An Introduction

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June 8, 2009, 5:46PM

I just came back from a trip to Paris. Some kids, a couple of teachers, a terrific guide and more rain than I packed for, but that's not my point.

I made it a point to get to Père Lachaise Cemetery, in East Paris. No museums this trip, I was on a mission. No, not Jim Morrison, not Oscar Wilde, or Edith Piaf, or the other hot dead people. I was there to thank Marcel Proust for making me a history teacher.

Of course, I also had to see the Wall of the Communards; but Proust was my goal. I figured his grave would be huge, since his epitaph would so damned freaking long, but no, quite modest. He had a lot better editor dead than alive, is my guess. But I got to touch his grave, feel for any dreaded sign of life, and whisper a fervid thanks.

Let me explain.

I began my academic career as an English major. My junior English teacher was hot, and at the bottom of my book report on "Catch-22" she scribbled "You should be a writer." If she had said "You should wear black socks with sneakers and shorts," I probably would have, but she was better than that. So I told Mr. D, my math teacher, the bad news, and off I went to become a writer. I thought that meant to major in English.

It was not an appropriate choice. My freshman English teacher was into "Transformational Grammar," a Noam Chomsky creation. Can you imagine studying grammar as seen by an English professor at MIT? (Besides being a radical, he's a sadist.) We diagrammed e.e. cummings. I found that I did not know how to speak or write, and could not diagram a sentence. If the prof hadn't been a pervert I would have understood nothing he said. It was a long semester.

But sophomore year I was able to get into literature. I had two classes- English Lit and Great Novels. I was, in Great Novels, the first week assigned a massive 1/20th of "Remembrance of Things Past". I don't know if you are familiar with it and hope you aren't, but he tastes a biscuit and goes on for TWENTY VOLUMES about it. Now, yes, it was the 60s, but I was young, and had not yet experienced that magic something that could prompt the same reaction from seeing an episode of "George of the Jungle"- the classic version, of course. The English Lit class assigned Virginia Woolf. To 19-year-old boys. In 1968. It turned out I was afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Stream of consciousness does not lend itself to serious study, I am convinced. The closest thing I can compare it to is carving jam. I had no idea what the significance was of what she was saying, and I was appalled that the professor complimented my perception, but recommended we read more closely. Blood flowed that weekend.

But it allowed me to be present at a remarkable event. At our next class we rebelled. It began with the professor mentioning that Woolf committed suicide, and we applauded. The professor defended her, and said, "You have to remember that she wasn't writing for the general public, but for a small group of her friends."

Jay stood up from his seat in front of me and announced "I am not- and do not want to be- one of her friends." He closed his notebook and walked out of class to change his major. I was one week later, and all my life I wish that had been me.

4 Comments

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So, you get your blog going, post an intro and get ignored. Don't let it get you down. It has happened to most at one time or another. Just keep writing about what you are thinking about.
Just because no one is rec'ing or commenting, doesn't mean it isn't being read.

Posted by stillidealistic
June 9, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink