Clueless, United

[McMurphy]

I have a confession to make. The first time I read "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells I missed the subtext lectures on socialism and the rigid class distinctions in industrialized society altogether. Sure, I was a lot younger when first reading it, but I was a bit embarrassed over how blatant the story was about offering more than mere surface level science fiction when I reread it years later.

I can't be the only one that has read a classic and totally missed the message until it was pointed out to him/her years later....

Am I?

 

[lazygun]

You name it,I missed it..

As bizarre as it may sound I make a distinction in reading for pleasure and reading for knowledge.

 

[dwndrgn]

You name it,I missed it..

As bizarre as it may sound I make a distinction in reading for pleasure and reading for knowledge.

Are we the same person? jk

to me: Battlefield Earth = good fun, bad guy vs. good guy story
to Hubbard: Battlefield Earth = subversive attempt to both make money and discredit psychologists at the same time (or some such rot)

Actually, I don't know if I've got some sort of twisted mind or not, but while in school and forced to read the dullest books ever written I always tended to come up with thoughts about the author's intentions that were not necessarily the opposite of the 'accepted' thoughts but usually would swing wide of the mark...I was lucky, however, in that I only had one teacher that treated me like a freak for this. Because she was such broomstick-flying, pointy-hat-wearing warty type of person, I got her back for it.

I'm especially good at assigning interesting themes to poems when the author pretty much was saying, 'the sky is blue, and I like it'. I had lots of fun with it. Usually teachers liked it too. At the very least it got everyone talking.

The problem is, I don't look for subtext, underlying themes or anything other than the story itself. I really would prefer there not be any subtext.

 

[nixie]

Fiction for pleasure and enjoyment,I never pick out the hiding meaning, If I want to learn something I'll read a text book

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Sometimes I get so caught up in the plot that I'll race through a book to see what comes next, and it's not until a second reading months or years later that I find out what the book was really about -- as opposed to merely what happens. Couldn't list all the times I've done this, so you're definitely not alone. In fact, if you've only misssed out on the subtext with the one book I'm impressed.

On the other hand, sometimes a reader just has to have a little more knowledge and experience of the world to pick up on all the subtext. Isn't that one of the joys of rereading a good book -- to discover something new each time?

 

[nixie]

Sometimes I get so caught up in the plot that I'll race through a book to see what comes next, and it's not until a second reading months or years later that I find out what the book was really about -- as opposed to merely what happens. Couldn't list all the times I've done this, so you're definitely not alone. In fact, if you've only misssed out on the subtext with the one book I'm impressed.

On the other hand, sometimes a reader just has to have a little more knowledge and experience of the world to pick up on all the subtext. Isn't that one of the joys of rereading a good book -- to discover something new each time?

I do the same,,...and thats why I enjoy rereads of my favourite books as I always discover something new.

 

[lazygun]

"to me: Battlefield Earth = good fun, bad guy vs. good guy story".

Snap!. .
As long as it's a good Story,I never start pulling apart the themes/construction/pacing/skills etc of the Author and the story.

....And just realised i may be wandering into deep water,...

 

[GOLLUM]

First and foremost I read for pleasure but I do look for subtexts in the writing and sometimes its fun to spot literary references or points the author is attempting to make about society or a particular viewpoint they hold on a subject. I guess I prefer to be engaged both intellectually and emotionally when reading a story so that stories which can perform both of these functions for me are the ones I tend to favour.

 

[Foxbat]

It's a rare thing for me to actually get the point in a book - even now - and I no longer have the excuse of youthful innocence on my side

 

[Alia]

First and foremost I read for pleasure but I do look for subtexts in the writing and sometimes its fun to spot literary references or points the author is attempting to make about society or a particular viewpoint they hold on a subject. I guess I prefer to be engaged both intellectually and emotionally when reading a story so that stories which can perform both of these functions for me are the ones I tend to favour.

I'm exactly the same way Gollum. I read for pleasure and often times I find that if the book is extremely involved then I will go back and reread it just to catch all the things I missed. In college I learned to look for the hidden messages in text... omg... I remember picking apart The Little Prince and Pinocchio trying to find all their hidden messages. I have no care to do that now... and sometimes I get a little annoyed at those who make something more out of a story then whats really there.

 

[dwndrgn]

"to me: Battlefield Earth = good fun, bad guy vs. good guy story".

Snap!. .
As long as it's a good Story,I never start pulling apart the themes/construction/pacing/skills etc of the Author and the story.

....And just realised i may be wandering into deep water,...

Nah, everyone is pretty tolerant here, even of our aberrations in tastes

 

[littlemissattitude]

In an English class long ago, I ran into a story by Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants". I thought it was a boring story, then when we analyzed it in class the teacher let us in on the fact that it was "supposed to be" about abortion. Huh? Missed that completely. I suppose I should go back and read it again sometime to see if I can pick that up.

