Dear MC,
I would also like to apologize for our accidental 2 year hiatus. I'm also quite fond of the fact that this blog's tagline is still "letters from a dorm room," as it brings back memories of fro-yo adventures at the dining hall and filming music videos in the hallway at midnight.
You know, normal college things.
Anyway. I'm glad you brought up this question surrounding audiobooks, because while I don't listen to audiobooks per se, a lot of the texts I've read recently have been auditory and visual. So naturally, I have some thoughts on the subject.
The first thing I'd like to address is the notion of guilt. You mention that you feel guilty for listening to audiobooks, but I don't think this guild-ridden feeling is specific to the mode of text. I think that readers in general are prone to guilt that they're reading the wrong thing in the wrong way. For instance, I've frequently felt guilty for failing to read texts such as Ivanhoe or Tale of Two Cities (actually, I did read the latter, but don't ask me if I remember a damn thing about it). While perceptions are changing, capital-L Literature is still highly esteemed, and intelligent people can feel wrong or foolish for venturing outside of that canon.
Just the other night, I went to an event at the university, and was reading a book called "Fuck Feelings." As more people sat around me, I hid the book in my backpack, pretending I was looking for a copy of The Iliad or something equally intellectual.
But I digress.
I really like your point that listening to texts invites modern understandings of reading while simultaneously nodding at the oral tradition. To go aggressively classic, Shakespearean plays were always meant to be performed by the artist, and watched by the audience (as most plays are. Duh). There's a certain je ne sais quoi to performative texts that alphabetic texts just can't muster. In fact, alphabetic texts have been used to manipulate, exploit, or abuse colonized communities. Not that spoken words can have the same effect, but thinking in the context of legal documents, a lot of laws have been developed through western modes of writing, ultimately hurting minority cultures and communities. Forcing Native American students to learn and write in English is along that same vein.
Although then by enacting oral traditions of storytelling, there's always that risk of accidental appropriation of other cultures. But that's for another post.
Unlike hundreds of years ago, we are in the age of multitasking, which makes things like audiobooks and podcasts well suited for the "modern era." I almost find listening to a podcast more excusable while I'm doing my makeup, and I deem myself more productive and involved in the world than if I were to simply listen to music (although music is its own form of text, as we have discussed before). However, despite audiobooks and podcasts being more akin to "background noise," I'm not entirely sure it's more passive than traditional forms of reading.
I've been reading a book called "Soldiers of Peace" by Paul Chappell, and while most of the book is a not-so-cleverly disguised sales pitch, the author makes some interesting points about active listening. To actually listen well (as opposed to hearing), we have to maintain qualities of empathy, compassion, and being present. That can be exceptionally difficult to accomplish, and even more so when we aren't annotating, highlighting, or making marginal comments on a physical page. Because of all this, at least in my case, I find myself needing to be even more actively engaged when listening, as opposed to reading (but I'm the most actively engaged when writing a response to something I've read, so I don't quite know what to do with that).
So again, I find that engagement with reading is less about modality, and more about intent. A lot of people don't know how to (or want to) get past the summary--or that "what"--part of a text. The whys and the hows are a lot more interesting, but analyzing those can be accomplished through any kind of text, be it visual, auditory, or alphabetic.
To me, any text that forces me to challenge my preconceived notions of myself or the world is worth interacting with. Lately I've been listening to a podcast called "The Guilty Feminist," and while feminist thought isn't hugely outside of my sphere of influence, hearing other people's stories forces me to interrogate my own brand of sparkly, cisgender white-person feminism. This is, in its purest state, a form of active listening.
I also appreciate how expansive notions of a text rejects ableism (somehow my posts seem to always come back to ableism). I've been following a blind YouTuber named Molly Burke, and she rejects a lot of stereotypes about blind people. More interesting still, she's very into makeup and fashion, as she discusses returning to hobbies that she enjoyed before losing her sight.
Another tangent. My apologies.
Burke also discusses many topics that are blind-specific, one of which is the idea of reading. While she knows how to read braile, most of the books that she reads are audiobooks. And while sighted people may change up the very "reading" and "listening" to identify what form the book took, Burke doesn't make that distinction. When listening to a book, she is reading it. I find that fascinating.
Even the verb "to read" can be used with so many non-alphabetic things. Reading people. Reading minds. Performing analysis on any given context can be a very difficult, very engaging form of reading. And I would argue that just as reading books is a necessary skill, so is reading people.
And, as you already know, a lot of my reading takes place on YouTube because I'm an obsessed person who can't live outside the Internet.
While my understandings of reading and texts are pretty expansive, I find myself having trouble maintaining that same mode of thinking with writing. A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a delightful video called "The Death of the YouTuber." Most of the argument structure was similar to a traditionally-written essay, and it was clearly at least loosely scripted. But I found myself questioning the YouTuber's choice to call her post a "video essay."
I get that this is an emerging genre, and it would be interesting to introduce this kind of project to my composition students, but not at the expense of the fundamentals of writing. But, at this point, with so many kinds of texts being at the forefront of society, I find myself wondering, what even are the fundamentals of writing in this day and age? Obviously learning critical thinking and audience analysis are going to be priorities, but how much are things like grammar and book reports really going to serve future generations? With these constant shifts in how communication manifests itself, it's difficult to keep up in an educational context.
So, I ask you, what are the fundamentals or writing? Should we be learning new genres like the video essay? And what is the end goal in learning these foundational parts of writing?
Kira
Friday, September 28, 2018
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Is Listening to Audiobooks Cheating at Reading?
Dear Kira,
I can't believe it's been two years since either of us has written anything on this blog. I'd like to apologize for taking so long to respond to you; apparently several new jobs, moving out of state and then back to Pennsylvania, and living in four different apartments over the past two years really kept me busy.
First of all, I'd like to address the question you posed in your last post: How can we be astute and critical readers of texts while also enjoying the text (or film or whatever) in the spirit in which it was offered. You point out, rightly so, that many texts that are intended to be cute or fun are deeply problematic and reinforce problematic ideas.
Twilight--the book everyone loves to hate--is a case and point. It has been criticized for (among other things) seeming to suggest that Bella needs to be in a romantic relationship to be happy and for normalizing a deeply unhealthy relationship. However, 13 year-old me loved Twilight, and I was perfectly aware that Bella was a flawed character that behaved stupidly. So, was I wrong to like Twilight at the time? Embarrassing as it is to admit that I read and enjoyed Twilight, I have to say that I don't think I was wrong to enjoy it. While I was reading the Twilight series, I was also discovering and reading books like Ivanhoe, Vanity Fair, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice. My point is that it's okay to indulge in guilty pleasure books like Twilight, but it's important to recognize that those books to have limitations and to balance them out with more thoughtful works.
That being said, I think it's time to move on to a new topic: Audiobooks.
I have been SUPER into audiobooks for about two years, and, in that time, I've probably listened to at least 100 audiobooks.
If you're a busy person in the world (as most of us are), it's really hard to find the time to pick up a physical book, sit down and actually read it. The problem is that you can't really do much of anything else while you're reading. On the other hand, you can do almost anything while listening to an audiobook. I listen to audiobooks while I do my makeup, prepare food, fold my laundry, and clean my apartment. It makes reading incredibly efficient.
In fact, this year I set myself the ambitious goal of reading 125 books, and probably 80% of that number is going to be made up of audiobooks. This is because, as I said, audiobooks are an efficient way to read. It's very easy to sit down and listen to someone read a book to you while you do something else. A ten hour audiobook usually takes me no more than three days to finish, which is really fast turn around time for reading a book.
So audiobooks are great because they're quick and easy and make reading more accessible to busy people, but do audiobooks make reading too easy? Sometimes, when I'm recording reading my second or third book of the week on my Goodreads account, I feel a little guilty, as if I'm taking credit for something I didn't do.
Listening to a book is passive; when you listen to a book, you're along the for the ride. Physically picking up a book and reading it is another story. A physical book demands your attention while you're reading it. You can't tune out while reading; you have to be actively engaged in the process. Although I love audiobooks, I do feel that you get far more out of reading a physical book. Reading a book gives you an intimate understanding of the text that listening to it can't replicate.
For example, while you're listening to a book, it's very easy to glide past a confusing passage or a point that you don't fully understand. Reading a physical book challenges you to revisit the passage and read it again and again until you feel you understand it.
For example, while I was listening to the audiobook of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, I kept thinking to myself "man, this is really interesting, I have to read this book" (even though I was "reading" the book at that moment). I instinctively felt that I needed to have the words in front of my face to really understand the book. To me, the audiobook was a teaser version, allowing me to preview the text without having a chance to examine the book in detail.
Also, physically reading a book represents a huge investment of time and mental energy. So, in some ways, it is a bigger accomplishment to finish reading a book than it is to finish listening to an audiobook. You could say that listening to audiobooks is lazy reading, and I have often thought that myself.
So, the answer is clear, right? Listening to an audiobook is not as good as reading an actual book.
I don't think that's the case either. An audiobook is a performance, and listening a performative version of a text often causes you to interpret a book differently than you might have if you read it to yourself. It's also worthwhile to remember that, while reading books might be the traditional way of consuming texts now, it wasn't always so.
For example, I read and then listened to a book called Blood and Beauty: The Borgias. I liked both versions a lot, but I thought the physical book was slow going and sometimes a little boring. On the other hand, the narrator of the audiobook brought a sense of urgency to the plot and an emotional depth that I didn't pick up on when reading it.
Physical books are a relatively new development in the course of human history, and average people have had only had easy access to books for even less time. For most of human history, ideas and stories were conveyed verbally. Reciting stories out loud is a time-honored human tradition, and audiobooks can be seen as just a newer version of this age-old practice. You could argue that the human brain is naturally far better attuned to picking up information from spoken words as opposed to random scribbles on pieces of paper. After all, it's tremendously difficult to teach a child to read, while most children pick naturally and unconsciously pick up the knack of turning noises into words and words into meaning.
So, what do you think? Is listening to audiobooks cheating? Is listening the same thing as reading? Or, is reading inherently different? Which do you prefer?
Until next time,
Maria
I can't believe it's been two years since either of us has written anything on this blog. I'd like to apologize for taking so long to respond to you; apparently several new jobs, moving out of state and then back to Pennsylvania, and living in four different apartments over the past two years really kept me busy.
First of all, I'd like to address the question you posed in your last post: How can we be astute and critical readers of texts while also enjoying the text (or film or whatever) in the spirit in which it was offered. You point out, rightly so, that many texts that are intended to be cute or fun are deeply problematic and reinforce problematic ideas.
Twilight--the book everyone loves to hate--is a case and point. It has been criticized for (among other things) seeming to suggest that Bella needs to be in a romantic relationship to be happy and for normalizing a deeply unhealthy relationship. However, 13 year-old me loved Twilight, and I was perfectly aware that Bella was a flawed character that behaved stupidly. So, was I wrong to like Twilight at the time? Embarrassing as it is to admit that I read and enjoyed Twilight, I have to say that I don't think I was wrong to enjoy it. While I was reading the Twilight series, I was also discovering and reading books like Ivanhoe, Vanity Fair, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice. My point is that it's okay to indulge in guilty pleasure books like Twilight, but it's important to recognize that those books to have limitations and to balance them out with more thoughtful works.
That being said, I think it's time to move on to a new topic: Audiobooks.
I have been SUPER into audiobooks for about two years, and, in that time, I've probably listened to at least 100 audiobooks.
If you're a busy person in the world (as most of us are), it's really hard to find the time to pick up a physical book, sit down and actually read it. The problem is that you can't really do much of anything else while you're reading. On the other hand, you can do almost anything while listening to an audiobook. I listen to audiobooks while I do my makeup, prepare food, fold my laundry, and clean my apartment. It makes reading incredibly efficient.
In fact, this year I set myself the ambitious goal of reading 125 books, and probably 80% of that number is going to be made up of audiobooks. This is because, as I said, audiobooks are an efficient way to read. It's very easy to sit down and listen to someone read a book to you while you do something else. A ten hour audiobook usually takes me no more than three days to finish, which is really fast turn around time for reading a book.
So audiobooks are great because they're quick and easy and make reading more accessible to busy people, but do audiobooks make reading too easy? Sometimes, when I'm recording reading my second or third book of the week on my Goodreads account, I feel a little guilty, as if I'm taking credit for something I didn't do.
Listening to a book is passive; when you listen to a book, you're along the for the ride. Physically picking up a book and reading it is another story. A physical book demands your attention while you're reading it. You can't tune out while reading; you have to be actively engaged in the process. Although I love audiobooks, I do feel that you get far more out of reading a physical book. Reading a book gives you an intimate understanding of the text that listening to it can't replicate.
For example, while you're listening to a book, it's very easy to glide past a confusing passage or a point that you don't fully understand. Reading a physical book challenges you to revisit the passage and read it again and again until you feel you understand it.
For example, while I was listening to the audiobook of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, I kept thinking to myself "man, this is really interesting, I have to read this book" (even though I was "reading" the book at that moment). I instinctively felt that I needed to have the words in front of my face to really understand the book. To me, the audiobook was a teaser version, allowing me to preview the text without having a chance to examine the book in detail.
Also, physically reading a book represents a huge investment of time and mental energy. So, in some ways, it is a bigger accomplishment to finish reading a book than it is to finish listening to an audiobook. You could say that listening to audiobooks is lazy reading, and I have often thought that myself.
So, the answer is clear, right? Listening to an audiobook is not as good as reading an actual book.
I don't think that's the case either. An audiobook is a performance, and listening a performative version of a text often causes you to interpret a book differently than you might have if you read it to yourself. It's also worthwhile to remember that, while reading books might be the traditional way of consuming texts now, it wasn't always so.
For example, I read and then listened to a book called Blood and Beauty: The Borgias. I liked both versions a lot, but I thought the physical book was slow going and sometimes a little boring. On the other hand, the narrator of the audiobook brought a sense of urgency to the plot and an emotional depth that I didn't pick up on when reading it.
Physical books are a relatively new development in the course of human history, and average people have had only had easy access to books for even less time. For most of human history, ideas and stories were conveyed verbally. Reciting stories out loud is a time-honored human tradition, and audiobooks can be seen as just a newer version of this age-old practice. You could argue that the human brain is naturally far better attuned to picking up information from spoken words as opposed to random scribbles on pieces of paper. After all, it's tremendously difficult to teach a child to read, while most children pick naturally and unconsciously pick up the knack of turning noises into words and words into meaning.
So, what do you think? Is listening to audiobooks cheating? Is listening the same thing as reading? Or, is reading inherently different? Which do you prefer?
Until next time,
Maria
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Becoming Human: The Place of Reader Response and the Depiction of Disability in Me Before You
Dear MC,
I must apologize for two things: 1) for taking so long to respond on this blog (I could make up some excuse about caring for my aunt's cousin's cat, but instead I'll admit to flopping around and trying to put off the inevitable doom of moving into adulthood), and 2) not reading Jojoy Moye's Me Before You. However, I do fully intend to, upon watching this film, rush off to the bookstore, and grab as many copies of Me Before You as possible (or, you know, just one). As such, my response will be strictly limited to the movie, which, not to sound like a pretentious ass (I'm going to sound like a pretentious ass), functions as a text quite similarly to that of a novel--its narrative structure is nearly identical, the reader, or viewer in this case, relates to the characters in similar ways, and in both novel and film, what isn't said is arguably as important as what is.
