From: "Elijah Chudnoff" <diomedes-AT-ufl.edu>
Subject: Re:       Re: PLC: "Deconstruction"
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 17:36:08 -0500


>
>The "intrinsic" meaning of a book, where the
>author is interested in the "thought" part of
>plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and
>spectacle (and where he or she is not just
>hearing himself babble) is intrinsic in the book
>only because the author put it there. That's
>because it's man-made art, which is all pre-
>meditated. Unless one is satisfied with recording
>someone's rendition of the "Bell Song from Lakme
>as she belts it out in the shower.
>

    Unless you can go ask the author himself what he intended to mean, the
only means you have for getting at it is interpretation. Interpretation is
necessarily a play between construeal and construction. And then we have no
way outside of interpretation to decide which we are leaning towards more.
You can always pretend that you are ardently keeping the author in mind, and
thereby practice the art of self-deception with regards to interpretaion.
Deconstruction seems to want to make explicit the self-deception involved,
however, and perhaps re-set in motion that play between construeal and
construction.

Elijah Chudnoff
University of Florida
diomedes-AT-ufl.edu




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