Stars of David

[mabfan]

For those who are interested, the October issue of the San Diego Jewish Journal is running an article on Judaism and science fiction, and I've been quoted a few times.

You can find the article here:

http://www.sdjewishjournal.com/stories/cover_oct04.html

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Another amusing Asimov story, which you reminded me of when you said that anyone can find a theme in literature if they look hard enough:

Asimov once attended a lecture about SF, and in the middle of the talk, the speaker gave an interpretation of "Nightfall." It was completely contrary to anything Asimov meant when he wrote the story. He introduced himself to the speaker afterwards to tell him that he got the interpretation completely wrong. And the speaker replied, "Just because you wrote it, what makes you think you know everything that's in it?"

Somehow, that convinced Asimov that there may be themes in stories he never realized. I know that happens to me; people have pointed out to me after publication that "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" could be viewed as an argument against intermarriage, which was never my intention...

[zhaneel69.livejournal.com]

I can see the argument for "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" and the intermarriage thing. I wondered if that's where you were going with it until the very end [chilling, OMG; PS: YAY Fictionwise].

I agree that a reader can get something out of a story that the author never put in. I maintain, however, that the reader should take responsibility and admit their own bias toward interpretation, rather than saying "The author meant..."

One of the commonalities is professors maintain that JRR Tolkien wrote LOTR as a mirror for WWII, while Tolkien maintained all throughout his life that such was not the case. I can see where people get that idea and I think Tolkien was affected by WWII, but I believe the author when he says he didn't intend to write the story that way.

Zhaneel