Connections

Reading Benjy, I keep trying to make connections. I like the idea (for those of you who have taken Literary Theory) that we all bring our own interpretation to whatever we read, based on our own life, education, bias, baggage, etc. Frankly, I think anyone who thinks literature is read and created in a vacuum had been living under a rock. We tend to forget that books are art just like a painting is art, and all art is subjective, and the viewer's interpretation of it differs. Therefore, what we bring to the table can sometimes be just as important as the text itself. But that's my personal soapbox, and not the point.

I kept thinking, coming into this class, that I knew very little about Faulkner and his writing. I thought, well, that's going to be tough. Because I like to use my prior knowledge to help me better understand the new things I have been presented with. That's kind of the way I view education in general: you're being equipped with tools that will help you with the new, more difficult things you are presented with as your education progresses. And I think I was resisting Faulkner because I felt ill-equipped to face him. Modernism I get alright, but Faulkner is not Picasso, and he is definitely not Hemingway.

Oh, and when I opened Benjy's section and began reading, I thought maybe I had been right. Maybe I wasn't ready to deal with him; maybe I never would be. But, the more I read, the more I fell into a pattern of, not so much understanding, but connecting. It's almost as if you can't think about it too hard, because he's not thinking about it too hard. It's impressions and images and sensations and conversation, and the rigorous interpretation that you often approach "literature" with is out of place in his narration. And, finally, I think I've found a connection. The images and flashbacks and stream-of-consciousness remind me of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Something about the imagistic, impressionistic style clicked with me, and now, it's not entirely making sense, but I'm liking it a lot better now that I'm not so scared of it. I have connections after all!