: Re: Sometimes a banana is just a banana Often reading analyses of books and films, I find that the analytics derive conclusions from the specific food or beverage that a character consumes. The

TLDR: For a book to be good, it is necessary that the reader interprets it differently than the author. It may irritate you, but it is a sign that the reader has found meaning in your book - and that's why people read books, to find a personally relevant meaning.

Humans have very selective attention and are only interested in information - from books or otherwise - which relates to them. When they read a book, they are not a tabula rasa into which the pre-chewed information from the book sinks in. Rather, the readers perceive the information contained in the book (plot, characters, emotions, moral statements, whatever) and connect it to all other information they already know, filter it through the lens of their own experiences and interests. They like books when the book resonates with them, when it evokes their own thoughts and emotions. A book which lectures at them without letting them space for making up own thoughts is perceived as hostile (although it can be embraced if the authors' position is very well aligned with theirs), and a book which does not evoke any further thoughts and interpretations is boring.

This means that the book gets transformed in the readers' mind, and it is that transformation that the reader values, not the original book in its "pure" form. Because the "pure" form, the one you intended, may have personal meaning for you, the author, but it is the readers' interpretation that the reader cares for, as it is something personal and has relevance for them. If this process doesn't happen, you wrote either propaganda, or a boring book.

So, you should not be trying to write a book that doesn't get reinterpreted by the reader. Instead, you should try to make your book as interpretable as possible, since then it will touch many, many people. For example, I once heard somebody say that Le petit prince is a great book, because anybody, no matter what age or life circumstances, can find something for themselves in it - and even that, when a person rereads it every ten years or so, they always discover something different in it (but still like it).

It is perfectly normal that some of the interpreted forms of the book will very different from what you wanted them to be. This may feel unpleasant on a personal level ("hey you are disfiguring my book!") but it is actually a sign of a healthy, good text. So my advice is to let it happen, and not try messing with the process of interpretation.

You cannot steer it in many of the cases anyway, since it is difficult to predict what associations a person will make. Some associations are deeply personal ("The last time I smelled gardenias was at my sister's wedding"), sometimes they are shared within a (sub-)culture (deeply religious people may associate fish with Christianity), sometimes they are so widespread that you can assume almost everybody from your culture to know them (e.g. "White is the color of purity") - but even in the last case, the same concept is a symbol for many things at once, and you never know which association will win in a given reader's mind at any given moment ("white is the color of a doctor's or nurse's uniform").

So, if somebody really has their mind in the gutter, you will never stop them from making associations when reading a scene with a banana in it. Or fungi, or melons, or carrots, or peaches. Similarly, a social justice warrior will always mentally divide your characters into oppressed victims and tyrants, a depressed person will see your happy end story as yet another sign that the world is terrible. This doesn't happen because there is something wrong with your book, it happens because your book struck a chord in them. And when you think of it, getting a depressed person to engage with a book, even if all they see in it is sad, is already a good thing.

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