill in self-defense. The story is short and self-contained, leaving much to the imagination apart from the killing, and Daring’s horror at it. Many stories take the killing of mooks by the hero as almost unimportant fluff - a moment of shock here, a teary bit of remorse there, and then they’re off to slaughter sixteen thousand identical minions without batting an eyelid. Few would try to make a whole story about the ramifications of taking a life, especially one you didn’t mean to. The feelings evoked in this story make it for me. We’re right there as Daring goes through the terror of the chase, the feel of the kill, and the disgust and numbness that comes afterward.
The story is careful to keep the judgment on killing firmly within Daring Do’s head, rather than delving into preachiness, which is to its credit. This is simply the story of one pony whose entire life has been upended by the taking of another. Heavy reading, but it treats the subject matter with respect, which is more than can be said for most.
Before I truly recommend this to anyone, I’d like to issue a disclaimer of sorts. Although I imagine the vast majority of readers have seen depictions of grisly scenes in movies or video games (the latter of which they themselves may very well have caused thousands of times), it still warrants a mention that if you dislike the idea of death in your favourite little horsey franchise, you ought to avoid this one.
There is no victorious feeling, no sense of achievement to be found in the events of Do No Harm. Too often, death in media is treated either as a plot device, an obstacle to overcome, or in some cases, the desired outcome. You see it all the time: RPG characters, mercenaries, secret agents, bounty hunters… sure they kill for a living, but even they had to start somewhere, and it would have taken quite a few of them a while to get used to the idea. I wouldn’t know myself, but (and here’s another reason for my warning) I’m sure there are those among us who this one might resonate with more than your average Jack or Jill.
Daring, as we know, is an adventurer, an archeologist who writes about her life experiences as though it were fiction. But that’s all she is, all she ever wanted to be; and yet, desperate and in grievous pain, faced with an impossible decision and little time to make it—lest she meet her own doom—Daring evades capture the only way she can. She didn’t want to; she never wanted to.
There is no glory in taking the life of another. Do No Harm shows this vividly, from depicting Daring’s act of self-preservation as nothing but harrowing and disgusting, to her turmoil long after the blood has stopped flowing. It’s not brutal for any reason other than to portray a realistic way that your everyday person would react, and I for one found it highly believable. There’s sorrow and regret within these pages, staining the story with its theme just as it stains Daring Do’s hooves—and her mind. Death is not a victory here; instead, it represents failure.
I think it could have gone on longer, personally, maybe even been the opening chapter of a story detailing the months and years following Daring after the fact. But that’s more a wish on my part than a fault of the story for ending where it does, because it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It really makes you think, too: Nathan Drake, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft—how did each of they feel after their firsts? Like all things, repetition has a way of conditioning people to the idea of almost anything. Even so, I’d bet that every movie or video game hero you know would definitely prefer non-lethal means of completing their objectives. Maybe you even know someone personally who has been faced with this burden; if you do, and they’ve even been willing to talk about it, they would surely have said they wished there could have been another way.
I could go on about the effect of what ending a life can have on a person, but I’ll just leave it at that. Check out Do No Harm for yourself, if you want to see a realistic, human reaction to a most unpleasant deed. To borrow the words of an existing commenter: “Never look your enemy in the eye, because in the end, those eyes are all you see.”
Applejack and Twilight Sparkle are on a mission in the deep sky, far from the comforting ground of Equestria, when disaster strikes. Together the two ponies fall into something from which there is no escape.
On an unrelated note, this story features a black hole.
As far as romances go, falling into a black hole probably isn’t the best way to start one. They tend to be full of horrible gut-wrenching gravity and other strange things. But if modern science fiction is any indication, they’re actually not that bad. In fact, they can even be places where love can be found.
Yes, this is literally a story about Twilight and Applejack being shipped while falling into a black hole in space. No, it’s not a comedy; they are in fact about to die in this story, or at least they’re pretty sure, since black holes are wibbly-wobbly things and nobody’s certain what happens when you fall into one.
It’s pretty stellar (ha!) as far as ‘two ponies about to die giving each other the rundown of their feelings’ type stories goes, though it’s left unclear why Twilight and AJ are out in space in the first place, why there’s a black hole, or even whether they’re actually in danger of dying at all. This allows us to be a bit more removed from the terror of the event more than perhaps we should, but as Twilight starts to reveal more and Applejack comes to understand her feelings, we learn that the black hole is more of a footnote, a placeholder, than an actual antagonist.
Far more than angsting over imminent doom, there’s metaphysical discussion about consciousness, what a soul or a life actually is, the potential for an afterlife, and what it all means for their seemingly short-lived romance. I have to say what gripped me the most is how the author took this absurd situation and played it so straight you just have to go along, not caring for the whys and hows so much as the substance of the story itself, which is full of understated fluff. For the less tragically-inclined, there’s a nice extension afterwards as well. Not my usual cup of tea, but not one I regret drinking.
