Just a random thought about how authors can deal with incredibly big subjects but fail to actually grasp them themselves. Sorta like how Ray Bradbury thinks Fahrenheit 451 is about how people listen to the radio too much.

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This is why The Death of the Author theory of literary analysis is kind of cool

    Because you can just ignore them when they go "No, the story was about how we need stronger trade tariffs on rice!"

    • Rodentsteak [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      I think Bradbury is the only dude who is wrong about his own work to any large extent (At least that I know of). Like other authors might be repugnant or lib as shit, but generally they're at least somewhat cognisant of the themes within their own works. Not to say that one cannot interpret their works kn other ways, and in ways the author did not mean to, but Bradbury is the only one to insist on an interpretation of his own work so heterodox that nobody else buys it.