The Reader’s Filter (Book Pimp Giveaway Week 2)

Last weekend Sailor Boy and I watched the “director’s cut” of Donnie Darko. I’ve seen the movie quite a few times while it made the cable TV rounds a few years back, but I’m not one of those huge insane Darko fans. I’ve always enjoyed the film, liked the vibe, liked the performances, liked the plot. Did I understand everything? Hell, no. Does anyone? But it’s like enjoying art without necessarily understanding everything the artist had in mind. Still pretty.

The best part of the director’s cut DVD was not the additional scenes, which generally added little to the story, but the DVD commentary by the director and his buddy, Kevin Smith. Smith is his usual salty, funny, down-to-earth self. The director, Richard Kelly, is trying to explain the film, to us, to Smith, and occasionally, it seems, himself. Smith is occasionally baffled by the explanations Kelly has concocted, as he, like me, and I believe like most of the people who saw the film, tried to create as good as an explanation as they could based on what was there.

Sometimes, Smith added comments to Kelly’s explanations that were pretty much exactly what I was thinking, and all contained a sort of, “WTF?” flavor. Kelly’s busting out all of these very convoluted rules of time travel, like “metal and water are essential to the powers controlling the elements of the manipulated dead” and Smith is all, “you’re operating on this whole different level, man.”

He was theorizing that everyone in the town was working on some sort of subconscious level to collapse the alternate universe, which is, um, unique, but you know what? I don’t need to know some of that stuff, and I think I’m just going to go on thinking of it as I have before. (Smith goes, “Yeah, I don’t like that explanation. Let’s drop it.”) He also talked as if there was some sort of Great Manipulators from the future who had figured out time travel and messed it all up and, in a sort of La Jetee way, were contacting the people still in the time stream and trying to get them to fix it. Which was interesting but not present on the screen at all. I liked having Smith there. He was the voice of reason, the physical manifestation of the viewer who wasn’t quite buying everything Kelly had to sell.

I don’t think I like the explanations. DVD commentaries are sometimes enlightening, but sometimes disappointing. I often find myself listening to the director and thinking, “Eh, I liked the explanation I came up with on my own, better.” There’s really nothing like that for books. We don’t have an established venue in which to say, “well, I have a blue motif in this scene because I wanted to illustrate the character’s despair.” And perhaps that’s a good thing. The book is out of our hands once we let it go into the world, for people to enjoy (or not) understand (or not) and appreciate through the filter of their own experience. I’ve been to book club discussions of my book where they’ve come up with really fascinating insights into characters that I’d never considered.

And of course, they all come up with different theories: Amy doesn’t deserve Brandon; Brandon isn’t any good for Amy; Amy is too young to know what she wants; Amy should be old enough to have overcome her commitment problems; Amy and Brandon are destined to be together and will work it out. I like hearing all of this. I don’t think there’s a right and wrong here. All of these points of view can be accurate, just like friends being told Amy and Brandon’s story are going to have a different take on it. We know how Lydia feels; I wonder what Clarissa would think? The book club wanted to know the definitive answer — what did I think of Amy’s behavior? But I was hesitant to say, because I didn’t want to invalidate another point of view. (Man, some of the things I heard them say about George!) This situation is pretty much subject to the reader’s filter. In the next book, we’ll see what these characters do with the knowledge the experience has given them, and that, to me, is exciting.

But at the same time, I’m a traditionalist. I like books where the bad people get punished and good people get rewarded. And because that’s what I like, it’s what I write. Still, I don’t ascribe to the “perfect heroine” idea. My heroine fucks up and knows it. I like that. I like her paying for it, and growing as a result.

Maybe this goes back to the question making the blog rounds of “what do authors owe their readers?” I’m not sure we owe them further explanation, or if it’s even a good idea to give it to them if they ask. This will take more thought. What do you guys think? When you’ve gotten the total, complete, explanation from a creator of any kind, has it helped or hindered your experience?

Also, today’s post is Week 2 of the Book Pimp Giveaway. The rules, for anyone who was confused last week: 1) leave a comment in this post to enter, 2) leave a comment from now until Friday, when the drawing will happen, 3) if you win the contest, you may choose ONE of the books pictured on this page as your prize.