Literary Lie IbrahimTaha

7/31/2019 Literary Lie IbrahimTaha

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Literary draft: The semiotic power of the lie

IBRAHIM TAHA

Language is always a lie.

Philip Roth (2002: 21)

Texts incorporate the structural properties of the signifiers with which

they are constructed, but they are not conceptually equivalent to the

aggregate of their signifieds (Sebeok and Danesi 2000: 29). Hence a text,

a literary text, and in particular a literary draft are always a lie. A literary

draft can somehow be considered an act of pre-writing. It is actually a

sort of noisy intra-conversation, so to speak, in which the writer presum-

ably provides his/her original/true thoughts.1 If the act of literary writing

is a process,2 which theoretically and potentially can be long and compli-

cated, the drafts that the text (the final product) undergoes are definitely

significant stages in this act. Referring to the final text in terms of pro-

cess and stages undoubtedly means that the final text is somehow simi-

lar to a construct that hides the raw material shaping it. However, unlike

a buildings renovation/repair, in which the concealment of the buildings

defects and faults always makes sense, the final product of the literary

writing process hides very important data related to lingual, literary, sty-listic, autobiographic, contextual, and many more facets of the writing

process. This concealment may rudely aect the readers wishes and his/

her real attempts to reach the true meaning of the text. Still, one may

welcome such an eect.

The writers decision to state a word/sentence (x) and then to replace

it by (y) apparently indicates a situation of uncertainty as to whether a

literary text can be a complete, final, and definite product. The kind and

the number of drafts of a literary text indicate that literary writing is the

outcome of a fully conscious process of deep thinking and designation. Bydefinition, a literary text can always bear further acts of rewriting. A lit-

erary text looks like the draft of an incomplete work, a pre-text, a version

of a text that has not yet been written. The history of literature is full

Semiotica 1521/4 (2004), 159177 00371998/04/01520159

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of published texts that underwent a delicate process of rewriting by the

writer or by another authority long after their first publishing. New edi-

tions of classic literary works are a well-known phenomenon. The con-

fused thoughts raised previously can be classified into three major catego-ries: (1) self-referring, which concerns the interrelations between draft/s

and a writer; (2) internal-referring, which concerns the interrelations

between draft/s and a last (final?) text; and (3) external-referring, which

concerns the interrelations between draft/s and the reader. While the sec-

ond category includes issues of an obvious and explicit textual nature

such as the characters of a draft, draft-genre interrelations, draft-meaning

interrelations, and so on, the two other categories seem to include extra-

textual issues such as the original/true meaning in the writers mind, his/

her intentions and anxiousness to provide the reader with a good prod-

uct, the communication between him/her and a reader over the text, and

the like.

From writer to reader

What does the writer usually do to reach the final text that he/she imag-

ines in his/her mind? Initially, it is extremely significant to emphasize that

whatever he/she does, his/her doing is all graduated and divided into

various stages. He/she works in dierent forms and through acts of addi-

tion, omission, adaptation, and editing. All these activities may involve

a long and complicated process to reach the final goal. The writer may

make stylistic, syntactic, grammatical, or linguistic changes. He/she may

also modify phrasing and wording according to various levels of classi-

cal, standard, modern, or figurative language. Furthermore, he/she may

make structural and literary changes in keeping with dierent kinds and

forms. Whatever changes the writer makes in dierent drafts, the literarydraft is primarily meant to clarify the writers strong will and aim to: (1)

delimit the final meaning/message in his/her mind despite awareness

of the weakness of any human talent and ability to do so; (2) provide the

reader with a definite, clear-cut, and final meaning/message in one lingual

composition despite awareness of the weakness of any language to do so;

and (3) provide the reader with a good product of verbal text, to the best

of his/her ability.

The interrelations between the human mind and language have been

widely discussed in recent decades by semioticians and linguists. Our pres-ent aim is chiefly to shed more light on this topic by following the process

of literary writing and rewriting. This complicated process indicates the

highly problematic interrelations between writer and language. Language

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as a human product is meant to fulfill a communicative role among peo-

ple. Verbal communication itself is a means, not a goal, and as such it

is always expected to be improved to attain better results. The questions

are: what does better results mean? What do we mean by a good prod-uct? Who decides what a good product is? For whom is the product

good? These questions may elicit serious topics and bring to mind some

complicated issues in the infinite discussion of the philosophy of literary

writing.

The literary draft seems to be a major part of this category of discus-

sion. Literary language apparently is an elusive verbal instrument. By

consideration of the drafts of a literary text, one may reconstruct/restore

the original meaning of the text and perhaps that of the writer himself/

herself.

