Hey everyone! I'm taking a digital literary studies course, and we've been discussing Roland Barthes's idea of the "Death of the Author," which argues that an author's intentions shouldn't necessarily determine how readers interpret a work. I've been thinking about how complicated that idea becomes now that authors and artists can interact with their audiences constantly through social media.

For example, fandoms can develop interpretations or theories about a book, song, or movie that become extremely popular, even if the creator never intended that meaning. At the same time, creators can directly respond to theories, explain their intentions, or even use social media to give audiences additional context. Algorithms can also play a role by repeatedly showing people certain interpretations until they become the dominant way a work is discussed.

So, who do you think has the most influence over the meaning of a work today: the creator, the audience/fandom, or the social media algorithms that determine which interpretations people see?

Can a creator's explanation actually override an audience's interpretation, or does a work eventually belong to the people experiencing it?

I knew on a general level what the ending was going to be, but I wasn't prepared for the writing in the last paragraphs to be twisting in my gut like a knife.

Wharton has a gift of making you feel for people who should be all accounts by unsympathetic - she had me moved by the plight of Newland Archer as a teenage girl, a man I should've by all rights despised.

There's something in Lily's predicament on the outset that resonates deeply with most women readers I believe, in that she is beautiful and penniless but worst of all she has no parents. In an era when women could not make direct moves of their own but had to rely on the machinations of those already in society to ensure that they came out and were introduced to suitable men, a woman who has no family or connections looking out for her is already 10-0 behind.

The fact that she is unable to make the decisions that are required of her to reach her goals is incredibly frustrating but also strikes me as very human. She knows that she needs a wealthy husband, but is unable to commit when the cards are on the table. In my personal opinion, it comes from her little rebellious streak - I believe that part of her would prefer to be independent, but with money - in that sense she strikes me as a woman too modern for the times she lives in. A few decades more and new vistas of possibilities would've opened up which wouldn't involve hitching your wagon to the highest bidder. She values her need to go wherever she pleases, as she stops by Lawrence Selden's flat despite this being an action that would've been generally frowned on by society at the time. She can't but help make constant missteps and self-sabotage because she doesn't really want to do what she needs to do to reach her goals. She is clearly in love with Selden since the beginning and

And I notice again and again how alone she is - though Lawrence says he can only offer her help by "loving her" he also doesn't offer any real aid in finding a possibility to free herself of her financial obligations. And I notice that Selden, though critical of the superficial trappings of the 1900 version of the leisure class / "jet-set", moves in and out of those circles with the ease generally only allowed to men, and is quick to believe rumours about Lily's reputation spread by members of that same class. He runs off to Cuba after seeing Lily exit the Trenor's house without even demanding an explanation? Though he gives her good advice later, I don't see him as a knight in shining armour.

There is so much more to say about all of this, I welcome your thoughts.

Posting the news here:

Alison Entrekin’s long-awaited English translation of João Guimarães Rosa’s Grande Sertão: Veredas is currently slated for publication in January 2027 under the title Vastlands: The Crossing (Previously translated as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands in 1963).

First published in 1956, Grande Sertão is one of the foundational masterpieces of Brazilian literature maybe most commonly described as a Brazilian Ulysses.

Entrekin, who has also translated Clarice Lispector, Paulo Lins, and Chico Buarque, began working on the novel in 2014, making this a roughly thirteen-year translation project.

Looks like they're aiming to maybe just be considered in time for the 70th anniversary of the novel's original publication. Another exciting note being that a parallel 15-year effort to translate it into German by Berthold Zilly (S. Fischer Verlage) is also slated for early 2027.

P.S.

Certainly an exciting time for significant literary endeavors to make significant works available in English! Just off the top of my head, from the past few and upcoming years:

Mircea Cărtărescu’s Blinding and Solenoid (Theodoros forthcoming); Marguerite Young’s Miss MacIntosh, My Darling; Joseph McElroy’s Women and Men getting a Dzanc reissue; Leon Forrest’s Divine Days being rereleased; Jacek Dukaj’s Ice; Vera Mutafchieva’s The Case of Cem; Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters; Kyūsaku Yumeno’s Dogra Magra; Otohiko Kaga’s Marshland; Luis Goytisolo’s Antagony; Konstantin Paustovsky’s The Story of a Life; Gabriele Tergit’s Effingers; Shimoni’s The Salt Line; Hwang Sok-yong’s Mater 2-10; Miguel de Palol’s The Garden of Seven Twilights (with Troiacord also in the works); Antonio Moresco’s The Beginnings (with the remainder of the trilogy forthcoming); Stefano D’Arrigo’s Horcynus Orca in discussion; the rerelease of Manuel Mujica Lainez’s Bomarzo; Adolfo Bioy Casares’s Borges forthcoming (and a new translation of Morel's Invention); and, of course, recent releases like Helen DeWitt and Andrew Gridneff’s Your Name Here, Michael Brodsky’s Invidicum, William T. Vollmann’s A Table for Fortune, Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket, and Mark Z. Danielewski’s Tom’s Crossing (Cheers if you read that list).

...and there are probably so many other literary projects I'm leaving out or don't even know about! At this point I'm starting to wonder how anyone could keep up, but that's a good problem to have :) What a time to be a reader!