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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47874
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47874
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

This notion that a novel has a meaning that we can ferret out and interpret has been a staple of English teachers for decades. Essentially it is an attempt to turn a novel (or any other work of art) into a simple proposition. As far as I can tell, they do this because otherwise they can't figure out what they are supposed to teach about a novel.

The problem with this way of looking at a novel, though, is that if the novelist's concern was to make a simple propositional statement, why didn't they just make it? Why spend months or years working out complex plots and developing well rounded characters if all they really wanted to say was, "Be nicer to each other," or "Young men are false."

Tolkien, in his essay _On Fairie Stories_ offers a different way of looking at things. The novelist is engaging in an act of sub-creation (sub-creation because God is the principal creator). The author is making a world that the reader experiences in a way akin to how they experience the ordinary world.

A work of art, then, is not a veiled proposition, but an experience. You don't interpret a work of art, you experience it. (A critic may interpret a work of art, particularly one from the past, by explaining the references that would enable a reader in the know to receive the experience whole, but which a modern or less well informed reader might not recognize, and which would therefore prevent them from fully experiencing the work.)

This does not mean that an author wants to leave the reader unchanged in their view of the real world. Every experience we have changes how we see, which changes how we experience everything that happens to us afterward. Thus the experience of art has the potential to change how we experience everything that happens to us afterwards in life, and in every subsequent piece of art we experience.

So, when John Steinbeck gave his readers the experience of knowing the Joad family and experiencing their struggles on the road to California, and in the migrant camps once they got there, he certainly intended that this should change the way they saw the plight of the actual migrants, and hopefully this would lead to them being treated better.

But he did not do this by asserting propositions. He did not do it by making arguments. He did it by giving readers an experience that affected how they saw every experience they had after they had read the book.

Modern neurology seems to confirm this, for we now know that the brain is highly plastic, rewiring itself as a result of every experience, and thus affecting how every subsequent experience is recieved.

So, as a novelist, you should not be attempting to have your readers decode a proposition or an argument from your novel. Still less should you be trying to make sure they all decode the same proposition. You should be attempting to give them an experience which will play some part in shaping how they see the world after they have read it.

But by the same token, you can't guarantee that they will all experience your novel the same way, since how they receive any experience is shaped by all the experiences they have had in the past. Thus your novel will be, at least subtly, and perhaps profoundly, a different experience for each of your readers.

Your responsibility, though, is to try to make it an experience that is as complete as possible, as convincing as possible, and as true as possible to the aspect of human experience you are attempting to reflect.

Original score: 62