Basically, it makes you feel all the feels. But more on that later.
First I will respond to your initial question in which you ask if a reader can create meaning that isn't necessarily intended. I answer with a resounding yes. You know how much I love New Criticism and Formalism, but, much to the new critic's chagrin, a text does not exist in a vacuum. The only reason a text, and consequently an author, can become popular, is if the reader relates to or feels a close affinity with the text in some way. As the reader lends success, the text must speak to the reader in a form other than lecturing. The text must allow the reader to, upon completion of the novel/film, go "yes. This. Everyone must know this. Allow me to spam all of my social media with this newfound enlightenment."
Basically, in human terms, the creation of the text is the conception. The reader and viewer's interaction with the text is the life. This life is impossible without the creation of meaning.
And I found a lot of hidden meaning in Thea Sharrock's portrayal of Louisa and Will in Me Before You (yeah for smooth transitions). As you previously noted, this film tells the story of a disabled man's love for an able-bodied woman. While the film tackles the issue of physical disability, I saw Will's isolation and desperation to relate to those with whom it was impossible to relate to and thought of my own life in which my own mentally disabled brother is left quite isolated due to his own limitations. As this is a romantic film, I am almost positive that Sharrock's initial motive was not to uncover the day-to-day struggles of living with a disability (in fact, I would argue that there was a good bit of romanticization of disability. But more on that later). But, because of my specific situation, I was able to relate to and derive meaning from the film in ways that a majority of the viewership may not.
And I was sad. But weirdly, as you pointed out, I paid money for and enjoyed the experience of being sad.
I wholeheartedly agree with your hypothesis that we, as viewers, enjoy being sad, as we enjoy relating to fictional characters on a human level. But, to take this proposal a step further, I would like to introduce the importance of place in the context of human experiences. Admittedly, I have been thinking about place a good deal in preparation for my departure of the place I call home, but it relates to movie-going to a relatively high degree. I would suggest that while this movie lends strong emotions no matter where the viewer is, watching the film at a movie theater, specifically with other people, heightens the sadness.
Why is this the case? This hypothesis is still largely unfounded, but in my experience, the viewer's association with a fictional character's emotions is two-tiered: the viewer seeks to relate to the character's human experience itself, but in doing so, she creates a human experience with the other theater-go-ers who are doing the same thing. This act becomes powerful in which we are reminded that we are not alone in experiencing sadness or pain.
If you think about it (and stretch the imagination, like, a whole lot), this makes perfect sense. The whole notion of shelling out $10 to sit in a dark room with a bunch of strangers is a little odd, but group entertainment has been around for (insert historically accurate number here) years. And this notion of intensely feeling with strangers around you makes sense due to how we as humans congregate. We come together in large groups, in large part, to grieve or celebrate. The most beautiful, intense, human experience come from severe sadness or severe joy. In thinking about going to see a beautifully sad movie in the same way that we may think about going to a wedding or a funeral, we see that not only are we relating to the experience itself, but we are relating to those around us. And this is a beautiful reminder that we are not alone in feeling deeply about the human experience.
I certainly shared a more meaningful experience in seeing this film with my friends and those who also felt no shame in crying at the cheesiest of moments than I would watching it on my laptop. It's a powerful reminder to be assured that I am not only allowed to feel intense sadness, but that it is a bonding experience to feel intense sadness.
This experience is what makes us human. And it's what makes illnesses like depression such a monster--at its most dangerous, it strips someone of feeling, of a sense of humanity. It tricks someone into feeling that he is both alone and numb. Even when we feel ostensibly "negative" emotions, we can be re-assured that we are still living, that we are still human.
As you are well aware, I was sucked into every last scene in the film. I unabashedly adore cheesy romances. But as I hinted at earlier, there were a couple themes that I, and several others, took issue with. In depicting the issue of physical disability, Sharrock seems to suggest that Will's limitations serve as a vehicle (no pun intended) for the able-bodied woman to discover herself, to recognize her own worth in society. This movie runs the risk of arguing that the disabled's needs are second to the able-bodied's desires. As it glosses over the daily hardships of living as a paraplegic (like the primary caretaker doesn't have to help her client go to the bathroom? What?), much of the film is devoted to the romantic ideal of changing someone who is stuck with the pesky little problem of merely having a bad attitude.
Also, a good deal of the disabled community takes issue with the suggestion that the solution of dealing with a disability is to commit suicide. So there's that.
But that's me getting on my high horse. Which is the question I have for you. Clearly this film was meant to be a light, predictable form of entertainment. It was certainly not meant to be met with the scholarly eye (that's what I call my eye when it's read a total of like, two scholarly articles). It's largely unquestioned that things like ableism and sexism still run rampant in our society. There is an ever-expanding collection of media that seeks to expose and change that phenomenon.