Ponies lost in space, huh? Sure, let’s give this a look.
There’s a lot to take in here, but the setup is fairly simple. Applejack and Twilight were on a mission of unknown origin or purpose, exploring the space above and beyond Equestria together, when… something went wrong, sending them both hurtling through space on a one-way trip into oblivion. It’s an interesting framing device for the conversations that the pair manage to have in their short remaining time together.
I find myself unsure whether to be sad at the events taking place, happy that the characters reach a kind of final peace with themselves and each other, or just fascinated by the explanations that Twilight gives Applejack as they hurtle closer toward their doom on the threshold of time-space. I guess if I really have to pick one, it would be the latter reason; I’m not a physics major in any sense—or even very good at it, period—but I felt a pleasant warmth resonating within me as Twilight delivered the technical details of their situation to Applejack.
Perhaps I might have appreciated it more (or less) if I knew anything about this physics stuff, but regardless, both characters read, sounded, and even felt just like themselves. There’s shipping undertones there, but I’m glad the story wasn’t excessively lathered with them. No, it’s just a touching and interesting interaction between two good friends as they embrace their inevitable end together, with a captivating talk by Twilight.
Contrary to Do No Harm’s message about death—abhorring the idea of murder, even in self-defence—The Clarity of Darkness chooses to focus on how people can accept their own impending doom, especially if there’s a good and loyal friend at their side. Despite its melancholy, hopeless atmosphere, the story still made me feel a little warmer inside than I expected, which—considering the cold, dark, empty setting—is quite the feat.
Clarity actually has two endings. Personally, I think the way it peters out after the end of the main chapter keeps the tone nicely and was more than satisfactory for me. There is another ending though, aimed purely at people who might prefer a “happy” one to a “realistic” one. Check them both out if you want, but my fave came from the main one. Your mileage may vary.
“Oh, shine the light on that one too!” Red said, bouncing excitedly up and down, his bushy tail all frizzy. They had been combing the ancient remains of the library under the Slush for what felt like hours, humbled by the wonders they had found.
“Battery’s getting low on the lights, net’s already full,” muttered CV. “May have to pull out early. It’s a shame, so many good stories down here…”
“Kkkcht,” said the radio. “Guys, you’re reaching maximum literary submersion. Suggest you pull yourselves back up shortly. Kcccht.”
“Ahh, roger that,” Red said, using a squirrel-sized stick to push the radio button from across the cockpit. “Net’s fit to burst. We’ll be on our way up shortly.”
“Kccht. Roger copy, over and out. Kkcccht.”
Red glanced over at CV as a longfic drifted lazily by outside the cockpit window. “They do know they don’t have to go ‘kcccht’ just because they’re talking into a radio, right?”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
Well... Yeah, you do need to do the "kcccht" noise.
How else will they know your on a radio?
~Skeeter The Lurker
Gasp! I found this at random and didn't even know I was featured!
Thanks!
Er, have you ever done this to one of my stories before?
Also, the intent (which I suspect you understood) isn't that the first chapter implies some Bad End.
The intent is that the situation is left ambiguous because it doesn't really matter to the message of the story.
Glad you enjoyed.
3964208
We add the stories we recommend to our group's folders, so if you find any of your other stories in there, then yep!
Otherwise, probably not, I'm afraid
3964208
As someone who's read nearly every fic featured by this group (I'm a few rounds behind) and is only having some trouble telling a few of them apart, I can say with total certainty that The Clarity of Darkness is the first one of yours they've featured so far.
How many torpedoes did you guys fire off while diving around in there?
3964685
Enough to keep the Reapers at bay.
And oven mitts and out-takes?
Wow, I never thought I'd actually end up here. Thanks a ton for considering something I made. That actually means a lot to me.
3964821
Don't forget the fairy tales and fruit cake!
3964821
3964834
You guys are the best.
Well, the inside of a Black Hole is a zone where physics break down, it's true. However, studies on the effects of powerful gravity over short distances show you should be torn to pieces before you actually get that far, because as you get closer the rate of gravitational increase rises until the pull on the parts of you closest to the hole is so much more than the pull on the parts farther away that they start accelerating faster than the rest, stretching you into an elongating ribbon of flesh. You can see some of these effects by watching black holes slowly devour stars, when they're positioned so they're pulling it away in strips instead of swallowing the whole thing.
Doesn't that make you feel better?
3964221
The intent is up for discussion.
As an English professor once said to Isaac Asimov: "Just because you wrote it, what makes you think you have any idea you know what it's about?"
3973149 Most of the time "Death of the Author" is total BS however, and simply panders to the ego of the literary critics who think they understand what the author wrote better than the author himself/herself. Which is idiotic given that whatever interpretation they'll want to ascribe to a story or literary work, will be inevitably influenced by their own upbringing, religion, political stance, moral outlook and whether they had coffee or not that morning. In contrast an author's intent in a story is executed from beginning to end, whether the reader grasps it or not.