One of the most complicated issues in literature is undoubtedly the

writing process. A literary text is, first and foremost, a lingual medium;

language is a cultural thing; and culture is the product of a living human

being that significantly undergoes constant change. These summary gen-

eralities are highly meaningful to me, so that I can claim that literature is

an important expression of the living and changeable human culture. To

be honest with myself, its not precisely obvious where these generalities

may exactly lead me at the end of the day. Yet one thing seems to be cer-

tain at the moment, namely human being is a key phrase in all this series

of generalities, because nothing can exist and come true without some

sort of involvement by the human being to some extent. This self-evident

statement acquires its importance from the fact that a writer represents

the global culture and its language, and equally represents himself/herself

and his/her own language. A writer accordingly is somehow considered a

combination or synthesis of collectivity and individuality alike.3 Once

he/she seeks to say something about himself/herself and culture through

language, which belongs to himself/herself and to culture alike, he/sheactually wishes to locate himself/herself, in some way or in another, in

the center of his/her text. Consequently, any reader, if he/she has decided

to read and interpret that text, should initially follow the major character

centered in the text. The major character in a literary draft that the reader

should track is the writer himself/herself, because he/she, in such a case,

looks and sounds like one who is thinking about his/her language and

considering the living culture. In (a) literary draft(s) a writer plays with

language, hoping to represent the culture and his/her own position on

it authentically and accurately. What does this mean? It means, as manyscholars of deconstruction truly may claim, that language cannot pre-

cisely and fully reflect the whole message in the writers mind. The mes-

sage is something larger than language, which, as stated, is a cultural

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medium. Culture is a living and changeable product of the human being,

so the human being is larger than language. Knowing and experiencing

this substantial fact, a writer deeply feels an urgent need, and even some

constraint so to speak, to search for a proper lingual medium, from his/her language, through which he/she feels able to transmit his/her con-

fused thoughts. However, one should bear in mind that thoughts are a

living, changeable, and flowing activity, which cannot easily be expressed

by one static verbal sequence. One can accordingly claim that since liter-

ary drafts are undoubtedly living and changeable products, it is very di-

cult to imagine a final literary work whose writer does not seriously con-

sider making minor changes in it after its publication. Once a writer

decides to say something about his/her published work, he/she definitely

will say something new that he/she did not say in the published work.

Strictly speaking, every new, additional statement somehow has a new,

additional message. Any attempt to frame or to encompass the writers

streaming thoughts by lingual means will not be smoothly successful.

Thats why a writer feels a deep impulse/motive to use various verbal

manners and styles, so that he/she can ultimately choose the appropriate

and the suitable one for his/her message, such as: dierent repetitions,

similes, metaphors, allegories, examples, proverbs, comparisons, analo-

gies, associations, detailed descriptions and clarifications, imitations, quo-

tations, dierent ways of intertextuality, etc. All these verbal means, of

which at least some are explicitly used in this article, may indicate the

weakness of language to represent the writers thoughts in one definite

manner.

This preface may help me to assume that every writer, even a talented

and skilled one, uses dierent sorts of drafts, typescripts, and proofs. Its

very dicult indeed to imagine a case of a literary work not undergoing

any type of editing or revision before being published. The various drafts

that a literary work may undergo to reach its final version reflect varioussituations of fluent and dierential thoughts in the writers mind in a sin-

gle writing process. These thoughts maybe classified and divided into

three directions/levels: (1) thoughts on the message that the writer wishes

to convey to his/her audience; (2) thoughts on the style, the appropriate

verbal means that the writer should use; and (3) thoughts on the reader

for whom that message is intended, namely thoughts on how the message

wrapped in a certain style will be accepted by the reader. This ques-

tion will be discussed later. The first direction/level is the outcome of a

lengthy process. Thoughts on the writers message are very likely a func-tion of the interaction between the writer, as an individual, and the over-

all culture. Its a sort of game in which a writer uses his/her language to

say something about history/culture. Literature normally speaks about

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history/culture; literature doesnt speak history/culture. The clear distinc-

tion between these two statements resembles the distinction between

ordinary literature, so to speak, and historical literature.4 In first type,

language can be considered the partition between history/culture and thereader. This partition is ironically meant to bridge the gap between them

in a unique way. In literary drafts, the writer, as a representative author-

ity of history/culture both individual and collective, takes further steps

approaching literary historical writing, and thats why he/she sounds

and seems in his/her text like a real and actual character rather than a

fictive one. In literary drafts, the act of forming/producing the text itself,

precisely the act of constructing the model of textual reality, most likely

becomes the only truth in the writing process itself; this act becomes the

major interest and concern for both writer and reader. In such a case, the

debate that the writer may conduct with extra-textual reality (history/

culture) can clearly, even noisily, be heard, and consequently the readers

attention is directed outside toward history. Paradoxically, however, the

act of writing itself reminds the writer and the reader alike that they are

both dealing with fictive, not with real/actual history. This principled bal-

ance between these oppositions is chiefly a function of various data, such

as the degree of the writers and readers involvement in reality/history,

and of the interrelations between the textual reality model and extra-

literary reality (between fiction and history). The experience the writer

undergoes while writing changes from a theoretical status to a practical

one. This leads us to the second level, which seems to me the most signif-

icant one at the moment.