What fascinates me is what people read into fiction. Much later in my academic career, in a class on popular fiction, I was amazed to discover the things that people latch onto in a book that may or may not be there. There was one novel we read in that class (it was a novel a week, with the exception of Fellowship of the Ring, which we got two weeks to read), can't remember what it was now, but one guy in the class became absolutely convinced that Chris Carter had to have read it, just had to have, before he created the character of Fox Mulder. He just wouldn't shut up about it. And that was just one of the silly theories that got aired in that class.

Sometimes it can be fun to look for hidden agendas in fiction; other times, I'd just rather let the stories carry me away.

 

[McMurphy]

Sometimes I get so caught up in the plot that I'll race through a book to see what comes next, and it's not until a second reading months or years later that I find out what the book was really about -- as opposed to merely what happens. Couldn't list all the times I've done this, so you're definitely not alone. In fact, if you've only misssed out on the subtext with the one book I'm impressed.

On the other hand, sometimes a reader just has to have a little more knowledge and experience of the world to pick up on all the subtext. Isn't that one of the joys of rereading a good book -- to discover something new each time?

Oh, how I wish I could claim that "The Time Machine" was the only example I could think of where I never dipped my toe in the subtext. In fact, it isn't even the only H.G. Wells work where the point was utterly ignored. In the Days of the Comet, which isn't considered by scholars as one of his better novels because the lecturing is far too heavy handed, was enjoyed and read without a clue that it preached the same case as "The Time Machine." Of course, my Wells reading phase took place when I was a lot younger, so I don't know if that has something to do with it or if what I look for in my reading has altered slightly.

I usually take the same approach as you: read for story first, attempt to digest any subtext afterwards. The only exception to that rule is when the work is very Campbell in nature, so picking out the symbolism and themes of the supposed collective consciousness can be a "Where in the World is Waldo" game.

 

[McMurphy]

In an English class long ago, I ran into a story by Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants". I thought it was a boring story, then when we analyzed it in class the teacher let us in on the fact that it was "supposed to be" about abortion. Huh? Missed that completely.

(Please excuse the double post. Attitude posted while I was preparing a post myself.)

I remember that Hemingway short story. I remember flopping down on a couch after a day of winter skiing and reading that in a Hemingway collection someone had lying around the place in college. I finished it clueless to what on Earth I was supposed to take from that....even on the story level. Good example.

 

[littlemissattitude]

when the work is very Campbell in nature,

Joesph or Ramsey?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm assuming you meant Joseph. I suppose that I should read some of his stuff. However, I've tried several times to get into his Primitive Mythology (thought I'd hit them in order), and I've never gotten past about page five. Everything I know about his work, I know from Bill Moyers' interviews with him on PBS. That's probably very sad.

 

[McMurphy]

Joesph or Ramsey?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm assuming you meant Joseph. I suppose that I should read some of his stuff. However, I've tried several times to get into his Primitive Mythology (thought I'd hit them in order), and I've never gotten past about page five. Everything I know about his work, I know from Bill Moyers' interviews with him on PBS. That's probably very sad.

Not at all, or, at leat, I hope there is safety in numbers because a few television specials and college lectures in a Fantasy class are what I am depending on. I wish I was a better note taker....

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I never saw the PBS series, though I've heard good things about it. I did, however, read several of his books back in my twenties, and I seem to remember that Primitive Mythology was far less interesting to me than the rest. You might try The Hero with a Thousand Faces, littlemiss, because I know I liked that one very much.

(And now that I think of it, it probably holds clues to a lot of the subtext in my own early works! Well, and not just mine, because I know a lot of writers who have read a lot of Campbell, too.)

 

[chrispenycate]

I must be an authors nightmare- not only do I get upset at authors for "preaching" at me (particularly Piers Anthony and Orson Scot Card, but there are plenty of others) but I'm forever getting annoyed about technical errors and inconsistancies- and I can do this for three books a week, unless I'm travelling, in which case it's more.
Fortunately, as a pleasant and polite person (who was that? Come on, own up) I don't often impose my opinions on anyone else, particularly not the author.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Well, I'm not well-versed enough in a lot of sciences to be able to catch technical things. But, boy, when I do...let's just say books have sailed across the room and it doesn't have anything at all to do with poltergeist activity. I was reading a perfectly pleasant novel awhile back, and enjoying it well enough, when someone in the story decided to carbon date a piece of rock. Well, I've read enough geology and archaeology to know that that does not work. That was the end of that book. As I recall, I even complained about here at the time, because I was really disappointed.

 

[dwndrgn]

Oh yeah, blatant errors that show the author didn't research enough really annoy me. But truly, I don't know enough to catch them often. When reading Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, not knowing enough of the history of the battles he's talking about, I really appreciate his notes at the end saying, this is what really happened and here's where I took liberty with the story...I see many authors do this and I really appreciate it. Not that I'd take their view of history as 'all the truth and nothing but', but that it is nice to get a little concise history lesson in a chewable chunk that doesn't put me to sleep.

On a similar note, my dad refused to continue watching 'Top Gun' because all the scenes in the planes were a)not the planes they said they were, and b)not technically possible...or something like that.

I had a great deal of difficulty at first with China Mieville's Perdido Street Station because of the incompatability of human and insectile anatomies. Finally I just put it down to artistic license and enjoyed the story for what it was, a story.