Me Before You is not a part of that collection.
So my question is this: does this lack of exposure make a "stereotypical" film inherently problematic? I want to remain a critical viewer and member of society, yet I also want to enjoy a cute, albeit simplistic, movie without the consequent guilt of watching a romanticized depiction of something that is aggressively un-romantic. Yet I also know that people want to watch cute things, dammit, without being lectured about the consequences of ableism. I am fully aware that I am running the risk of being "that person" who gets offended at everything that isn't explicitly trying to expose the issues of our society. So how can we be successful critics while still finding that balance of enjoying cute media?
Until next time,
Kira
I must apologize for two things: 1) for taking so long to respond on this blog (I could make up some excuse about caring for my aunt's cousin's cat, but instead I'll admit to flopping around and trying to put off the inevitable doom of moving into adulthood), and 2) not reading Jojoy Moye's Me Before You. However, I do fully intend to, upon watching this film, rush off to the bookstore, and grab as many copies of Me Before You as possible (or, you know, just one). As such, my response will be strictly limited to the movie, which, not to sound like a pretentious ass (I'm going to sound like a pretentious ass), functions as a text quite similarly to that of a novel--its narrative structure is nearly identical, the reader, or viewer in this case, relates to the characters in similar ways, and in both novel and film, what isn't said is arguably as important as what is.
Basically, it makes you feel all the feels. But more on that later.
First I will respond to your initial question in which you ask if a reader can create meaning that isn't necessarily intended. I answer with a resounding yes. You know how much I love New Criticism and Formalism, but, much to the new critic's chagrin, a text does not exist in a vacuum. The only reason a text, and consequently an author, can become popular, is if the reader relates to or feels a close affinity with the text in some way. As the reader lends success, the text must speak to the reader in a form other than lecturing. The text must allow the reader to, upon completion of the novel/film, go "yes. This. Everyone must know this. Allow me to spam all of my social media with this newfound enlightenment."
Basically, in human terms, the creation of the text is the conception. The reader and viewer's interaction with the text is the life. This life is impossible without the creation of meaning.
And I found a lot of hidden meaning in Thea Sharrock's portrayal of Louisa and Will in Me Before You (yeah for smooth transitions). As you previously noted, this film tells the story of a disabled man's love for an able-bodied woman. While the film tackles the issue of physical disability, I saw Will's isolation and desperation to relate to those with whom it was impossible to relate to and thought of my own life in which my own mentally disabled brother is left quite isolated due to his own limitations. As this is a romantic film, I am almost positive that Sharrock's initial motive was not to uncover the day-to-day struggles of living with a disability (in fact, I would argue that there was a good bit of romanticization of disability. But more on that later). But, because of my specific situation, I was able to relate to and derive meaning from the film in ways that a majority of the viewership may not.
And I was sad. But weirdly, as you pointed out, I paid money for and enjoyed the experience of being sad.
I wholeheartedly agree with your hypothesis that we, as viewers, enjoy being sad, as we enjoy relating to fictional characters on a human level. But, to take this proposal a step further, I would like to introduce the importance of place in the context of human experiences. Admittedly, I have been thinking about place a good deal in preparation for my departure of the place I call home, but it relates to movie-going to a relatively high degree. I would suggest that while this movie lends strong emotions no matter where the viewer is, watching the film at a movie theater, specifically with other people, heightens the sadness.
Why is this the case? This hypothesis is still largely unfounded, but in my experience, the viewer's association with a fictional character's emotions is two-tiered: the viewer seeks to relate to the character's human experience itself, but in doing so, she creates a human experience with the other theater-go-ers who are doing the same thing. This act becomes powerful in which we are reminded that we are not alone in experiencing sadness or pain.
If you think about it (and stretch the imagination, like, a whole lot), this makes perfect sense. The whole notion of shelling out $10 to sit in a dark room with a bunch of strangers is a little odd, but group entertainment has been around for (insert historically accurate number here) years. And this notion of intensely feeling with strangers around you makes sense due to how we as humans congregate. We come together in large groups, in large part, to grieve or celebrate. The most beautiful, intense, human experience come from severe sadness or severe joy. In thinking about going to see a beautifully sad movie in the same way that we may think about going to a wedding or a funeral, we see that not only are we relating to the experience itself, but we are relating to those around us. And this is a beautiful reminder that we are not alone in feeling deeply about the human experience.
I certainly shared a more meaningful experience in seeing this film with my friends and those who also felt no shame in crying at the cheesiest of moments than I would watching it on my laptop. It's a powerful reminder to be assured that I am not only allowed to feel intense sadness, but that it is a bonding experience to feel intense sadness.
This experience is what makes us human. And it's what makes illnesses like depression such a monster--at its most dangerous, it strips someone of feeling, of a sense of humanity. It tricks someone into feeling that he is both alone and numb. Even when we feel ostensibly "negative" emotions, we can be re-assured that we are still living, that we are still human.
