marksamuels wrote:
Does anyone ever wonder what one wants from writing? Doesn't anyone else get depressed at the amount of self-aggrandisement that seems to go with it, and the seemingly constant desire for affirmation from one's colleagues, not least here on Shocklines? Even if it's necessary, which it may be in order to try and gain the widest possible audience for what one writes, am I alone in finding the act somehow depressing? It seems to be an aspect completely unconnected with ability and yet increasingly of importance. Perhaps even more depressing are those who rail against this type of question even being framed, and who take offence as a defence measure against the implications.
I hope this doesn't come across as trolling by stealth. It's not meant as such.Nemonymous wrote:
I've only read the beginning of this thread as I am too busy trying to recover from the blight of internet discussion forums from which I've suffered for nearly ten years...
Best to be Nemonymous I guess. Lots of these questions would then be irrelevant.marksamuels wrote:
Des, I cannot derive authorial intent from anything you might say. You could mean quite the opposite. The fact that there is a "Des Lewis" who has spent years advancing a cause known as "Nemonymity" tells me nothing, since it's biographical information and therefore inconclusive when it comes to the analysis of your text.
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Nemonymous wrote:
I agree. That's why I used the expression "I guess" in my post.
Having said that, my post was serious, even if I wasn't.marksamuels wrote:
Des
But in stating that your post was serious aren't you showing that an author of a text can provide a insight into its nature? Such loose talk defies the theory of the "intentional fallacy" . . .
How does it work in practice? If I write a letter to my bank manager asking for an overdraft, and he held your view, he might reply with an analysis of Pascal's Wager, since his interpretation of the text was as valid as my own. And if I wrote to complain that he didn't understand, that I only wanted an overdraft, he might go on to tell me the real subtext was Godel's Incompleteness Theorems![]()
Mark S.
Nemonymity:
Anonymity as name-removal or name-changing in the form of an artistic statement or a new slant within Aesthetics theory.
Weirdonymity
Anonymity as name-removal or name-changing in the form of inexplicable or gratuitous or 'Absurd' acts.
Wordonymity
Anonymity as the disguising (changing the 'semantic name') of words so as to provide a meaning beyond themselves or to derive a poetic/plotic force from texture as well as text.
The Two Ways of Anonymity
(one) The most common way - to say something you don't want to be known as saying, i.e. for *devious* purposes (which could be spite, nepotism, insult, cruelty, dubious joke etc etc.) -- or publishing pornography, or issuing a Valentine's card, or hiding one's identity to avoid reputation depletion etc.
(two) A way that is hardly ever used - to make an artistic statement (within the philosophy of Aesthetics), such as Nemonymity,
(i) whereby the fiction author wants some objective view of his work to be made without his name getting in the way -- and I, as an editor, equally don't want it to get in the way when I consider his submission for publication and
(ii) as an experiment in fiction anthology presentation as a new gestalt reading experience (i.e. stories written independently and remaining separate yet somehow more 'together') and
(iii) leading to a brainstorming approach to reviews and critical appreciation and
(iv) bringing fiction nearer to the artist-naming (late-labelling) approach of other arts such as fine arts, architecture, music etc. (instead of having the name on the spine, on the title page and, often, on the top of each alternate page throughout the book) and
(v) trying to bring fiction more easily to an interstitial or between/cross-genre optimum.
I think it true to say that (one) above brings anonymity into disrepute, a cross which Nemonymous has to bear.








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