3973162
All opinions, including those of the author, are influenced by biases; and all opinions in the context of literary criticism, provided they can be rationally defended on objective grounds, are worthy of being discussed. If we say "authorial intent is final," not only does it then become difficult, or impossible, to interpret the work (perhaps the author is dead), but then it puts an end to all discussions about the book. And, considering that fan fiction is the place to help young, aspiring writers grow, putting an end to discussion is a death sentence.
I look at criticism as "here's one way to look at it," an art form of itself; but, just as the same piece of music can be interpreted many different ways, all ways giving a new shade to the piece, so all art can be. Too many people have this "I'm right; you're wrong; end of discussion" attitude, when that's not how art works, nor art's purpose.
True, but that intent is also often unknown to the author himself. How many times have you read in the RCL interviews, in response to the "Why do you write" question, the author saying: "Because I feel like it"?
This is especially true of fan fictions, where people are just learning to write for the first time. It's of critical importance, in the fostering of writers, for someone to explain: "This is what you're doing, this is the effect it gives, and this is how it can be interpreted." Too many times have I submitted one of my works to editing, only for my editor to tell me, with reason, that the way I crafted so-and-so a scene gives off an attitude totally contrary to the rest of the novel; and, once pointed out, I'm baffled how I couldn't have seen that in the first place!
So, in sum, this is not an easy question to answer. But, regardless, rational discussion upon a novel ought never to be silenced.
3973667 Death of the Author is the worst thing you can do to an author. Just because something is written "just because" doesn't mean that the authors thought process or intent are not there. They wrote it for fun or because they felt like it. That's the purpose. If you go around saying that the author was clearly thinking something else, especially when the author is there and available for communication is presumptuous and a fallacy of whatever you want to say it is when you ignore their words.
Any work of art can be interpreted in how it affects a person's perception, and that's fine. But stripping the authors intention, as basic as it might be, is basically saying "my opinion is more important than what you spent thousands of words saying or exploring." The Death of the Author approach is condescending and frankly idiotic whenever put to the test. It can't stand analysis, nor more importantly confrontation with the author themselves.
Like that quote you mentioned between Asimov and the teacher. "Just because you wrote it, what makes you think you have any idea you know what it's about?" Yes. Yes he does. And just because Asimov said to the teacher, "oh, I didn't think it could be interpreted that way," it doesn't mean that the teacher's interpretation is correct, however valid it might be for him on a personal level. In other words, it was the teacher's opinion, not a correct interpretation that negates Asimov's original intent as the teacher is implying.
People use "Death of the Author" as basically a shield to throw around their opinion, be it favorable or negative, of what the work is about. It's basically their carte blanche to sound contemptuous while still missing the point most of the time. Regardless of how you want to look at something, there are levels of analysis that get conveniently skipped by this. "Death of the Author" negates all factors active at the time of when the story was written in favor of whatever the reader is feeling at the time.
You can feel however you want about a story, and you can share theories and such but they should hold up to a certain standard of thought and contemplation of factors that affected the author (or not) and the writing of the story if you want to pretend to understand what the story is about. Just because its your opinion, doesn't mean it's not wrong.
An author might say "any interpretation is valid", but that's not because the reader will always be right; it's because the author understands that while the message and intent might be one thing, the personal interpretation of the reader is what will matter to the reader even if the reader's interpretation has nothing to do with what the author intended. In that sense, discussion is encouraged, but this My Opinion Shield, aka "Death of the Author" approach, is also used to twist the words of authors into something they definitely are not, and when the author speaks up and says otherwise, they're met with this sorry excuse to say what you want, as ill informed as you want to be and in an asinine way as possible what you want it to mean.
But you also forget there that who this comes from is very important, and whether they get the original intent of the story is what would enable them to objectively say: "You're not doing it right." Otherwise it's an opinion, and a fun thing to say but not necessarily factual.
Well, that's a good editor you have right there, but in the end it's still your decision with proceeding with the approach you wrote originally or not. Unless every time you give your editor a completed story, they can't objectively know where you're planning on going with it unless you sat down with them and had a discussion about the purpose of it. So if they say a scene can be interpreted some way, maybe it needs to stay that way. It doesn't mean that your editor's opinion (as honest and thorough as it might be) is the decision maker on where your story is going. I would argue that listening to everything your editor says and implementing it is actually a mistake.
As for whether it kills discussion, I disagree with you. Discussion and interpretation can always happen, as long as Death of the Author is not in the way. That idiotic theory doesn't even make sense today given that the immediate response and information from authors is available within the tip of the fingers, but it's paradoxically appropriate at the same time, pervading in a society that cherishes forceful appropriation of intellectual property, music, and all forms of art.