This conversion is not easy. It cannot be smoothly carried out because

the material that the writer uses to convert the message in his/her mind

into a real product is language. Needless to say, language, by definition,

is a complex of innumerable styles, levels, and strata, which some may re-

fer to as multi-lingual language. Therefore, the principle of selection playsan extreme role in that conversion process. Selection is not a simple mea-

sure when it comes to literary writing. In such a case, the choice the writer

has to make is not ultimately between proper and improper styles, but be-

tween a variety of proper styles. Thats why, as is commonly believed, the

act of selection seems pretty dicult and complicated. This selection can

determine and define the aftermath of any writing process; it can some-

how determine the literary works nature and quality. The writer deals

with language itself, while writing definitely means a sort of engagement

and involvement in an act of meta-language. Although literary draftsare the most representative forms of meta-writing, one may notice funda-

mental distinctions between literary drafts and meta-writing. In typical

writing of meta-literature, the two processes thinking about the proper



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style needed to reflect the writers message and writing itself mix to-

gether in the text, and both can be available for the reader. One can

readily speak of a sort of combination between fiction and criticism in

the case of meta-literature.5 But in case of literary drafts, interrelationsbetween fiction and criticism may be formulated as follows. A literary

draft is a practical version of theoretical thinking (of language) carried

out by a writer without his/her being required to explain what he/she is

doing. In a typical case of meta-literature, the writer sounds like an exter-

nal theoretician-critic, while in a literary draft he/she functions just as an

executor. In meta-literature he/she is like an engineer, in addition to his/

her original role as a builder, while in a literary draft he/she is only like a

builder, who concentrates on the act of building itself, not on explaining

the process of construction. In meta-literature, the writer explores theoret-

ical aspects and literary methods within a practical text as formulated

by P. Waugh using some theoretical/methodical terminology,6 while

in literary drafts a literary theory/method is experienced only by practical

terminology. This significant distinction may in one way or in another be

associated with or parallel to the distinction between two techniques tell-

ing and showing, by which the writer tells something about theory/

method, in the case of an ordinary meta-literature, and shows his/her

way of execution, in the case of literary drafts, without being required to

give any theoretical/methodical title. In both cases, as in any other case

of the writing process, the writer clearly performs some sort of critical

role. However, in the former case the writer very likely becomes the first

theoretician of his/her work, while in the latter he/she becomes the first

reader of his/her text(s). Literary drafts enable the writer to show the

confusion of his/her thoughts as they are explicitly reflected in numerous

changes additions and deletions he/she makes in the text(s) in a

self-editing process. Writing dierent literary drafts, a writer not only

provides the reader with some of his/her ways of thinking and writingmethods; he/she also provides himself/herself with a serious means of

self-examination of his/her thinking and writing in which he/she ulti-

mately can improve his/her literary techniques and devices. Literary

drafts clearly reveal a type of internal dialogue between writer and

himself/herself. One rightly can make use of Bakhtins terminology and

consider them (i.e. literary drafts) multi-dialogic forms. Speaking about

the urgent need for serious and intensive dealings with literary drafts, I

am by no means referring to any external process of editing by any exter-

nal authority but to the possibility of publishing literary drafts them-selves, so that they can be read publicly, just like any final published

text. The act of editing normally means that the editor replaces the origi-

nal writer and takes over his/her basic role. This is not what I am refer-

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ring to; I certainly have no wish to see the writer replaced by any kind of

independent editors, and consequently literary published drafts shouldnt

be removed or replaced by edited versions done by dierent readers. Lit-

erary drafts, to my mind, are final versions, and they can exist by them-selves and have the full right to live by their own unique power. By term-

ing literary drafts anarchic or chaotic systems, I actually speak of the

possibility of their being updated by the writer himself/herself, after being

published, or by readers, without physically replacing or deleting them. A

writer, whenever he/she wants, can publish further drafts.

I am not so pleased with the idea that a writer himself/herself may

interfere in a process of interpretation of his/her work after publishing

it, as U. Eco has done, for example.7 E. Dipple is absolutely right in her

critical comments on Eco and in her defensive remarks about the reader

and his/her right to be a free partner in an interpretation process (1988:

117139). Any attempt at involvement in the interpretation process of

a final published work by the writer himself/herself is unacceptable, be-

cause it may totally neutralize the reader, or at least restrict his/her activ-

ity and freedom in that process. But in case of literary drafts, the writers

involvement sounds reasonable and legitimate.8 The major dierence

between these two cases of self-criticism and self-interpretation is that lit-

erary drafts somehow allow such an involvement within the drafts them-

selves, not outside them, not independently. In such a case, in an act of

intra-meta-criticism the writer remains a writer who does his/her job

within his/her natural role of authorship. While in the other case, namely

the case of any detached act of self-criticism, the writer operates neutrally

as an external critic/editor.

