Meaning of "to say them in all good-intentioned honesty about a story"?

Question

I'm reading an introduction to Philip K. Dick written by Roger Zelazny. This introduction is included in PKD's novel *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep* and the following paragraph is Roger Zelazny's praise about PKD:"Inventiveness. Wit. Artistic integrity. Three very good things to have. **To say them, however, is perhaps to talk more about the mind behind the words than the ends to which they are addressed. For to say them in all good-intentioned honesty about a story results mainly in a heaping of abstractions**."I'm so confused about the part in bold characters that I don't even know how to explain what confuses me. The sentences just seem very long and complicated. Even though I know every word of them, I still don't understand their meanings. I guess the only part I understand is that "the mind behind the words" refer to the author. So does "the ends to which they are addressed" refer to the readers? Does "to say them in all good-intentioned honesty about a story" mean "to talk about a story honestly in terms of the three aspects"?Anyhow, I don't understand the meaning of the whole sentences. Can anybody kindly explain the idea for me?

Answer 1

Hi!

Cool question. And I agree Zelazny is probably being more obscure than he needs to be.

As far as I can tell from context "they" and "them" refer to the "three very good things," that is, inventiveness, wit, and artistic integrity. So look at those two sentences again with that in mind and see if it helps before you read the rest of this comment...

Basically, it looks to me like he's saying that when he uses those words, he's talking about PKD the author, because it would be too vague or abstract to use those words to talk about the book itself.

Answer 2

The author of this passage is referring the characteristics of the writer of the novel. He is saying that the writer of the novel has "Inventiveness. Wit. Artistic integrity."

This is an introduction to the novel so you would expect the writer to talk to some extent about the author of the story. It looks to me like you are interpreting the first statement correctly.

"To say them, however, is perhaps to talk more about the mind behind the words than the ends to which they are addressed." It means to say those three things, "Inventiveness. Wit. Artistic integrity," describes the mind of the author (PKD) more than these words describe the novel itself.

The second sentence, "For to say them in all good-intentioned honesty about a story results mainly in a heaping of abstractions." confirms to me that he is talking about these words describing the author's mind more than they describe the novel he has written. He is saying that when these words are used to describe the novel the result would be pouring on somewhat meaningless abstractions when applied to the novel. "The novel is witty." Blah... The novel is "inventive." blah, blah. The novel has "artistic integrity." blah, blah, blah... He is saying these words are abstractions and don't really tell us much specifically about the novel if used to describe the novel but if used to describe the mind of the author of the novel these words are more powerful.

This is how I interpret those two sentences. I agree with you that they are written somewhat obtusely. Roger Zelazny probably could and should write those sentences more directly and clearly but maybe he has a purpose of trying to show that he has "a way with words."  Who knows. I agree the two sentences are difficult to interpret. But I think you got the basic idea although you probably should not have had to puzzle over their meaning and put this much effort into understanding them.

And then again, maybe I am completely misinterpreting the two sentences. I'm taking my best shot at them. Thanks for sharing them. He won't get the prize for clear, precise, easily understood prose. ;-)

Bill