I once compared Jane Eyre to stale roadkill.
In the complete wisdom and frustration of my approximately thirteen year old self, I wrote that comparison into a note that I wrote to the Teen Coordinator Librarian at my local library.
I do regret handing her that paper, because I’m sure there were far, far better ways to have handled the situation, but at the time I was quite fed up with the woman and her insistence and demand that I read the book.
She had told me every time I had seen her that I needed to read the book because it was fantastic and had changed her life and would change mine. I ignored it for a while, and then I was in a situation where there wasn’t much else for me to do other than lie in bed and read for several months on end, I decided that if I read the book I could tell her I did and not have to hear about it anymore.
I think I managed between forty and sixty pages before I gave up on it. It had struck me as a particularly depressing story written in a manner that was not particularly captivating. My comparison to stale roadkill came from my feeling that it was a dry exploration of horrors that I felt no connection to, and in my mind, especially at the time, I thought that reading about roadkill might have been more interesting, and thus the book was stale roadkill.
I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll ever try to read Jane Eyre again, in part because it was one of the only books that someone else demanded I read in my young life, being a home schooled kid whose parents allowed her to read whatever she wanted. In part because of that early experience with basically despising the book, and because it’s linked with a memory that I’d really rather not dwell on in particular.

I truly hope that that rude thirteen year old didn’t lessen the importance of Jane Eyre to her. I hope she doesn’t remember that note as well as I do.
When I look back, this experience seems to highlight for me how important and different people’s interpretation of art and literature can be. It wasn’t any particular experience that taught me this, but a collection of events throughout my life to this point that has taught me and reminded me of this; my situation with Jane Eyre included.
I did not, and probably never will, see Jane Eyre in the same way she did. It wasn’t an important book to me, personally. But the way I relate to that book has no effect on how another does, and on whether that book was an important literary work to literature itself.
There have been quite a few times when I have read something, or watched something that’s supposed to be a brilliant eye opening masterpiece that absolutely everyone raves about, and talks about all the meaning they see in it, and when I see it, I don’t understand. Maybe I see something that’s okay. Maybe I’m just confused by it.
I don’t know whether this is a fault of my mind, or whether it simply doesn’t mean that much to me in that moment. Sometimes I wish I could see and understand what others do. But then, I think I would miss the things I do find meaning from. I would miss the little connections, intended or not, that string through excellent novels and movies, I would miss the way an abstract painting of my mother’s can make the hair on my arms stand up and shivers run down my spine.
A few days ago I was thinking about this, about how people interpret and interact with literature and art. And I think maybe I can finally put to words something I’ve thought for what seems like a long time.
When I see posts on social media from fans making really arcane but plausible connections in novel series, or pointing out minute things that only show for mere seconds in TV shows, I can’t really know whether those connections or tiny things were on purpose, whether the author meant for those connections to be made. But to some extent whether it was intentional or not doesn’t matter.
Each person will find something, some connection or theme or something. Whether it was an intended something or not doesn’t matter because that person has found it and to them it is part of the meaning of the work from that point onward, or until something else is noticed that changes the perspective of the first thing.
Authors and creators have a vast amount of control over their works, and many things that are done in literature are done very purposefully. But I don’t think it’s possible for an author to anticipate absolutely every possible interpretation because you cannot know what experiences and focuses that every single person brings with them in reading and experiencing a work. Thus in my mind, to a certain point, interpretation is created by the readers more thoroughly than the authors in some cases, especially when the readers are specifically looking for a deeper meaning.
I have always loved books that you can read multiple times and still notice something that you hadn’t noticed before. Those books are rich and complex. You can read them lightly and still find them wonderful, or you can read them deeply and notice so much nuance and they are just as wonderful.
I love people discussing the little details and how everyone sees everything. I love finding out how many interpretations there can be, how many connections and details there are.
Except, when those discussing the book are trying to suss out the one true meaning, or the meaning that the author was specifically trying to impart. Those boring as hell book clubs that failed at my library, those misguided high school English courses where the sometimes misguided teacher is the all knowing all powerful authority on what the author really meant, or what the book is really about. Those pursuits of the one true meaning, they make it hard for multiple interpretations to exist at once, they remove the room for nuance and thought and the creation of something that exists as a mixture from the author and from yourself.
The trick lies, I think, in discussing without aiming to find one meaning, and without exactly aiming to change anyone else’s interpretation. To allow another to have their own interpretation, to know that their interpretation will not directly harm your own. To not force another to have the same interpretation as you do.
I think it must have been a very good thing that I did not attend public school. The way I handled one instance of someone demanding that I read a particular book was such that if I had been in public school, I would have either gone mad or, perhaps more likely, made all the teachers want to murder me.
I once compared Jane Eyre to stale roadkill.
Today I have the experience to recognize that one person’s stale roadkill is another’s fine art. And today I have what is hopefully wisdom to know that both interpretations can exist without harming the other. At least they can if you’re not demanding that a rude thirteen year old sees the book the same way you do, and if a rude thirteen year old finds a better way to vent their frustration at the demand.

(Note that I hold no ill will toward Jane Eyre fans, and I hope I have not terribly offended anyone. It was not the intention.)