Since the writer seemingly has an ideal model or archetype of his/her

final text, he does not regard the dierent drafts of the text as separate

and independent but as temporary and serial stages. The writer considers

the drafts as means not as goals. Treating the drafts as incomplete textsdefinitely means that the writer chiefly functions as a reader, a critic, and

an editor. Being the first reader, the self-critic and the internal editor of

his/her work, the writer provides himself/herself with a powerful feeling

of authority and unlimited ability to do almost anything with his/her

product. This feeling does not merely mean one-way domination and

control by the writer of the text, but bi-directional influence from writer

to text and vice versa. As stated, writers always have a potential motiva-

tion, will, and ability to make major changes in their dierent drafts on

their way to reaching the final text. Yet this motivation, will, and abilityare not unlimited or infinite. The drafts may certainly aect the writers

work, approach, and outlook, and his/her methodological techniques.

While the first draft is expected to leave room for major changes, the last



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drafts allow only minor and limited ones. In either case, the writer is not

completely free to do anything he/she wishes with his/her incomplete

product. Since he/she works within a known framework of elementary

materials (he/she initially states his/her thoughts and concepts in his/her mind and eventually translates them from pre-lingual text into written

text) the writer is inevitably aected by the textual data that he/she com-

pels himself/herself to refer to. In any changes the writer makes in his/

her further drafts, he/she somehow has to refer to changes he himself/

she herself has made in earlier drafts. Therefore, we ultimately may speak

of the interrelations between the writer and his/her drafts in terms of

self-referring. Referring to his/her writing in terms of clarification, inter-

pretation, illustration, and even complication, the writer, consciously or

unconsciously, seeks to treat his/her writing in terms of meta-writing.

A potential ability of literary drafts to maintain the writers role in lit-

erary study justifies its significance and status in the semiotics of litera-

ture. It gives him/her back some of his/her roles and authority in the

interpretation process that some scholars constantly dismiss and ignore.

The potentially enormous number of drafts of any literary work enables

the reader/scholar to deal with the writing process as reflected in the

writers mind. With a final text one can ignore all those versions of

drafts and concentrate on the only published text one has in a reading

process. Some theoreticians seek to detach the writer from his/her literary

work. I seriously doubt if a complete and total separation between them

is possible in the case of the interpretation process of a final/published

text. Some scholars constantly talk about an undeniable need for recon-

struction of the writers intentions and his/her original message in any

case of the interpretation process, using the terminology of implied

writer and meaning and significance.

With regard to a series of literary drafts, any sort of disconnection

between them is definitely impossible. With use of the terms before andafter, literary drafts are confidently considered one step before being con-

verted into the final work, which is then taken from the exclusive and

direct responsibility of its writer and transferred to the readers authority.

Literary drafts are still in the hands of the writer himself/herself and

are his/her absolute responsibility. In that case, literary drafts seem to

function as a real and true biography of the writers mind, as stated by

McCaery (1995: 183). To be precise, it seems that the literary draft is

the only literary medium that may bridge the gap between two poles:

those believing in the writer and his/her significant role for a deep under-standing of his/her literary work; and those dismissing any need for him/

her in any interpretation process. Literary drafts do justice to both writer

and reader. One of the most important contributions of ordinary meta-

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writing is, one truly may claim, the quest to reinforce the writers status

and role. Sometimes, this can be achieved only by taking some roles

from the reader and giving them to writer. In literary drafts, a writer is

ascribed great importance for his/her originality without any attemptat theoretical interference by him/her, which is considered a part of the

readers role. In such a case, the two of them, writer and reader, enjoy

an equal position. Once a writer leaves his/her text/s confused, frag-

mented, and incomplete, he/she yields some of his/her traditional and

fundamental roles to the reader, who thereby paradoxically becomes

powerful and eective. By not completing his/her text/s, a writer feels a

deep need to keep in contact with his/her own text/s, and this is exactly

what a reader normally does with texts.

From text to sub-text

Text is a dierential and changeable system, I once claimed, not only be-

cause a reader frequently may refer to it in dierent ways, or may observe

it from various standpoints, but because the text itself has contradictory

data that make it a multi-directional system and a non-uniform and non-

stable medium (Taha 1997: 134136). This is particularly true in literary

drafts. That is why I refer to such a draft as a sort of sub-text, by which I

mean it is a fragmented, hesitant, initial, and changeable text, and conse-

quently it is an incomplete and an infinite system. Yet these characteris-

tics are the very source of its power. This weakness makes it a powerful

text. A literary draft as a sub-text or even as a pre-text presents a serious

potential challenge to the reader, even more than a final text.

