A New Reader

"It turned out that you have to know how to read. It is not just a matter of letting your eyes run down the pages. Since Innokenty, from youth on, had been shielded from erroneous or outcast books, and had read only the clearly established classics [of the Marxist-Leninist canon], he had grown used to believing every word he read, giving himself up completely to the author's will. Now, reading writers whose opinions contradicted one another, he was unable for a while to rebel, but could only submit to one author, then to another, then to a third.
~"The First Circle," Solzhenitsyn (as quoted in Jacobs)

Perhaps it's not time for an ending post. Perhaps I still have a few (or many) thoughts dealing with literary criticism. But I read this quote from the Jacobs reading, and felt like it was more of an appropriate ending than anything I've read so far. So let me start with this: I am a new reader. I grew up "being shielded from erroneous or outcast books" (and music, and movies, and many, many other "questionable" things). My parents were just trying to do what was right - and the church backed up their efforts, as talk after talk and magazine after magazine told us that these books, etc., were "bad" and would harm my Christian walk, leading me down the paths of the evil world. I don't blame my parents. But I do oftentimes - especially after this class - wish it were otherwise.

I did grow up believing almost all of what I read in some way or another, because, supposedly, what I read was good and acceptable, so it must be true. Literary Criticism (and a few other English classes I am taking this final semester here), have introduced me to texts I never would have read otherwise, and even some texts that my parents and church would term "bad" (especially in one literature course I am taking right now). In reading all these different views, I have found myself asking what "truth" really is. This discussion has even continued into many different realms of my life, even into my new-found interest in politics. But I have had numerous conversations with people, and the main gist of those conversations is, "who do I believe" among all these conflicting views. And how in the world do I reconcile them with my Christianity without compromising. I have not talked about this in these blogs, first off, because that's personal, and this is a class blog, and second off, I didn't want anyone to misinterpret what I was trying to say. But some of the topics and texts we have covered this semester in all my classes (so this is cumulative now) have made me step back and reassess what I believe, why I believe it, and what I have been taught to believe my entire life. And I don't believe that's a bad thing. But this entire process is just that: a process, something that is really just beginning.

I just want to say that many of these posts had a lot of questions, many of them unanswered, because I don't have an answer. In effect, many of these posts were little essays... and please read them as such. This is my essai, as Bret Lott talks about in his memoir "Before We Get Started." These posts are trials or test runs. I'm still in the middle of figuring it all out, and I think it will take the rest of my lifetime to completely figure it out, especially because I am falling into the same trap of the quoted section above. Sad, yes. Beyond my control, not any more. As I read this, I realized what I had been trying to put words to all semester. I was not able to articulate arguments, even though I loved listening to them in class, but I didn't know what I truly believed about something because I never truly had to defend it before. Or to reassess if what I believed was really in line with the Jesus I serve. Or to get the chance to read things that my parents would say are "liberal," and see for myself what they were really all about. And they have said that to me before about books I have been reading in college. "Just be careful," my mother says. And I want to be careful. I want to weigh everything I read, in effect, being a literary critic throughout everything I do / read / watch, etc. But I also want to be able to "claim the right to evaluate and respond" to what I read (Jacobs 107).

So please excuse my questions and my ethical debates (even though those went on much more behind the scenes than you probably would like to believe). Please excuse my inarticulations and my gropings in the dark. But really, this is where I want to be. If I don't take the risk, how will I ever find out anything?

So thank you, to those who listened, and to those who helped put things in perspective (especially through class discussion, but also through your own blogs and some of your comments here too). Perhaps you will see me on here again (and perhaps soon). But at any rate, thank you for sharing in my questions, and for letting me ask those questions in the first place.