Winter Cold Moon
“[A]ll methods of literary interpretation — Marxist, feminist, structuralist, and so on — depend upon the making of a distinction between surface and depth, between what is seen in the text and some underlying meaning.
— Peter Barry, “Postmodernism,” Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory
As a sophomore I took a required introductory literature class. I’d always read a lot, having completed many of the classics before my freshman year of college; so, I wanted to see how a college level look at literature worked. To orient us to time and place I should note that this is the fall of 1966, the place, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Since my freshman year had been at the all male Wabash College, Ball State with its thousands of students (Wabash had 800) and coeds (remember that quaint yesterday term?) was a new experience for me.
I don’t remember the professors name, but I can see him, a short balding man with a non-descript face, a bit fleshy. A suit wearer. Cheap suits. Do you see where this is going? He said he disciplined himself by reading Time cover-to-cover each week.
The particular books we read I don’t recall now. What I do recall is this professor telling me what the books meant. Huh? I always thought that was a contract between writer and reader. A matter of creator and a mind willing to encounter the creator’s work in a receptive way. As to what things meant. Well.
This was a time, gentle reader, a time before theory, a time in the ancient days of yore when books were books and a time when readers did not receive texts; we just read them. Of, course there were various schools of literary interpretation, but they had little impact on the average reader. And even if a careful application of prevailing theory revealed ideas about a text, that was all they were. Just ideas.
Not holy writ. But this guy, this professor and his Time magazine reading discipline claimed to know what the author meant. And, worse, what I should understand from having read a text. This violated my joy in reading so much that I abandoned, in that class, ever taking another college class in literature; based on the premise that I would continue to read and continue to interpret books as they impacted me, not as some poor schlub in a cheap suit said I should.
Of course, I over reacted. Goes without saying. But, I kept reading. I kept learning things, important things, from books. I don’t regret the decision. At all.
So, I continue to read today, blithely ignoring what others say works mean, and taking my own sustenance from them. Wrestled out with what tools I’ve cobbled together from years of enjoying the written word.
Would I have learned a lot in English classrooms? Sure, I would have. Not every professor could have his head stuck so determinedly in the sand as this guy. It’s just not possible, is it?
OK. Just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for listening.