Even in its shape a literary draft looks like a chaotic text: new words

above erased/deleted others; new sentences replace irrelevant others;

words/sentences/paragraphs marked by dierent signs to be changed/replaced/deleted/relocated/revised, etc. In this sense, a literary draft

seems to be a complicated network of various texts, which becomes pos-

sible only through an endless act of revision that principally means a fun-

damental disagreement with what has already been written by the writer

himself/herself. This basic position of un-acceptance can be reached by

four dierent mechanisms: (1) Addition of verbosity, which is mostly

used for reinforcement of what has already been written, or alternatively

the writer may make use of this mechanism to replace some deleted ver-

bosity. In both cases, this mechanism is undoubtedly meant to indicatethe literary drafts nature of impermanence and incompleteness. This

is the very reason why I hold language too weak, as mentioned, to meet

the precise and entire needs and measures of any human experience.



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Language can restrictively reflect a human experience by replacing it with

an imitative and illusive verbal one. (2) Deletion is considered a parallel

mechanism to the preceding. Like addition, the logical role of deletion is

a function of the limited capability of language. Deletion can be used intwo ways: first, as a goal in itself, namely to cancel textual data that seem

irrelevant to the writer; second, as a means to the act of replacement:

deletion is the first step, to be followed by addition/revision/ improve-

ment and so on. (3) Rearrangement mostly operates as a major means

of editing. A writer may take advantage of it to replace original words/

sentences/paragraphs by new or true ones. It is not a technical activity,

as one may think, but a highly significant one, because in writing, espe-

cially in literature, formal techniques cannot be detached or discon-

nected from the overall meaning of the text. (4) Linguistic editing is not

possible without those previous mechanisms. However, this mechanism

functions as a particular technique for minor linguistic changes, namely

semantic and grammatical changes. It also may be used to make further

technical changes: punctuation, division into separate paragraphs, divi-

sion into chapters and sub-chapters, and so on.

Having implemented all functions of those mechanisms, a writer may

make his/her literary drafts look like a confusion of dierent versions of

texts that consequently cannot be regarded as consecutive and linear

texts. Literary drafts cannot be read in a one-directional way; on the con-

trary, they should be read as multi-directional and multi-sided texts. By

making intensive use of those four mechanisms, a writer can confuse the

mono-directional streaming of the text, which we may find in some final

published texts. Using confused associations and thoughts in the pro-

cess of writing literary drafts, a writer may make them look like a mixed

multi-text system. This feeling of confusion comes into being by the use of

dierent techniques of interconnectivity, such as the four just described,

by which a writer makes his/her literary drafts a multi-sequential system.Applying this terminology, I intentionally seek to bring to mind one of

the most recent phenomena in literature, namely hypertextuality. A brief

comparison of this with the phenomenon of literary drafts could be highly

useful.9 Hypertextuality is meant to undermine the established poetics

of the paper-printed texts. One of the most fundamental measures of or-

dinary paper-printed texts is the well-known concept of triple unity: a

start point, a middle, and an ending, regardless of how confused and cha-

otic the textual details of these three units may be. In the case of hyper-

text this triple unity gets blurred. Instead of a united/framed/stable entityone may easily refer to it as an open and endless work. These features

are commonly shared with literary drafts. Since literary drafts may re-

quire enormous changes of dierent sorts and measures, one certainly

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may regard them as an open system. Every change, even a minor one,

that a writer/reader may make in a literary draft supposedly has the

theoretical and practical power to generate a new version of the literary

draft, and this is what makes literary drafts look like a Russian babushkawith the extreme ability of procreation and generation. Having taken

a careful and deep look at various drafts of James Joyces Finnegans

Wake10 and having compared them with the final version, I discovered

that lots of interesting work is still waiting urgently to be done there.

True, regarding Finnegans Wake, a unique text, such work seems and

sounds extremely interesting.

One cannot ignore the fundamental distinction and dierence between

textuality, including literary drafts, and hypertextuality. Yet literary

drafts may seemingly operate as a bridge or mediator between them.

Many features common to postmodern textuality and hypertextuality

have been widely addressed in recent years. In literary drafts these shared

features become sharper, more meaningful, and clearer. It is highly im-

portant to indicate the interrelations between textuality and hypertextual-

ity in order to emphasize the unique identity of the literary draft among

dierent types and forms of textuality, which one may prefer to describe

it by generic terminology. P. Waugh distinguishes tendency and sub-

genre in regard to metafiction (1995: 50). I have to admit that I cannot

grasp the fine point of this distinction. But it is quite obvious that meta-

fiction cannot be regarded as an absolute, definitive, and independent

genre. Unlike metafiction, the phenomenon of literary drafts has the fun-

damental potential to be dealt with as an independent genre. One of the

most significant dierences between a literary draft and a final/published

text concerns the writers dierent attitude to each. A writer treats his/her

literary drafts as provisional texts that have been facing ceaseless activity

of supervision and editing, whether by the writer himself/herself or by the

reader. Since literary drafts are considered the most reliable biography ofa writers mind, more than any other literary texts, even more than his/

her autobiography, they are the only writer-oriented system that ensures

a credible intercommunication between writer and reader. This minute

discrimination actually means that the text in the case of final/published

literature is in the center, while in the case of literary drafts the writing

process itself is focused in the center. One may rightly inquire what this

distinction between text and its writing process precisely means for the

reader. Before embarking on the details of the answer, we should stress

the basic dierence between the product and its cultivation or makingprocess, which means a distinction between the final product and its loose

original components and raw materials. Any making process may lead to

substantial changes in these original components and raw materials to the



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extent of blurring their original measures and their ontological identities.

