Perish the Thought
There are countless reasons I should not major in English, but today showcased my number one.
On my first day in Lit and Lang of Women Writers, the professor asked how many of us were English majors. Every other person in the room raised his or her hand; I was the lone dissenter. I was thrilled; here I was in an upper-level English course with all my fellow students being quite passionate about the subject. Unlike them, I didn't have to worry about offending and thereby making an enemy of my peers or a fairly influential professor in the department. It was the ideal situation. However, this semester has been a perpetual disappointment. From the first day, I have been on a different page from the rest of the class, my observations have been ignored or greeted with a, "Hmm, okay, next?" I really hesitate to put this as I'm reading the literature correctly and they're not, or that I'm reading substantially and they are reading superficially, yet again and again it seems that there is great hesitation to reach to the level I am tryng to discuss. Anytime I try and suggest we look at a potential layer of the work, someone is eager to drag it back down to the surface.
We were working on Bone Black today and the question of the book's title arose. Now bell hooks explains her title in part, telling us that bone black is a carbon residue obtained from burning bone that was used in many cave paintings. bell hooks fantasizes in the chapter about painting with bone black and smears of red, colors she loves but is forbidden to wear as black is a grown woman's color and red is the vestment of whores.
So after twelve rounds of "The title is about how she's black. Like, to the bone. She's inescapably black," I had to interject. I said that the entire concept of Bone Black is her inability to fit into the preassigned role of the black girl and how it earns her a reputation of being chaotic, misbehaved, and at the end she's almost embracing that; she's expressing a desire to return to the primal, unfettered roots of her people. There's a sense of returning to the cradle of life and creating her art with raw passion, to be allowed to be a woman and a sexual being. And I received a, "Okaaay. Next?" Which was followed by a, "Well, she's black. But she doesn't understand race as a kid." Furious, I whirled in my seat and scanned the room, desperately certain my eyes would meet KD's and he could back me up. It was bad enough last year when I had a habit of doing such in POD even though KD wasn't in my class, but I had always depended on him to explain and justify my political opinion. Likewise, it was sad when I would catch myself doing it in G&P last semester. But in an English course, the one subject in which I used to hold my own, to be pathetically searching for someone who isn't there, who will never be there . . . it makes me question my own competence, whether I've ever had anything worth saying or forever simply echoes of the stronger.
I think I shall go read Soltan's blog for a while. No wonder the KD is enamored; it's a euphoric relief to find solidarity, and to find an educator remembering the university is a place of learning, not commerce, and reminding us all that teh interweb is no replacement for respected educators fostering literacy -- it's a rush.
posted by EmilyPrice @ 6:07 PM
2 Comments:
I may not have been in your English class today, but here's the irony: I was reading Sontag blast the sort of shallow philistinism that you seem to encounter among your peers.
I witness similar trends in my English classroom. We're about equally divided between majors and nonmajors but you'd never know the difference. The discussion often devolves into a superficial, hackneyed character assessment, sometimes being nothing more than whether a certain actor is "likable." There is little substance about the literary power of the work, its ability to disclose a world different than one's own, and this is sad, because its for this reason that we *study* literature and not just read it over the summer. I was disgusted by the total misreading of Lucy Snowe in "Villette" -- the character who exhibits passionate, unrequired love is labeled "psychotic" and "a bitch." Sigh.
There are very few people who major in English for the right reasons; don't be discouraged. You tend to get a lot of girls who like to read stories, a lot of people who don't know what they want to do with their lives and want a versatile major. Rarely do you get someone who wants a close examination of superior written work, someone who worships the aesthetics of language in a Sontag-esque way.
The reason why you *should* be an English major is to defend against philistinism, to return the favor to the art that rescued you, to save it from drowning in a petty irrelevance. But fighting the entire department is a bit much, I admit, which is why when you find a professor like Soltan, you hold on for dear life.
When students in my class labeled Lucy Grealy spoiled, a bitch, and weak (b/c she committed suicide a few years after her memoirs were published) I very nearly lost it. That was the day I asked a peer what the hell his dad's cancer had to due with Lucy's suffering. Yeah. I really don't play well with others in English. Thank you for your words.
Post a Comment
<< Home