Dear MC,
Once upon a time, there was an English professor who told a handful of freshmen to start an essay focusing on one sole word in a book--to really question the meaning of that word, to read so closely, that word symbolized the universe and beyond in said book. Once there was a particular freshman who thought that was really stupid, why couldn't we just write about the big picture like normal people?
Two years later (gulp, where has the time gone?), this stubborn freshman realized that focusing on one word was the big picture. It just wasn't the blatantly obvious big picture.
Before you send me to the looney bin, allow me to explain.
For this professor, I wrote an essay about Lolita. My primary intention was to write "this guy is a pedophile who takes the freedom away from little girls, what of it?" But, unless I wrote in REALLY big font, there was no way that would take up five pages (remember when we thought five pages was horrifyingly long?). So, I begrudgingly followed the assignment, and looked for the words "lock" and "key" (paging Doctor Freud) in the novel. At first glance, all I saw were instances where Humbert locked Lolita into his grasp, yet after farther exploration of the novel, there were more subtle references to Lolita locking Humbert out.
Because of this "investigation" of the novel, I reached the main conclusion, that this a story not of a stepdaughter's loss of freedom, but a stepfather's own personal prison.
While I still am a strong believer in reading a story just to enjoy the plot, I realize that close reading is not completely pointless, if you want to find a new perspective in a novel.
With that being said, I realize that there are only so many genuine perspectives a novel can have. And with thousands of people in academia analyzing the same books, racing to get their analyses published, when is the struggle to find a new perspective harming us, rather than helping us? When do these new ideas seem forced? When are we reading too much into a word, rather than just being observant?
-Kira
