Blog One: Authors and Fan Fiction Pondering

The seventy-seven pages of Leslie Howsam's Old Books and New Histories was one of the most intensive reads I have done this year. Not only was it packed with information, but it was information about ideas that I had very little familiarity with and required my full attention. I can't say I still fully understand every point that was brought forth in the book, however, I look forward to discussing them in class in the future.
One quote did catch my attention early on and had me musing during work last night over it. On page sixteen, Howsam quotes Ludmilla Jordanova on the relationship between historical and literary studies: " 'cultural power resides not in authors but in their products, rendering it misleading to name and speak of authors, since they do not, cannot, determine or control how their products are read and used.' " Immediately I thought of fan fiction. For those unfamiliar with the term, fan fiction is defined by wikipedia as "a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator." Howsam, to my knowledge, never mentions fan fiction or discusses it's place in book history. But it does have a place.
Although today, when most people familiar with the term think of fan fiction, they think of stories on the internet about Harry Potter or Twilight or any other book that may be popular at the moment. Such sites as www.fanfiction.com serve as a collection site for the numerous stories. However, fan fiction has been in place since the seventeenth century when sequels to Don Quixote were written and distrubeted without Cervantes' permission. Homer's epics and the King Author's Tales have also had supplemental stories by the fans in their eras.
In these times of copyright laws and fierce interest in intellectual property, the idea that the book does not totally belong to the author or publisher is a strange one. Yet, as Howsame states on page twenty "It is disconcerting but exhilarating to contemplate the notion that readers to some extent make the meanings of the texts that authors create, rather than authors altogether determining the meaning of the books that readers encounter." How does a story or text change when the readers take it upon themselves to add upon it? How does that impact other readers of the same story when they read the fan fiction? I'm not quite sure myself, but it is interesting to ponder when trying to grasp the complicated subject that is book history.