As you are well aware, I was sucked into every last scene in the film. I unabashedly adore cheesy romances. But as I hinted at earlier, there were a couple themes that I, and several others, took issue with. In depicting the issue of physical disability, Sharrock seems to suggest that Will's limitations serve as a vehicle (no pun intended) for the able-bodied woman to discover herself, to recognize her own worth in society. This movie runs the risk of arguing that the disabled's needs are second to the able-bodied's desires. As it glosses over the daily hardships of living as a paraplegic (like the primary caretaker doesn't have to help her client go to the bathroom? What?), much of the film is devoted to the romantic ideal of changing someone who is stuck with the pesky little problem of merely having a bad attitude.
Also, a good deal of the disabled community takes issue with the suggestion that the solution of dealing with a disability is to commit suicide. So there's that.
But that's me getting on my high horse. Which is the question I have for you. Clearly this film was meant to be a light, predictable form of entertainment. It was certainly not meant to be met with the scholarly eye (that's what I call my eye when it's read a total of like, two scholarly articles). It's largely unquestioned that things like ableism and sexism still run rampant in our society. There is an ever-expanding collection of media that seeks to expose and change that phenomenon.
Me Before You is not a part of that collection.
So my question is this: does this lack of exposure make a "stereotypical" film inherently problematic? I want to remain a critical viewer and member of society, yet I also want to enjoy a cute, albeit simplistic, movie without the consequent guilt of watching a romanticized depiction of something that is aggressively un-romantic. Yet I also know that people want to watch cute things, dammit, without being lectured about the consequences of ableism. I am fully aware that I am running the risk of being "that person" who gets offended at everything that isn't explicitly trying to expose the issues of our society. So how can we be successful critics while still finding that balance of enjoying cute media?
Until next time,
Kira
Why Do People Enjoy "Sad" Books?
Dear Kira,I'm aware that it's not my turn to write on this blog, however, you're taking a long time to respond to my last post and I have stuff to say! (Don't think this gets you out of answering both questions though!)
So, yesterday, you and I went to see the movie Me Before You (which is based on a book, which makes it relevant to this blog). Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the movie or read the book: it's extremely sad. Even so, we both really enjoyed the movie. (Spoiler alert: Emilia Clarke's eyebrows are amazing.) That's kind of weird, isn't it? Ordinarily, people don't enjoy being sad. Naturally, most people prefer to be happy (well, except Eeyore, but he's a donkey). So, why do so many people (us included) watch and enjoy sad movies and read sad books, even if it makes them sad?
I suppose that the cynical answer would be that, on some level, people get some sort of pleasure out of the sadness and pain of others. Some might argue that people enjoy other people's sadness because their own lives are too boring or ordinary. That sounds a little sadistic, doesn't it?
On the other hand, a more optimistic person might argue that reading a sad book helps people to deal with pain and problems in their own lives.
I suspect that both of those analyses are correct in certain contexts. However, for most people, I think that the answer is somewhere in the middle. I think that most people have natural curiosity about the life experiences of others. Humans are, after all, social animals. It makes sense that we are invested and interested in the lives of others. But why do we enjoy observing other peoples' lives when they're sad?
Even in the case of fictional stories like Me Before You, we as viewers identify with the characters on a human level because they are having human experiences. And, in the spectrum of human experience, extreme emotions and heightened situations are most compelling and interesting. Sadness is perhaps one of the most extreme emotions. Although too much sadness can be exhausting and emotionally draining, there is also something interesting about watching characters cope with and come to terms with these feelings. Simply put, it's compelling to watch characters struggle with emotions that most of us have experienced at one point, even if the character's experience is much more extreme and dramatic. For example, in Me Before You, Louisa Clark cares for (and basically falls in love with) a disabled man. Most people have not had this experience. Yet, they can relate on some level. Viewers enjoy seeing how the characters
choose to deal with these extreme situations and heightened emotions, and they can imagine how they themselves would react in this situation.
So, why do you think people enjoy sad movies and books? What do you think of Emilia Clarke's eyebrows?
MC
Monday, January 4, 2016
Reader, Not Writer
Dear Kira,
Yes, it's been a horribly long time since anyone has written on this blog; however, I think it's safe to say that we've both learned a lot about English and writing in the past two years so, hopefully, the blog will be the better for it.
In your last blog, you talked about a fear of reading too much into a novel -- the danger of extrapolating too much from insignificant details. This is the perennial problem of being an English major -- sometimes you're making good points; sometimes you're just making stuff up (roughly seventy percent of all essays ever written). For example, I think we've all been in situations in classes when professors say something to the effect of, "actually, Romeo & Juliet is a criticism of global warming" and everyone rolls their eyes.
English is a great field because every theory and opinion is, theoretically, equally valid. That being said, there are obviously cases where people take this sort of intellectual liberty too far. In one particular class, I remember the professor making a big deal about the amount of walking characters do in Henry IV part 1. Maybe there's a valid point there, but, in Shakespeare's time, if you didn't have a horse, what were your other options? I'm pretty sure Falstaff didn't drive a Prius. I think the problem is that too many people assume that the author does everything with intent. Sure, there is such a thing as authorial intent (for example, C.S. Lewis is very famous for putting allusions to Christianity in the Narnia books), but not every word is selected with a motive in mind. There's definately a balance between taking the author's perspective into account and analyzing every word to death because you want to be the 101th person to write a book about Romeo & Juliet.
On the flip side, there are books in which absolutely nothing is intended -- tabula rasa, if you will. For example, if you read Twilight, you could probably pick out all the times the words "rain" and "blood" are mentioned and write a pretty convincing essay about the symbolism of water in contrast with the symbolism of blood. Did the author intend this? Probably not -- she doesn't seem very bright.
However, lest you think me an enemy to Formalism and New Criticism, I will say that authorial intent isn't the only thing that matters. What is important, in my opinion, is that the text speaks to you in some way. So, if the rain in Twilight is really inspiring to you and meaningful in your life, maybe you should have a theory about it. While I believe that it's important to keep the author in mind, the meaning of the text is really more dependent on the reader than the writer. Shakespeare is a good example of this because people love to have theories about Shakespeare (in case you're wondering, I too am guilty, guilty, guilty). Last year, I wrote a paper about the role of women in war in the Henriad plays. Now, I'm fairly certain that feminist criticism wasn't at the front of Shakespeare's mind when he was writing these plays (actually, I do have theories about what he actually intended). However, I'm female so, naturally, the women in the plays are interesting to me. In this case, I think the important thing is that interpretations of texts have relevance to the lives of the interpreters and the lives of other people who share their worldview.
So, should all the fourteen year olds in the world be writing about symbolism in the work of Stephanie Meyer? I think their English teachers would probably disagree. If any individual can find validity in any text that speaks to them, what does this say about so-called "classics." Is a classic worthwhile even if it doesn't speak to you? Or, is it a classic because it speaks to many people?
MC
Yes, it's been a horribly long time since anyone has written on this blog; however, I think it's safe to say that we've both learned a lot about English and writing in the past two years so, hopefully, the blog will be the better for it.
In your last blog, you talked about a fear of reading too much into a novel -- the danger of extrapolating too much from insignificant details. This is the perennial problem of being an English major -- sometimes you're making good points; sometimes you're just making stuff up (roughly seventy percent of all essays ever written). For example, I think we've all been in situations in classes when professors say something to the effect of, "actually, Romeo & Juliet is a criticism of global warming" and everyone rolls their eyes.
English is a great field because every theory and opinion is, theoretically, equally valid. That being said, there are obviously cases where people take this sort of intellectual liberty too far. In one particular class, I remember the professor making a big deal about the amount of walking characters do in Henry IV part 1. Maybe there's a valid point there, but, in Shakespeare's time, if you didn't have a horse, what were your other options? I'm pretty sure Falstaff didn't drive a Prius. I think the problem is that too many people assume that the author does everything with intent. Sure, there is such a thing as authorial intent (for example, C.S. Lewis is very famous for putting allusions to Christianity in the Narnia books), but not every word is selected with a motive in mind. There's definately a balance between taking the author's perspective into account and analyzing every word to death because you want to be the 101th person to write a book about Romeo & Juliet.
On the flip side, there are books in which absolutely nothing is intended -- tabula rasa, if you will. For example, if you read Twilight, you could probably pick out all the times the words "rain" and "blood" are mentioned and write a pretty convincing essay about the symbolism of water in contrast with the symbolism of blood. Did the author intend this? Probably not -- she doesn't seem very bright.
However, lest you think me an enemy to Formalism and New Criticism, I will say that authorial intent isn't the only thing that matters. What is important, in my opinion, is that the text speaks to you in some way. So, if the rain in Twilight is really inspiring to you and meaningful in your life, maybe you should have a theory about it. While I believe that it's important to keep the author in mind, the meaning of the text is really more dependent on the reader than the writer. Shakespeare is a good example of this because people love to have theories about Shakespeare (in case you're wondering, I too am guilty, guilty, guilty). Last year, I wrote a paper about the role of women in war in the Henriad plays. Now, I'm fairly certain that feminist criticism wasn't at the front of Shakespeare's mind when he was writing these plays (actually, I do have theories about what he actually intended). However, I'm female so, naturally, the women in the plays are interesting to me. In this case, I think the important thing is that interpretations of texts have relevance to the lives of the interpreters and the lives of other people who share their worldview.
So, should all the fourteen year olds in the world be writing about symbolism in the work of Stephanie Meyer? I think their English teachers would probably disagree. If any individual can find validity in any text that speaks to them, what does this say about so-called "classics." Is a classic worthwhile even if it doesn't speak to you? Or, is it a classic because it speaks to many people?
MC
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The Big Picture
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
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
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
The Importance of Close Reading
Dear Kira,
I'm an English major who doesn't really like being an English major.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading Shakespeare and stuff like that, but a lot of stuff that goes on in upper level English classes seems kind of stupid to me. I mean, I don't need an old guy in a crazy tie asking me: "what is rhetoric? what is it really?". I used to feel that way about close reading. Because, let's face it, when you have a half an hour of lecture on the use of the word grape on page 451 and the word doesn't even come up in the rest of the book, you're wasting your tuition dollars.
(P.S. Dear every English professor ever, this is especially annoying when you assign an entire novel and then decide to spend the entire class to talk about the importance of the grape as a symbol in the first five pages.)
