Is the Author Dead?

Writing About Literature in the Digital Age, an e-Book written by my professor and his students from a previous section of the same class I'm taking right now, has been an interesting read because it's articulated many of the ideas that have been germinating in my brain about blogging. I've tried blogging a few times, actually. Blogging is exciting for me, but at the same time, it often leaves me feeling bewildered and overwhelmed. What if I write something but the readers don't like it? What if it's not interesting? Funny? Clever? Intelligent? Will people quit reading? Will they even start?

Chapters 5 and 6 address the ways in which authors connect with their readers. In Chapter 5, Alyssa Rutter writes about Harper Lee and her unwillingness to connect to her audience. Shortly after To Kill a Mockingbird was published, Lee practically disappeared off the face of the earth after becoming overwhelmed by the popularity of her first novel. I admit I've occasionally daydreamed about being a mysterious author who never talks about her books and leaves the readers to discern the meaning without my influence. But that's hardly been the effect of Harper Lee's silence. Some people actually believe that Lee didn't even write her famous novel. Lee wrote a bestselling novel, but she failed to create an authorial presence. Meanwhile, Toni Morrison is connecting with her audience on all kinds of levels, as Andrea Ostler writes in Chapter 6. Morrison is able to help her readers to understand her book Song of Solomon. Morrison's ability to connect with her audience is producing only positive results, while Lee's readers are left puzzled by her disappearance--if not worse.

Blogging is a great way to take creation of an authorial presence into your own hands. As Rutter points out, if an author doesn't create his or her own online personality, then someone else will. I really enjoy blogging as opposed to other kinds of writing because it's so personal. On blogs, we get to use "I." We get to project our opinions even if they're not perfectly articulated and supported, as Dr. Burton wrote. We get to put our own voice into our writing and sound the way we like to sound. Using Alyssa Rutter's words, we create ourselves online. Blogging is all about creating a relationship between author and reader, a relationship which is becoming not only valuable, but critical in today's literary world. Contrary to Roland Barthes' opinions, the author is not dead, as Andrea Ostler points out. The author is not only alive and well, but being sought after by the readers of literature in the digital age.