So I just finished writing a seven-page paper that "juxtaposed an early and late short story to reveal the evolution of the genre" or something like that. What possessed me to do such a thing? It's a long, umm, story.
Reader's Digest version: I'm temporarily pretending I'm a high school senior enrolled in a seminar class entitled The Study of Short Fiction at the school where I am a librarian. Since I'm helping the kids do the research for this project, I thought I'd walk through the experience myself once. I selected what I thought would be the easiest of the several suggested prompts and got started. The stories in question?
Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and Russell Banks' "Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat" (And, no, I'm not forgetting the articles in this title -- there aren't any.)
Both are published in the 7th edition of The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction, ed. by Ann Charters, which is the class text. I include the title because it's a really lovely collection and if you're a fan of short fiction you might like to check it out. Just beware: at nearly 2,000 pages it's not something you'll want to toss in the beach bag.
Anyway, back to the research project. My co-librarian would chalk this up as further evidence that I need a life, but I actually enjoyed reading the stories and doing the research on the authors. It was fascinating. I've read a fair amount of Banks and selected him because I enjoy his writing so much. It's probably been -- okay nevermind how many years its been -- since I've read Bierce. Doing some research on him was really interesting. Great writer. Kind of a weirdo, but it made for compelling research.
All this raises the question about whether intensive study of a story (or any genre) ruins the reader's experience. Does Banks expect his readers will indulge him with close readings? Should a reader have to? Does it turn students off and make them ignore good books because they've had them jammed down their throats? What purpose does it serve? Does it need a purpose?
Danged if I know! I was genuinely fascinated by Bierce's story and bio and it made me wonder if sometime in my past I'd sat in a lecture about him and "Owl Creek." If I had, I surely don't remember it. The whole experience seems to reinforce the idea that we really only enjoy things that we discover ourselves on our own terms.
That said, had I not taken on this assignment, I may have waited another 20 years to read Bierce again -- and that would be a shame. So maybe looking for a reading deadline that's not self-imposed is not such a bad thing occassionally?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment