[...] The 'organ of receiving' any work of art, wrote Adorno in Minima Moralia, is 'fantasy'. If writing, even at its most didactic, is an art, this would suggest something quite unsettling. It would imply that writers are, in part, at the mercy of the reader's fantasy life, and the importance that certain words and ideas have in their fantasies. That once we have put our words out there, we lose control over their effects, because of the multitude of possible significances that they can have for readers. This does not mean every possible interpretation of a text is 'equally valid'; since language is collective, and meaning is social, interpretation is primarily a public and social act. But even if the author is not 'dead', she is no longer authoritative.