Frankly, I find autobiographical material to be absolutely insufferable. I just thinking about Nabokov, because he wants us to not look to treat the work as an entire entity of its own. In that way, I think it's interesting to interpret Nabokov's works, independently of one another. But I'm completely against this idea of looking at his work as a single body, rather than as individual works. I think it's primarily because, I feel like that undermines fiction. To me, it goes against the very idea of made-up stories, and the idea that stories can really be invented. Last semester I took a course on James Joyce's Ulysses, we did a lot of this biographical stuff. Honestly, I find it unbearable. But I find it unbearable for two reasons: first, being this idea that stories should be invented, should be given the credit of being invented. The second reason being that works should be treated as individual work, and not valued based on their relationship to imagined contexts. Thirdly, perhaps most interestingly, Nabokov, and Joyce amongst others, are really against this type of reading. This is worse things get tricky though. And also, where they get fun. Because, although it is true that the bulk of the Joyce don't want us to bring the authors life into the texts, they both also seem to be of the idea that their own interpretations are not the final ones. While I realize what that implies, does that mean that we shouldn't take their opinions into consideration at all? If the author is only a vehicle for the work, and the author does not have the final say on the meanings of the work, does that mean that they should have no say? I don't know. I don't know if I think that an author should comment on their own work. Theoretically, the comments are already in the work. Then moving forward, the role of the reader to interpret and comment.
And what is our fascination with authors? Is it the conception that we are so amazed that they make up the stories that we look for true life within them? Baffled to the point of disbelief, perhaps? Or is it something else? Maybe, it's this idea that we are so in love with the author for creating the work, that we want to know more about what created this beautiful thing. Really, what is the fun of that? Say, for instance, you read an incredible novel. You later go on to read about the authors life, and find, but the story mirror some experiences or happenings within the authors life. Doesn't the magic sort of disappear? The ephemerality and imagination involved in your reading of it prior to knowing about the author is gone. It's like seeing the film before you read the book. You will always see the actors playing those characters when you read the book.
Lastly, what this method does, is that it imagines writing as a non-empathic experience. And perhaps, that's what infuriates me the most. This idea, that a writer can't write out of a desire to connect. That a writer must be creating from their own lives. Empathy is always on my mind, because I realize this world is full of massive differences. And I find empathy, to be the best way of dealing with these differences. Biographical readings then, posit that writers will be creating only out of a desire to represent themselves, rather than out of a desire to connect with others.
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