What do you think of people "interpreting" fiction?

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Thank you for saying that. It's been bothering me for a while now. Why do people attack us for interpreting things? And why is it okay to attack us for doing it?

---------------- (The next bit is not addressed at XFilesGeek, just in case that's not clear.)

A lot of people here said that they find - and I'm paraphrasing here - interpreting tedious or boring or unnecessary. I accept that you don't like it. And I don't really mind it. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing, so what? People are different, people like different things. That's fantastic.

But do you have to offend people like me or anyone else, who like doing it, who studied it, for whom it has been part of their life and who made a living out of it? And, btw, I don't interpret anything. Some things are just what they are. Others are not and I for one find it interesting to dive deeper to see what's beyond the surface. If there's nothing there, then there's nothing there and I can enjoy it even so, but if there is, I find it fascinating. And I don't see how I hurt anyone by being interested in it.

Why not keep talking about the thing, instead of making it ad-hominem?

I think it's really obnoxious and I hate it and these people need to get a life.

If someone took a character I created and then came up with all these insane hidden theories about them that were not my intention, I'd be ready to punch their face. Of course , that's not likely going to happen. Both the theories of one of my characters and the face punching, I mean.

Now that I think of it: "One of the author's characters is drinking punch at a party. This is due to the author's secret desire to punch someone in the face for trying deep hidden meanings in her characters."

Seems like a bit of an overreaction to other people’s harmless hobby.

For what it’s worth I think most authors are deliberately and definitely trying to tell their readers things. Tolkien said that he hated allegories but also that the theme of death and mankind’s attempts to elude it were core themes of the Lord of the Rings. Look how many writers of his generation and the next were shaped by their experiences of the World Wars. You can’t read catch-22 without absorbing Heller’s views on bureaucracy and warfare.

Ultimately, what does it matter if someone else reads a book, watches a film, or hears a song and thinks about it?

I think people hate “interpreting fiction” because their English teacher tried to teach them how to do it. But it’s also something we do all the time, when we listen to pop songs and fill in the gaps in the lyrics.

”Themes are for eighth grade book reports”

That worked out well to everyone’s satisfaction.

On a serious note, The_Walrus has just reminded me of English class in secondary school, where we were required to write up an analysis of A View From The Bridge by Miller: however, I dissented from the teachers advocated interpretation which hinged in the notion that Eddie lusts after Catherine.
I instead went with the line that the plot arc parallels that of the core narrative of the old welsh folktale Culhwch & Olwen: and interpreted fear of his own mortality as driving motivation, keeping his niece “young” (unmarried) being a sublimation if his yearning to avoid death.
I got an F for that

Just thinking: how many other folks have had a set interpretation of a work they are required to assent to in the course of schooling?

Honest question: I’m genuinely interested.

[MOD]

Threatening people with physical violence because you don't like they're harmless hobby that in no way involves you is crossing the line.

Furthermore, myself and many other people on this site enjoy interpreting fiction, so the bashing is going to stop or this thread will be closed and warnings will be handed out.

[/MOD]

The way it's supposed to work is you get graded on how well you argue your point and support it with evidence. In my British literature class, I wrote an essay on how Raphael from the "Ninja Turtles" is an example of a Byronic hero, and I got an A.

It’s because both the Ninja Turtles and Byron lived by the code of swashbucklers.

Everything settled through duels. And other forms of “gallantry.”

Well, yes: it is completely possible that I missed cue’s in the dialogue that invalidated my take on the play due to sheer obliviousness!

Or my English teacher alcoholism may have influenced the outcome... or both

Or I just failed to argue my case well at all by bloodymindedly failing to take account of anything that told against it: that was definitely true of the first draft of my uni dissertation, which was so out there tutor referred me to a therapist

Yeah, you're professor just being a prick is also a possibility.

^ Well, to be fair to my Uni professor my dissertation in its first fraught form was bonkers: I was trying to interpret hidden messages in the geometry of medieval cathedrals using a mixture of Kabbalistic texts and Crowley’s writings on Tarot...

After a few therapy sessions and some gentle tutorial one-to-ones with him I wrote a much more sensible dissertation on the concept of material authenticity in modern architecture, and got a good grade for it

I enjoy both reflecting on deeper if not necessarily hidden meaning and hearing other people's take. It reminds me of Anais Nin who said that "we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are". Granted, I have a fascination with understanding how others see/perceive the world (including the writer). My own perspective can also change through exposure to new experiences and ideas and I like re-visiting some works of fiction and find if I see them in a different light.

Many, maybe most substantial writers don't write a story as just a story (the plot) but as a vehicle for expressing their thoughts, emotions, ideas and beliefs and characters can serve the same purpose (Dostoevsky, in particular, liked to create characters not as actual people, but as an embodiment of ideas or even ideologies - which often accounts for their strangeness and lack of veracity).

Most artists understand that by making their work public they open themselves to criticism, interpretation and debate and some of them enjoy engaging in such exchanges.

This being said, I can be irritated by outlandish interpretations, particularly if they are a result of confirmation bias or projections of one's own prejudices, preconceived ideas or agenda to the point of "hijacking" somebody else's work - Nietzsche has been often used this way.

Interpreting fiction is probably the only way it can entertain some people, but that is probably best pursued as a private matter. I used to get authors' irritation over non-fiction. I'd send my friend well-engineered plans for things he wanted to make, and he'd never use them, always feeling inspired to be personally creative, and waste his work. Eventually, I stopped writing to him.