Philip Pullman on the irrelevance of the artist's intentions

I can join in discussions about my books, because I too have read them, but my opinions have no greater authority than anyone else's just because I wrote them.

— Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) December 9, 2020

I was pleased to see this tweet from Philip Pullman because I once blogged on the irrelevance of the author's intentions to the meaning of a work of art - you see, Liberal England isn't all funny headlines and other peoples' videos.

The occasion for that post was an exchange I saw on Twitter. Someone was arguing with J.K. Rowling about the motivation of a character at one point of the Harry Potter saga, whereupon another tweeter leapt in with:

I suspect this to be the greatest act of mansplaining of all time

(This was in 2015 when J.K. Rowling could do no wrong for the liberal left and before people used the hashtag #RIPJKRowling to show the world how caring they are.)

In response to this exchange I wrote that behind the complaint about mansplaining lay

a number of connected and faulty aesthetic theories: that a work of art has one fixed meaning; that its meaning derives solely from the author's intentions; and that those intentions are somehow transferred from the author's mind to the book, which it then inhabits as a sort of ghostly substance.

The truth is different. As soon as a book is published the author loses control of it. There is no single correct reading of it that derives from her intentions. Readings multiply as its readership multiplies.

You could even argue that the better a book is, the more diverse the possible readings are, It this sort of fluidity of meaning that keeps the classics alive and makes us still want to read them.

I also suggested that if you get the feeling that everything is just as it is in the Harry Potter universe only because Rowling says so than that is a sign of her limitations as an author not her strength.

So it's good to see Philip Pullman taking a similar view to mine on the relevance of the artist's intentions.