(What is a grape? What is it really?)
But I've recently had a change of heart regarding that higher education hoodoo known as close reading. Let me tell you a little story:
I consider myself to be a sort of amateur A Song of Ice and Fire theorist. (I say amateur because you should see some of the ASOIAF discussion forums out there). Recently, I was doing some reading about an ASOIAF theory called The Great Northern Conspiracy. I know you don't like ASOIAF, so I'll spare you the details, but the gist is that people think that all of the great Northern houses are conspiring to make Jon Snow the Lord of the North. The primary evidence for this claim is a letter that Lyanna Mormont sends to Stannis Baratheon in A Dance with Dragons:
"Bear Island knows no king but the King of the North, whose name is STARK."
You have no idea how this tiny phrase has been picked to pieces. I personally, have mulled it over many a time. The use of "whose" suggests that she's thinking of a specific person. She could have said something like "Bear Island only recognizes the Starks"or something like that, but instead she writes as if she has a specific person in mind. This is controversial because, at this time, most people think that all the Starks (minus Sansa and possibly Arya) are dead. So who is she referring to? This leads back to another theory that Jon Snow (the illegitimate child of Ned Stark) was legitimized by his half brother, Robb before Robb's untimely death.
And all of this is based off a handful of words.
What's weird about this to me is that I understand why people are analyzing this to death. It makes sense to me. Actually, I'm currently re-reading the ASOIAF with the sole intention of scouting evidence for some of my theories. That's not how I normally read books; if I'm reading something casually, my primary goal is to appreciate the work as a whole, not pick at little details while overlooking the overall plot and side stepping the pleasure of a well resolved work of fiction.
Were my English professors right? Is this really the best way to read a book? Should I start doing my casual reading with a pad of post-it notes on hand (which is what I'm doing with ASOIAF)? Could it be that I have finally found a way that close reading benefits me in real life? I mean, you can argue that being able to predict what's going to happen in a fantasy series is important but I know of 15 million billion nerds that would say differently. My concern then becomes that this sucks the fun out of reading. What I like about ASOIAF is that it's another world. I don't want to have to worry about the implications of a grape when I'm trying to get sucked into a fictional universe.
So, I offer you this question: what is reading? What is it really?
M.C.
I'm an English major who doesn't really like being an English major.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading Shakespeare and stuff like that, but a lot of stuff that goes on in upper level English classes seems kind of stupid to me. I mean, I don't need an old guy in a crazy tie asking me: "what is rhetoric? what is it really?". I used to feel that way about close reading. Because, let's face it, when you have a half an hour of lecture on the use of the word grape on page 451 and the word doesn't even come up in the rest of the book, you're wasting your tuition dollars.
(P.S. Dear every English professor ever, this is especially annoying when you assign an entire novel and then decide to spend the entire class to talk about the importance of the grape as a symbol in the first five pages.)
(What is a grape? What is it really?)
But I've recently had a change of heart regarding that higher education hoodoo known as close reading. Let me tell you a little story:
I consider myself to be a sort of amateur A Song of Ice and Fire theorist. (I say amateur because you should see some of the ASOIAF discussion forums out there). Recently, I was doing some reading about an ASOIAF theory called The Great Northern Conspiracy. I know you don't like ASOIAF, so I'll spare you the details, but the gist is that people think that all of the great Northern houses are conspiring to make Jon Snow the Lord of the North. The primary evidence for this claim is a letter that Lyanna Mormont sends to Stannis Baratheon in A Dance with Dragons:
"Bear Island knows no king but the King of the North, whose name is STARK."
You have no idea how this tiny phrase has been picked to pieces. I personally, have mulled it over many a time. The use of "whose" suggests that she's thinking of a specific person. She could have said something like "Bear Island only recognizes the Starks"or something like that, but instead she writes as if she has a specific person in mind. This is controversial because, at this time, most people think that all the Starks (minus Sansa and possibly Arya) are dead. So who is she referring to? This leads back to another theory that Jon Snow (the illegitimate child of Ned Stark) was legitimized by his half brother, Robb before Robb's untimely death.
And all of this is based off a handful of words.
What's weird about this to me is that I understand why people are analyzing this to death. It makes sense to me. Actually, I'm currently re-reading the ASOIAF with the sole intention of scouting evidence for some of my theories. That's not how I normally read books; if I'm reading something casually, my primary goal is to appreciate the work as a whole, not pick at little details while overlooking the overall plot and side stepping the pleasure of a well resolved work of fiction.
Were my English professors right? Is this really the best way to read a book? Should I start doing my casual reading with a pad of post-it notes on hand (which is what I'm doing with ASOIAF)? Could it be that I have finally found a way that close reading benefits me in real life? I mean, you can argue that being able to predict what's going to happen in a fantasy series is important but I know of 15 million billion nerds that would say differently. My concern then becomes that this sucks the fun out of reading. What I like about ASOIAF is that it's another world. I don't want to have to worry about the implications of a grape when I'm trying to get sucked into a fictional universe.
So, I offer you this question: what is reading? What is it really?
M.C.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)