Imagining Authors in Our Own Image

Everyone knows the line from Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Every time we talk about AI, Neuralink, atomic bombs, or anything else that can catastrophically damage either individual lives or entire societies, we have to wrestle with this question of whether all progress is good. Most people realize that the question requires another question. What are we progressing towards? If we are progressing towards something good, then progress is good. If we are progressing toward something bad, then progress is bad. Just because you are moving forward does not necessarily mean you are moving in the right direction.

Considering the ramifications of new discoveries and new technology seems to be popularly confined to the realm of science. This question is rarely applied to the humanities, and it seems like it ought to be. In the humanities, there are a variety of theories that anyone can apply to a reading of a text. It has almost developed to the point where a text can mean anything except for what the straightforward reading appears to mean.

The question returns to what we should do when we handle a text. We can interpret a text in just about any way we want. We can read our own preconceived notions about what a writer must have meant. We can take a Marxist position and understand all literature through the lens of economics and class struggle. Even if the author has no discernible connection to Marxist thought, we can apply that theory on top of the work in question and understand it through that lens. No one is stopping us from doing that.

Nevertheless, should we?

I would like to suggest that we should not. If anything, we should be especially conscious of any personal theory we have and are trying to impose on the writer in question. Rather than explicitly attempting to apply any filter, it ought to be our goal to discover what the author meant.

J.R.R. Tolkien comes up frequently in these kinds of discussions because of his incredibly broad, popular appeal. His works have been loved by people across the political and ideological spectrum, many of them finding themes that they can support in his work. His environmentalism was embraced by the hippies of the 1960s, but does that make Tolkien a hippie? Not necessarily. When you consider his biographical details, he was certainly not a hippie. Was he anti-hippie? As a traditional Catholic, he would have opposed many of the activities that took place within that subcultural movement. Nevertheless, he was embraced by hippies and arguably would have found some common ground in the area of environmentalism.

Reading J.R.R. Tolkien as an author and trying to understand him and his work allows for this kind of complexity. We can consider a complex man who believed many different things and created a story. Just as children are the genetic product of their parents, books will share the genetic stamp of their authors as well. Tolkien could not separate himself from writing a book as himself any more than I can separate myself from my own DNA. He would naturally be part of his cultural production.

Reading Tolkien in any other way, by applying a wide variety of literary theories, runs the risk of trying to create Tolkien in our own image. We either try to simplify this complicated man into a carbon copy of ourselves, or we reject him because he doesn’t fit within the complete mold that we need him to fit. As I was reflecting on this post, I came across an article that provides a Marxist view of Tolkien. The author wrestles with the conundrum of why Tolkien was so popular when he was obviously conservative. From this Marxist reading, no conservative should be that popular or even be considered a master of their craft. Rather than wrestling with the fact that Tolkien is a very complex thinker who even embedded critiques of capitalism in his world, the author concludes, “he is not a master of modern literature as a whole.” Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I don’t believe anyone needs to love Tolkien (the poor, misguided souls they are). However, the reason that this author largely rejects him is because he was not a Marxist. This is a case of a literary theory causing someone who actually seems to enjoy Tolkien to have to view him in a certain, unfavorable light.

As I mentioned above, we can apply any filter we want to our reading. To some extent, we will always be influenced by the way we view the world and what we believe about the nature of reality. However, I do not believe we should consciously add additional layers of interpretation on top of a work. We need to hear what the author wants us to hear. We might accept it, reject it, love it, hate it, or not even care about it when we are done, but we owe authors the courtesy of hearing what they have to say and not just what we want them to say.