(no subject)
i met someone yesterday.
most of the story is unimportant.
still, he told me, over coffee, his story. he told me that he was in a graduate program in literature. he confessed, after revealing this, that he felt academics were merely failed writers. english departments are filled with men and women who would have added to the canon, were they able, but because they lacked the courage or skill or voice or song, are instead relegated to the endless recapitulatory examination of authors who can claim the appellation. it's sad. it's true, he said. it's true.
i was scornful.
don't say that, i told him. studying literature is valuable, i said. after all, it's redundant to say that the audience of an author is composed of readers. readers appreciate authors who are readers in their own right; i, at least, enjoy a book by someone who is well-read, who can make the appropriate allusions and references, who has a richness of literature from which to draw, better than one by an intellectually impoverished writer, regardless of the latter's passion. if you're writing for the general public, this education might not apply, but if you're writing for a readers, well . . . it helps. there's no reason why academics might not be writers, and superior ones at that.
that's a lie. the ivory tower, alluring though it might be, is constructed on the bedrock of experience, the stuff from which all stories are carved. crawling higher only makes the task more difficult.
that, too, is a lie. the academy is contructed of the stuff on which it's built. experience can never be escaped.
most of the story is unimportant.
still, he told me, over coffee, his story. he told me that he was in a graduate program in literature. he confessed, after revealing this, that he felt academics were merely failed writers. english departments are filled with men and women who would have added to the canon, were they able, but because they lacked the courage or skill or voice or song, are instead relegated to the endless recapitulatory examination of authors who can claim the appellation. it's sad. it's true, he said. it's true.
i was scornful.
don't say that, i told him. studying literature is valuable, i said. after all, it's redundant to say that the audience of an author is composed of readers. readers appreciate authors who are readers in their own right; i, at least, enjoy a book by someone who is well-read, who can make the appropriate allusions and references, who has a richness of literature from which to draw, better than one by an intellectually impoverished writer, regardless of the latter's passion. if you're writing for the general public, this education might not apply, but if you're writing for a readers, well . . . it helps. there's no reason why academics might not be writers, and superior ones at that.
that's a lie. the ivory tower, alluring though it might be, is constructed on the bedrock of experience, the stuff from which all stories are carved. crawling higher only makes the task more difficult.
that, too, is a lie. the academy is contructed of the stuff on which it's built. experience can never be escaped.