The final published text is practical and usable while literary drafts, ac-

cording to common literary norms and conventions, are not. A thing that

cannot be used by a wide audience may in principle be ignorable and dis-missible. This precisely is the reason why I am greatly eager to see literary

drafts published and consequently treated as final literary works that usu-

ally are and should be so treated. They could be published independently

by themselves, or alternatively together with their final versions. A text

that is still experiencing a process of writing and editing has the full right

to be treated in the same way we treat a final published text. Once I refer

to literary drafts as a genre, I actually claim that the writing process

should be associated with the reading process. It is most dicult to sepa-

rate them in literary drafts that somehow combine theory and practice. In

literary drafts, a writer shows the way/s he/she practically implements a

theory or a method. True, in an ordinary metafiction one may speak of

some sort of combination of theory and practice,11 but in literary drafts

these two poles theory and practice are united in a special way in

which a writer neutrally reveals the process of implementation itself with-

out interference. That is why I believe that writing and reading processes

are equally interesting. Sometimes, the process of reaching a decision is

more important and more interesting than the decision itself. The ques-

tion of how things are done, performed, or attained sounds more attrac-

tive than the question of what has been done, performed, or attained.

Showing an interest in how rather than in what is frequently a function

of an investigating and inquiring reader. Concentrating on the how in a

reading process of literary drafts, a reader may meet the writer as a true

and real authority that cannot be considered dead. Literary drafts make

the performance of both acts of writing and reading possible in a very

live way. Both writer and reader get a deep impression that things in lit-

erary drafts are authentic and reliable, chiefly because they proceed in alive way.

The possible and potentially enormous number of subtexts in one liter-

ary draft, and of versions or literary drafts of a final published text, is

a function of an infinite activity of revision, which delays the end of

the writing process and postpones the natural wish to reach some sort of

completeness, comprehension, and finality. Any change in a literary draft

made by the writer himself/herself, or by the reader, would absolutely

lead to a kind of change in its original meaning/message. However, the

question is, where is the original meaning of the text: is it in the firstdraft, or in the second, or in the final one? That is, does its being first au-

tomatically mean that it is the original one? Probably not; first and ear-

liest does not always mean originality. The first-written version/draft of

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a text is ultimately an adapted version of dierent primary thoughts with-

in the writers mind. That is, the first-written draft is somehow a product

of some pre-written drafts. A further question has to be posed in this

stage of discussion: why do we need to speak of the original meaningwhen we have the final one? Is the original meaning in the first draft re-

ally the most authentic, reliable, and true one? Or is the final one actually

the most interesting due to its being adapted, established, and completed?

By the deconstructionist approach, one may wonder whether the literary

text (the final written draft) is really the final version. It is possible and

acceptable to refer to the text in the common domain, in the readers

hands, as a further version/draft of an unwritten text. The fact that

writers rewrite some of their literary works long after first publication

certainly bears out this assumption. This means that the interrelations

between the writer and his/her text can potentially be infinite. This infin-

iteness, one may argue, is a prominent symptom of the dual weakness of

the human mind and verbal language. One may rightly argue that in the

case of literary writing these weaknesses are not obligatory but inten-

tional. Therefore, the various drafts of a literary text are not necessarily

meant to clarify the true message within the writers mind. Presumably

writers may use the draft precisely to complicate the message and to

make it more indirect and implicit. A hidden message of a literary text

can probably be a useful means of irritating, stimulating, and attracting

the reader.12

From reader to writer

From the early 1960s, even many years before, till the present day we

have been witnessing a running debate on the reader, his/her role, status,

and interrelations with the writer and literary text. Many scholars talkabout his/her fundamental role in any interpretation process, others

even talk about his/her rule in such a process.13 Whatever his/her

means of involvement in a literary communication process, which in-

cludes reading and interpretation processes, and regardless of his/her

very fundamental and significant involvement in such a process, he/she

cannot control the writers or the texts roles or dominate such a process.

Writer, reader, and text have equal importance, in the sense that each has

a particular role in his/her/its own domain and territory, which logically

cannot be replaced by or shared with others. All of them are merely func-tions of history (culture). If a writer can be nothing but a complicated

combination or synthesis of individual and collective measures and fea-

tures, why cannot a reader be the same in this respect?! Writer and reader



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are both producers and consumers of history-culture; both of them, some-

how, aect history-culture and they equally are aected by it. A literary

text is basically written to be read, that is, to be the means of a literary

communication process between writer and reader. Taking this into con-sideration, one cannot but recognize the innately semiotic character of

literature. A writer may experience pleasure, fun, or a sort of suering

while writing a literary text. In doing so, he/she ultimately wishes to com-

municate with a reader, to share with him/her his/her experience. This

brief preface of well-known generalities is much needed here in order to

concentrate on the readers role in literary drafts. W. Iser expansively de-

scribes the need for an active reader in practical terms in a literary com-

munication process. He suggests that his gaps theory be implemented in

literary texts as a methodical catalyst that is supposed to activate the

readers involvement in any communication process (1971: 279299). In

literary drafts, the reader has a good chance to be a highly active partner

in a sense he/she somehow participates in the writing process of the fi-

nal version. R. Barthes speaks of the need to restrict the involvement of

the writer, particularly in a writerly text, in terms of death since a dead

writer makes more room for the reader, so that he/she can be the domi-

nant partner in the reading-writing process (1977: 142148). With some

reservations, a hypertextual case has enormous potential for activating

the reader in the reading process, regardless of its exceptional ethics of

reading, as rightly stated by Hillis-Miller (1995: 2739). However, in

cases of ordinary printed literature, there is apparently no better option

than literary drafts to carry out Barthess vision of a writing reader. Un-

like Barthes, in literary drafts one cannot speak of any concept of writers

death because in such a case the writer and the reader can find sucient

and equal room for both of them to share an interesting communication

in a rewriting process of the text. By publishing literary drafts in addition

to final versions, a writer can guarantee a sort of meeting betweenhimself/herself and a reader, instead of artificial disconnection. A kind

of struggle between a writer and a reader is undoubtedly always a real

option in literature, but in literary drafts there is indeed much room for

genuine reconciliation between them. Ignoring all the details of the dier-

ences between E. D. Hirsch and R. Barthes, both of them are quite right,

the former in his insistence on safeguarding the writers role in any inter-

pretation process (Hirsch 1967) and the latter in the principled appeal he

makes to ensure an enormous role for the reader in such a process. There-

fore, I cannot see any room in literary drafts for a struggle between thesetwo appeals. Iser does not refer to literary drafts when speaking of the

texts incompleteness, but they very likely are the ideal form to deal with

the concept of incompleteness. As previously stated, literary drafts seem

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to be in a position of prewriting. Theoretically, they are somewhere be-

tween a human mind/consciousness and language. The readers role in

such a case should concentrate on filling in the gaps and blanks left in

the draft/s so that he/she can complete the text in terms of subjectiveand provisional concretization. He/she should guide the draft/s from a

position of prewriting to a position of writing. To reach this interesting

end, a reader may implement several methods, such as classification,

comparison, analysis, replacement/change, and completion, whereby he/

she may reconstruct the original writing process carried out by the writer

himself/herself. That is, making intensive use of these methods, the

reader may trace (the) changes in (all) dierent drafts made by the writer,

which makes possible such a meeting between the two. A reader, for

instance, may classify dierent linguistic changes in terms of vocabu-

lary, diction, rhetoric, semantics, punctuation, and so on; and thematic

changes in terms of history, culture, ideology, politics, philosophy, and

so on. This initial act of classification may help the reader/critic/scholar

to compare the dierent versions and to explore the general direction

of these changes made by the writer on his/her way to the final version.

Comprehensive employment of comparison could be useful for the

reader to detect the changes separately in each draft, and at the same

time it could be useful for him/her to follow such changes in all drafts

as a single sequence. By doing so, the reader/critic/scholar may acquire

plenty of meaningful information, and consequently feel encouraged to

play the writers role. For instance, he/she may make changes himself/

herself and may do everything he/she thinks is urgently needed to

complete the draft/s and reach the final version. In this sense, one finds

some similarity between literary drafts and interactive texts (hypertexts):

in both cases the reader simultaneously deals with dierent texts in a

reading-writing process, and in both cases as well he/she cannot allow

himself/herself to be a neutral or just a consuming partner. A reader canbe a productive partner in a literary communication process on two con-

ditions, first when he/she has the personal skills to be done, and second

when the multi-text itself has the textual measures and features that chal-

lenge his/her skills. The key word in these textual measures and features

is incompleteness, which may be a function of various literary tech-

niques, but this incompleteness, as noted, is first and foremost a function

of the lie of language, as stated by Philip Roth. This restricted ability of

language to express any human experience accurately makes the literary

draft a multi-textual system in which a reader may find sucient roomto act in dierent ways as a productive writer. The lie of language makes

the contact between literary drafts and a reader almost alive and never-

ending. Once a reader gets the opportunity to be a writer in literary



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drafts, he/she practically experiences his/her views on literary criticism

