Before a grand wrap-up on Faulkner, this: I’ve come to discover a sad little truth about my reading habits, methods of learning, my own self.
In a word: Resistant
McCarthy? What’s with this guy? Marquez? Oh come on. Faulkner? So what’s the big deal? And then, one by one, my defenses break down against the power of brilliance. Then, and only then, am I in love.
It is a lifestyle, I’m afraid. Though not from Iowa, I need be shown proof before I’d side with the consensus of opinion. While on parade I hook a left onto a side street, just to see what’s down there, losing sight of the crowd that confidently continues down Main Street. Losing time but learning all the little shops that parallel the traffic flow. But yes, I am behind not with the crowd.
You’re not alone. Words of comfort and they work; but of their challenging effect that makes whatever worried not worth the effort for being common.
Years ago I walked out from a stop-smoking session proudly victorious; not over the habit, but over the hypnosis as I pulled my tossed pack of smokes back out from the basket in the back of the room. No one would change my mind and the risk of letting down my guard was proof they couldn’t enter it.
Kicking and screaming. Not quite the way of the quiet person, and yet the noise, the flurry of feet and fists are silently but surely taking place within my brain. Tenacity born of principle; strength born of diminutive stature; uniqueness born of creativity; stubbornness born of…what?
The fracas of the conflict is very rarely seen except by me, alone in the front row of theater. Rarely taints, barely faints the outward acquiescence. Even as I age I do reverse the norm and will not happily mellow, but rage against injustice, and every rule the more. And in the end, is the lesson better accepted? With much more, perhaps unnecessary difficulty, yes.
Maybe this has been this weblog’s purpose, finally served.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Now that you’re wrapping up stream of consciousness I’m wondering who your next author might be.
I’ve found myself resistant to certain techniques, too. Stories told in the present tense, for instance.
I recall when I first started reading Huckleberry Finn being put off by the language, when teachers always told us to be so correct, and then were handing us this book to read as an example of literature. I quickly got over it, in that case.
Years and years ago I read a piece in Reader’s Digest that was written in second person, the author speaking to a child who’d died. I resisted the point of view, but once I reached the end I realized the power it gave the story, which has haunted me ever since.
Ah yes, the first person is one I fought as well. And second is even harder to read and write until one accepts it. But maybe that’s what writing’s all about, the seeking of and demanding of truth, and maybe that will make us better writers.