3973952
This has been a very interesting discussion.
I don't think I've said anything that contradicts what I'm about to say next, but if I have, then I'll say that you've changed my mind: determining the intent of the writer is important for a number of reasons: not only does insight to the intent of the author give insight to things in a novel that might otherwise be passed by, or not made sense, but it's also important in evaluating the quality of a novel: the question now becomes; "By examining the book, can we find the author's intent; and, if so, how well was that intent executed?"
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not so much a proponent of Death of the Author as I am an opponent of Word of God. Anything that can't be gleaned from reading the book is irrelevant (in a well put together book, the intent of the author can be found), since to discuss anything that can't be found in the book is to talk about things that aren't in the book; then you're not discussing literature anymore.
I find a quote from Victor Hugo relevant here: Un roman, selon [moi], naît, d'une façon en quelque sorte nécessaire, avec tous ses chapitres; un drame naît avec toutes ses scènes. Ne croyez pas qu'il y ait rien d'arbitraire dans le nombre de parties dont se compose ce tout, ce mystérieux microcosme que vous appelez drame ou roman. La greffe ou la soudure prennent mal sur des œuvres de cette nature, qui doivent jaillir d'un seul jet et rester telles quelles. Une fois la chose faite, ne vous ravisez pas, n'y retouchez plus. Une fois que le livre est publié, une fois que le sexe de l'œuvre, virile ou non, a été reconnu et proclamé, une fois que l'enfant a poussé son premier cri, il est né, le voilà, il est ainsi fait, père ni mère n'y peuvent plus rien, il appartient à l'air et au soleil, laissez-le vivre ou mourir comme il est. ("A novel, in my opinion, is necessarily born with all its chapters; a drama is born with all its scenes. Don't think that there is anything arbitrary in the number of parts that compose this whole, this mysterious microcosm that you call a drama or a novel. A graft or suture does not hold well with works of this nature, which must surge forth in a single leap and remain just as they are. Once a thing is done, do not revise it, do not touch it up. Once the book is published, once the sex of the work, virile or not, has been recognized and proclaimed, once a child has given his first cry, he has been born, here he is, this is how he has been made, neither father nor mother can do anything about it, he belongs to the air and to the sun, let him live or die as he is.")
He's talking about how an author should never add scenes to new editions after a book's been published, but his argument can be extended to why what an author says is part of the book after it's been published, despite there being no evidence of that in the original, should not be taken into consideration.
A book is a whole, seperate entity, and once it is, it is. If there's no evidence of something in the book, then nothing the author says matters.
Or, if you'd prefer a more contemporary rejection of Word of God, to paraphrase Orson Scott Card: Ms. Rowling might think Dumbledore is gay, but that doesn't mean anyone else has to. (In support of his opinion, Card goes on to say that there's no evidence in any of the novels that he's actually gay)
Not necessarily. Many writers were literally insane and could not give understandable interpretations of their own works.
I should make a distinction here: what the author's intent is, and what the author says the intent is are two very different things. The former is important to understand the work; the latter can be helpful, but also just as easily can't be. I believe Tolkien said that LOTR is simply an adventure story, that it has no fundamental, deeper meaning. I don't think he's lying; I just think he's a poor introspector. Since you're a writer, you should know that writing is a direct product of your subconsciousness. Most of us have difficulty in interpreting the meaning of our own subconsciousness; most of us have difficulty with introspection. Thus, I wouldn't shut down interpretations to the work with an author's Word of God. What makes what the author says any more reliable than anyone else's opinion?
I suppose then a correct response from Asimov's teacher, if he had wished to maintain his position, would've been: "Well then you did a bad job of conveying it, because there's nothing in the novel to suggest that, and plenty in the novel to suggest my interpretation."
All criticisms are just opinions, nothing else.
But I will say, to continue on the whole "Word of God" thing, that though an author's intent is important, the author's expressed opinion (something very different than his actual intent) should not be considered more complete and solid than someone else's just because the author is the author. If someone punched out a ten-thousand word essay giving his opinion and analysis of the work, with supporting evidence, and the author says "your opinion is wrong," that does not (necessarily) mean the critic's interpretation is incomplete or wrong, just because the author is the author.
Though I do think the whole attitude of "my opinion is correct, yours is wrong; shut up about it" is toxic, I also think "the word of god" is just plain dumb.
That's a pet peeve of mine in my book clubs: I'll give a long, detailed explanation about my interpretation, complete with quotes and evidence to support it, and someone who disagrees will tell me I'm missing the point and will rarely try to refute what I'm actually saying. Which is just a way of saying "you're wrong, I'm right. Shut up."
My whole point is that I interpreted "the point" as something completely else (and here's evidence for why I think so); perhaps that's not what the author intended, but then it's also my opinion he didn't do a good job of conveying it.