On writing and bad readers
There will always be bad and disingenuous readers. That's the first thing to know as a writer. They'll always be with us, and they'll always be there, ready to read what you've written—labored over for hours, days, weeks—in bad faith, or to misinterpret it due to laziness or antipathy or narcissism or some other intellectual vice.
For a while now a threefold example of this has stuck with me. It comes from one particular author's writings—a widely read academic whom we'll call Joe Johnson—and has served as a perpetual reminder of this unavoidable fact. The first stems from an essay he wrote; the other two from different reviews of different books by Johnson.
The essay was, immediately upon publication, willfully misread to mean what Johnson clearly did not mean, could not have meant, and clarified in reply that he did not mean. The misreadings seized on a few terms and a couple of minor framing devices he used in the essay in order to turn his argument inside out. It did not matter what he said to clarify; the misreaders were set in their ways.
One review was, hands down, the single most disingenuous, unserious, vicious, and uncharitable engagement with a text I have ever seen in print. Something about Johnson or the book in question clearly irked the reviewer to such an extent that rage, of an immature and pitiable sort, had to be vented in his direction. It was a sad sight to see.
The other review was calm in tone but, by its conclusion, decided that Johnson had failed in some significant way for the simple reason that (we surmise) he did not write the book the reviewer wished he had; or (to say the same thing differently) he did not end up in the "correct" ideological place by book's end. Oddly, though, even the items on the reviewer's wish list would not amount to sources of disagreement between Johnson and the reviewer; they simply never came up in the course of the book. Apparently the reviewer merely wanted Johnson to talk about them, and Johnson impolitely refused in advance.
I recall this threefold example of a single writer's plentiful experience with misreading for at least three reasons. First, if it can happen with a scholar of Johnson's stature—with a writer as generous, catholic, and lucid as he—then it will happen to anyone, including little old me. So expect it, and don't be surprised by it. Second, I confess that when I encountered each of these cases, I felt a small despair grow inside me. Why bother? That is, why bother with writing if this is the result? But then, writers I admire, such as Johnson, keep on keepin' on, in spite of these experiences, and that is exactly one of the reasons why I admire them. And since not all readers are the bad sort, writing need not be doomed to terminate in deliberate misinterpretation and misrepresentation; it might actually reach those open to its message; it might even instruct, edify, enrich, or bring pleasure to such persons. It's worth it, therefore, to try to be among those who make the attempt.
Third, though, I also remember the example of Johnson in order to remind myself: don't be one of them. At all costs, don't be a bad reader.
For a while now a threefold example of this has stuck with me. It comes from one particular author's writings—a widely read academic whom we'll call Joe Johnson—and has served as a perpetual reminder of this unavoidable fact. The first stems from an essay he wrote; the other two from different reviews of different books by Johnson.
The essay was, immediately upon publication, willfully misread to mean what Johnson clearly did not mean, could not have meant, and clarified in reply that he did not mean. The misreadings seized on a few terms and a couple of minor framing devices he used in the essay in order to turn his argument inside out. It did not matter what he said to clarify; the misreaders were set in their ways.
One review was, hands down, the single most disingenuous, unserious, vicious, and uncharitable engagement with a text I have ever seen in print. Something about Johnson or the book in question clearly irked the reviewer to such an extent that rage, of an immature and pitiable sort, had to be vented in his direction. It was a sad sight to see.
The other review was calm in tone but, by its conclusion, decided that Johnson had failed in some significant way for the simple reason that (we surmise) he did not write the book the reviewer wished he had; or (to say the same thing differently) he did not end up in the "correct" ideological place by book's end. Oddly, though, even the items on the reviewer's wish list would not amount to sources of disagreement between Johnson and the reviewer; they simply never came up in the course of the book. Apparently the reviewer merely wanted Johnson to talk about them, and Johnson impolitely refused in advance.
I recall this threefold example of a single writer's plentiful experience with misreading for at least three reasons. First, if it can happen with a scholar of Johnson's stature—with a writer as generous, catholic, and lucid as he—then it will happen to anyone, including little old me. So expect it, and don't be surprised by it. Second, I confess that when I encountered each of these cases, I felt a small despair grow inside me. Why bother? That is, why bother with writing if this is the result? But then, writers I admire, such as Johnson, keep on keepin' on, in spite of these experiences, and that is exactly one of the reasons why I admire them. And since not all readers are the bad sort, writing need not be doomed to terminate in deliberate misinterpretation and misrepresentation; it might actually reach those open to its message; it might even instruct, edify, enrich, or bring pleasure to such persons. It's worth it, therefore, to try to be among those who make the attempt.
Third, though, I also remember the example of Johnson in order to remind myself: don't be one of them. At all costs, don't be a bad reader.
