John Banville: “I wish the pulp magazines were still going, I’d love to write for pulp magazines. And I’d love to have worked in the studio system in movies as well, I’d love to be in one of those dinky haciendas somewhere in the Hollywood hills and some producer comes in and says, ‘We need two scenes by four o’clock, and they’d better be funny.’”

Oh priceless. Thank you, Lee.

http://wordpress.hotpress.com/petermurphy/2008/12/08/john-banville-directors-cut/

This is turning into a weirdish comment thread, eh? Did you know that just about all the Norse gods are not immortal? (ultimately, Ragnorak)

@Bekah: I find that reading a good novel without knowing much about the author is a very fun thing to do. I mean, everyone puts a bit of themselves into their writing, so it’s pretty nice to try and figure out which bits or which characters reflect the author.

Oh dear … my odd sense of humour!

However, I’m aware – and very wary – of such topics in literary theory. They age like ripe cheese – nice for a while, soon runny and beyond the sell-by date. In other words – and please don’t take offence when none is meant – despite the usefulness of taxonomy, it’s awfully seductive to fall into generalisations, particularly such commonplace ones. I’m not a very good literary critic, but all criticism must essentially be text-based and therefore rely heavily on citation. (Another reason I prefer to question the written word, not the writer.)

Now you’re confusing me. But it’s been quite the topic in literary theory, equating author=creator of a world=God.
It’s only a metaphor of course, but with the evolution of the novel from 19th cen. realism and authorial command to 20the cen. modernism and stream of consciousness to postmodern irony and self-conscious self-reflexive writing; the author’s confidence in her ability to present objective worlds and rule over her characters and determine their destinies grows increasingly less stable.

Chris

A reader who conflates God with an author ought to read a bit more philosophy, theology, and perhaps psychology.

But I’m an atheist, so I’m unlikely to attribute supernatural powers to writers.

Or am I one? This may just be part of my online persona.

Loki the Trickster is a Norse god.

And perhaps Banville is Loki in disguise – or I am! After all, psychotherapists like myself use a whole bag of tricks, and still I wouldn’t to pronounce on Banville’s personality.

But am I a psychotherapist or just God?

You bring up a lot of interesting questions and I commend you for your searching, philosophical query. You first talk about Banville and so let me state my opinion about the writer’s work. When I first read “The Sea” I found the writing–like Nabokov–a violin in a void. The language, the description, the sentences, beautiful but the story and the characters seriously lacking.

I read “Lemur” in the New York Times magazine from beginning to end and absolutely loved it. I thought Banville really elevated the serial with his meticulous prose and the characters jumped off the page. I proceeded to collect Banville books in second hand book stores and now I have over a dozen of them. I’ve read several others and consider him to be one of the best living “technical” writers in literary fiction.

I could see Banville the person as being a bit of a snob. He’s praised constantly and has been for the last twenty years–his “beautiful prose”. He’s won tons of awards as well. So like any celebrity, I’m sure it goes to his head.

But if he had a blog fic and I was reading it and I saw that he commented rudely toward one of his readers I would be turned off. There is different dynamic in this case, as you were right to point out. Now, I agree with Lee as well. It’s up to the writer to decide how much she cares to interact with the audience.

Personally, I think the more interaction the better, but that’s only because I’m excited to communicate with my readers and bring forth a mutual, if not collaborative, dimension in the development of the story.

Authors in print are ghosts. Those who have public profiles are often different people than the personas their readers imagine them to be. We fall in love with the author’s persona and this is impossible to reproduce in reality. There are so many projections that go on between reader and author.

The interesting thing about blog fiction is that it humanizes both the reader and the writer. We don’t need to be idealized people anymore. You could say, in a sense, that it levels the playing field. No more God/Author, just an average human being. Which is funny b/c I think the most effective writers, even more effective than the Banville types who are intoxicated with their own artistic powers, are the modest, ironically self-deprecating writers.

Perhaps that’s what you like about online authors; you get a sense of their human-ness, their lovable imperfections.

Chris

Anyway, yeah. I think it’s also strange when authors become less larger-than-life; as a name on a book or whatever they seem almost like a mythical god, but now I can easily talk to/watch video of/etc many authors, which is very flesh and blood. I don’t think I’ve ever been too discouraged, but I do see how I could.

@Jim: I forgot about that aspect of Lovecraft, and come to think of it, I’m not sure if it was him who was a jerk, and not … (hops to Wikipedia to check)

Okay it might not be him. But I do remember that he was quite anti-social, wasn’t he?

He actually interacted extensively with his readers through snail mail. Apparently he had a large circle of correspondents, some of whom were involved in preserving his work after he died.

Overall, it supports your argument, but it reminds people that that sort of interaction was possible in the past — just harder.

That being said, it must also be noted that Lovecraft was somewhat racist (though I don’t know whether he was more racist than the people around him at the time).

Also, just for the record, I’m not much of a fan of Lovecraft, but some of my friends were as teenagers and thus I’ve read a couple books of his and know more about him than I otherwise would…

Writer personality hasn’t affected my reading as yet, but of course it’s not impossible.

Ironically enough, I am reading The Lemur in its entirety now, and I think I’ll give those books you mentioned a try.

I’ll even go one step further: the pleasure of reading lies in the very fact that it not a social but a deeply private and personal experience.