I personally believe that as soon as a work has left the mind of the artist for the physical world, it becomes an entity in and of itself, independent of the artist's intent.

That is the interesting part of the argument and the one that "TrueReddit" hasn't gotten into, which is a shame in my opinion. You're right - Dickens hated jews. Lewis Caroll was pretty clearly a pedophile. That was a hundred years ago, though.

Here's where I think things get interesting: When every author has a Twitter account, a Facebook page, a LiveJournal and a fan page, it becomes impossible to ignore the author.

Who knows what Shakespeare thought of Queen Elizabeth? We'll never know; there were no 140-character verbal diarrhea droplets to tell us. Hilary Mantel, on the other hand, is known more to the British for what she said about Kate Middleton than Wolf Hall. And I don't see that changing.

Despite the fact that books are not living documents (unless you're Orson Scott Card, who has no problem completely rewriting Planet Called Treason so that Greedo shoots first again and again and again), our regard for them has become a lot more dynamic simply because the author's intent is now effortlessly discernable.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have another part to upload.