without being required to approach the theoretical links between word

and world, namely between language and reality. Unlike an ordinary

text of meta-fiction (meta-literature), a reader of literary drafts does notget any explicit signs or theoretical explanations of what the writer has

done in these texts, and this is the very reason why I believe that literary

drafts are the most proper texts for the reader to become a writer. How-

ever, to reach this final end, a reader should first follow the original writ-

ing process as reflected in the writers mind and reconstruct it by posing

relevant questions and imagining the right answers such as: why has the

writer chosen a specific style not other/s? What thematic explanations

for this choice has the writer already thought about? What dierences do

the textual changes make? By answering these questions, the reader actu-

ally carries out some sort of critical activity besides his/her basic role as

a reader. Ultimately, he/she feels a commitment to suggest his/her own

changes, and by so doing, he/she achieves the last title in this long pro-

cess, namely a writer.

Conclusion

If culture, in a fundamental semiotic sense, can be defined as a connec-

tive macrocode (Sebeok and Danesi 2000: 42), literary drafts can equally

be termed a micro-culture or alternatively connective and generated/

generating microcode. This is the very reason why I am not sure whether

this paper is my last word, or the last word of my linguistic editor. What

I am absolutely sure about is that this version of my paper is preceded

by dierent versions/drafts, so I honestly do not know which draft/s the

true, the original, the reliable meanings and thoughts are somehowplaced in. Having remembered the statement language is always a lie,

and the fact that the texts signifiers have ambivalent interrelations with

their signifieds, I feel some release from the feeling of blame for the indi-

rect responsibility that language always misses the precise, complete,

comprehensive, and the definite point of any human experience, and

for my direct responsibility for this incomplete draft. Anyway, a further

draft of this version, posing more questions and rearranging some an-

swers and some confused thoughts I have in mind, might be needed. I

hope that this draft sparks a debate that will help me to rewrite furtherdrafts of this current version. The lie of language, and the philosophy of

literary drafts established on it, should not sound like a disadvantage in

terms of literary communication. On the contrary, the power of literary

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drafts is fundamentally derived from the fact that language is a lie that

makes literary works elusive and infinite.

Literary drafts are seemingly the only domain in literature in which a

writer and a reader may exchange some of their traditional roles. A writeryields to the reader his/her duty/right to complete and finalize his/her

literary text himself/herself. Instead of a complete and finite text, the

reader gets a confused and fragmented one that he/she feels an obligation

to complete and finalize himself/herself. In that way, the writer actually

reserves much room for himself/herself to re-read his/her text/s he/she

writes, and thereby he/she becomes the first reader of his/her own work.

At the same time, the reader obtains a concrete and practical opportunity

to make his/her hidden wish for a writing role come true. This game

means an ideal collaboration between a writer and a reader rather than

an endless struggle.

This last version, at the moment, is at least the third that I have decided

to stop going on with. One may argue that dealing with drafts of a non-

creative literary work may be somehow needless and useless. Generally,

one cannot but agree, because the dierences between a descriptive-

theoretical work and a creative literary work are truly decisive and cru-

cial. If I need to complete a descriptive article of three drafts and even

more, how many drafts does a writer need to finalize a literary work?!

Once I had stopped (not finished) working on this articles version, I sat

down to title it. Here, I faced the problem of choice. I have thought of six

potential titles: Literary draft Between metatextuality and hypertex-

tuality; Literary draft The powerful form of meta-writing; Literary

draft Reconciliation between writer and reader; Literary draft The

semiotic power of the lie; Literary draft The exchange of roles; Lit-

erary draft The lie of language, and Literary drafts The power of

the babushka. But I totally failed to grade them in accordance with some

measure. Although I have made a decision in this respect, I truly still feelsome confusion about the very proper and the most accurate one for this

version, and maybe for the versions to come as well. Only now, after deep

thinking on the topic of literary drafts, I do feel confident to regard my

previous thoughts as an established preface for the version to come.

Notes

1. For more details about the steps and the conceptual stages of both prewriting and writ-

ing processes, see a very descriptive study by Kakonis, Wilcox, and Schultz (1971).

2. According to A. J. Niesz and N. N. Holland, one of the major contributions of hyper-

textuality, as a postmodern form/genre, is that writing and reading as processes replace



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129.

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Leith. The Daily Telegraph Saturday, October 5, 21.

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New York: Longman.

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Ibrahim Taha (b. 1960) is Senior Lecturer at the University of Haifa 3itaha@research.

haifa.ac.il4. His principal research interests are semiotics of literature and modern Arabic

literature. His major publications include The Palestinian Novel: A Communication Study

(2002), Semiotics of ending and closure: Post-ending activity of the reader (2002), Semi-

otics of literary meaning: A dual model (2002), and Semiotics of minimalist fiction: Genre

as a modeling system (forthcoming).



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