VanderMeer's Wonderbook, Chapter 2: The Ecosystem Of Story (continued: Ursula K. LeGuin, A Message About Messages)

The issue of what a story "means" is a complicated one, and here, our old friend Ursula LeGuin, presents her own frustrations about this topic.  She begins with her chagrin when she told the kinds of books that she should be writing for children, stating bluntly, "I am a writer, not a caterer" and points out that no one can predict what will fulfill the needs of children, but that writers are amongst those who can provide it. 

Continuing, she points out how often she finds that her books, particularly those for younger audiences, are treated as having a direct meaning.  Their is often, it seems, a belief that these books have one specified message that they are intended to impart.  Of course, as I think I have said elsewhere, if that is the intent, the far easier path is to just state your message.  No one needs to read a story for that kind of communication, and it is a waste of time to write one if the only point is to impart information.  

A story has to be the meaning it presents.  In some sense, any well written piece will have to be the most efficient form of communicating exactly what it intends to mean.  That is to say, even if I wanted to directly state the meaning in simpler terms, it would be impossible, because the story itself is the simplest terms.  Otherwise, it is a waste of my time, and a waste of the readers time.  The late poet Thomas Lux would say (though I do not know if it originates with him), that poetry is "language that cannot be paraphrased."  That is to say, if you were to change any part of it, the whole meaning would be altered.  I would extend this to a story, albeit that one must apply such thinking in a different way, as one must when considering the aural aspects of prose.

One aspect of this that Le Guin laments is the way such thinking shrinks a story into just an entertaining way to distract while edifying.  Certainly, of course, anyone can find that form of pablum, often for children, of course, though not uncommonly, we can find these types of works.  They are, of course, backwards in writing, having been sculpted from the message.  Their can be no depth, for the work is singular in it's point and does not want the reader to consider any possibilities that could detract from that one message.  Often, the writer is only creating a story, not because they are a writer, but because they believe in their message.  This does not make them, or their message, necessarily wrong, rather they are misguided in underestimating the story.

As well, the reader who asks, as LeGuin mentions, what the meaning of a story is, has not read with real understanding of the purpose for that engagement.  To me, I think it quite sad, for it suggests a reader not trusting in the possibility that whatever they have received from their experience is genuine.  It is not the writer's purpose in writing a story to make one meaning that every person can retrieve, but to offer an experience to the reader, an experience that they will, one hopes, internalize and examine, in a way that, certainly is meaningful, but too complex to be said to have a specific singular meaning.  

A reader, or writer, who engages a work on such a level, I think, is not truly recognizing what the medium is actually about.  A story has elements that must be understood outsides of a direct intellectual meaning.  One of my favorite books is Of Mice And Men, which tells a very simple story, and one that could be, in this era at least, seen as a bit cliche. However, the emotional reality of the story, the things that impact me on levels outside of my conscious analysis, carry this novel to a place that breaks my heart every single time.  It is not the message that matters, and even in this fairly straightforward telling it is difficult to pin down one supreme interpretation, let alone extract the solitary moral there encased.  Steinbeck creates an experience that I can enter into, and just like all experiences in life, the only meaning we have is what we can extract and understand for ourselves

This is not to suggest that a writer does not intend a piece to have a general meaning or affect.  Of course, a writer often wants to influence readers to consider new ideas or perspectives, to express some worldview or impart some piece of understanding.  However, this is not a specific, singular meaning, at least for me.  The way that I often think of it, for myself, is in the metaphor of giving directions to someone for how to go to a specific place.  In this case, I think of that place as a mental experience, a sort of internal revelation or state, with a specific viewpoint on the world.  It is not a didactic meaning, not something that can be described into a sentence as an edict for instance, but an entire suite of interconnected and dependent meanings.  The story is intended to guide the reader through a mental landscape until they reach some particular mountain vista whose view allows a new perception.  That is how I think of it, much of the time, when I consider what it is that is behind a story.  And in longer or more complex works, it is often not merely one such epiphany or revelation that you wish to create, but a linked series that can add up to even more complicated personal revelations.

Now, it should be clear, of course, that such a revelation is completely subjective and will be unique to any particular reader.  While the writer provides that components, the reader must do the work of reconstituting them into a full reality.  Thus, while the writer can point in a direction, and while the experiences of disparate readers will often have commonalities, it is not a direct correlation.  Any reader who picks up a story is building the world it describes alone, and is taking a journey through it that they control.  The odds of any two people having an identical experience of the work, let alone the exact interpretation that the writer was aiming for, is not even worth considering even in theory. 

Thus, I think it is the duty of a writer to recognize this and cultivate depth of meaning.   Focusing on making the story as rich and full as possible has many purposes to me.  For one, I hope to disarm the reader.  If they recognize in the story, a complex layering of meanings, even though they point in a direction, the impossibility of nailing down any single answer will be palpable.  The idea of approaching such a story as monolithic should be self-defeating.  Of course, it also, ironically, means creating more channels to put ideas in the mind of the reader.  In some ways, I think of it like just throwing so much shite at a wall, some is bound to stick.  The reader will not catch all the meanings, but the more depth there is, the more opportunities they have to catch the intent. That does not mean that you are favoring a singular message, but rather works to provide a chorus of messages, which interlink and may align in some ways to provide a sense of the stories overall intent.

Of course, LeGuin's point is larger, and is about a respect for the work.  It is about recognizing an unlimitedness, about embracing the fact that these works are not frivolous, but so full of meaning that to call out any single example would be to denigrate not only your own understanding, but the work itself.  That attitude is something that LeGuin clearly carried into all her own writing, and it seems an important ethos to keep in mind for anyone serious about creating art from words.