I don't doubt that any one scene in a story can lead to a variety of interpretations. But I object to authors insisting that if you didn't take away from it what they wanted you to get, the fault was with you. There were two possibilities Rice seemed to be presenting 1) You weren't reading carefully enough and 2) if you had been, you would have understood, and you would have enjoyed it.

Well, I'm going to argue that a lot of the time, when that argument is put forth, 1) the author didn't make their case clearly enough and/or 2) the reader understood, and still thought it was poorly written, or unenjoyable.