The small world of literature

Derek Walcott, poet

I imagine that one day I will feel as though the world of literature can be mapped onto a single globe, with points that are recognizable, and relatable to one another. I'll feel as though I am able to at least conceive of the whole thing at once and gauge, roughly, the distances between eras, writers, movements, styles etc. 

At present, the world of literature feels like a 1,000 piece 3D puzzle whose pieces are flying around, and sometimes come close enough to brush against a piece that might be a match, but there is certainly no indication of what the constructed puzzle depicts, or even what the smaller, more manageable images within it are. 

Therefore, it is still thrilling when I see connections between things I'm reading. Today I finished Wide Sargasso Sea (by Jean Rhys), as Berthe woke from a dream, stole the keys from Ms Poole, and stole down the passage to the main house where she would set Jane Eyre's bed on fire. 

Then, I read that Derek Walcott, a poet who has recently died, wrote a poem about Jean Rhys, called... "Jean Rhys". I read about this in part of this postscript written by Hilton Als of the New Yorker. 

My goodness, parts of this article make me want to read a biography of Als! He, for one, seems to know exactly what the puzzle portrays, and has his opinions about whether or not each piece is really in its proper place. He's ready to call Ravensburger and make suggestions on the layout of the puzzle. His reviews of the theater in the New Yorker are so rich, so steeped, so multi-faceted and all encompassing... one hopes to accumulate even a tenth of what Als has gleaned from decades of life in what sound like they must be very engaging and exciting circles. 

I went to E's house for the evening, and got a new book recommendation, which swallowed the next two hours until I dragged myself home just now: Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I've actually never read Adichie before, and this introduction, to a young girl narrator existing under the stifling patriarchy of a catholic father in Lagos, Nigeria, is engrossing. 

Crazy Women

Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of Mr. Rochester's first wife, Bertha Antoinette, who is the impediment to his and Jane's marriage. Hers is the second story about a crazy woman I'm reading this weekend. The first was actually heard, on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast - a story by John Cheever called the Five Forty-Eight. 

I'm really enjoying the Jean Rhys, which is narrated alternately by Rochester and Antoinette. Here is the excerpt in which Rochester gets a letter which reveals the nature of his wife's family.

"I was later than usual that morning but when I was dressed I sat for a long time listening to the waterfall, eyes half closed, drowsy and content. When I put my hand in my pocket for my watch, I touched the envelope and opened it.

Dear Sir. I take up my pen after long thought and meditation but in the end the truth is better than a lie. I have this to say. You have been shamefully deceived by the Mason family They tell you perhaps that your wife’s name is Cosway the English gentleman Mr Mason being her stepfather only, but they don’t tell you what sort of people were these Cosways. Wicked and detestable slaveowners since generations - yes everybody hate them in Jamaica and also in this beautiful island where I hope your stay will be long and pleasant in spite of all, for some not worth sorrow. Wickedness is not the worst. There is madness in that family Old Cosway die raving like his father before him."

Both this and the Cheever story are told by solemn, passive, apparently cold, though somehow vulnerable male characters, who find themselves at the mercy of the crazy women in their lives.

I have to say, I think it makes a lot of sense that many women should be driven crazy by their lot in life.

An understanding of God

Back campus at Earlham

Today's Sunday School question (well, one of many): What informs your understanding of God?

We were talking about how in the Bible certain verses indicate that God is the source of evil, disasters, and suffering as well as good and glorious things. 

One of the things I've always appreciated about Quakerism is that personal experience is the basis of an understanding of God, not a creed learnt and recited. My understanding of God is informed by the ways in which I feel God moving in my daily life, and the trends which I feel I can attribute to God that happen over the much longer haul. God challenges me, forms me, puts me in certain circumstances, guides me, all of it. This I know because I experience it, not because it was ever told to me. 

And it wasn't. At Durham Friends Meeting we spoke of God very rarely, and no one ever tried to get me to see God in a certain way, except perhaps as a loving guide.

Lately I've been looking at more theological writing than I ever have, which has also affected my understanding of God. Or, rather, it has affected the way I think of people who know God. I feel like I'm seeing what they have seen - a world view based on God which is unknown in its detail to me, even if my world view has also been based on God. 

Anyway, these are the things I would say influence my understanding of God: my experience of God, and the reading of God that I do, and, more important than the reading in fact, are the conversations I have with Friends about God. I have so much to learn from people who have spent a great deal of time thinking about these things. 

Tonight it occurs to me that another thing has informed my view of God. Music. I don't know how directly the connection can be made, but it must be there. 

Last night I went to the Richmond Symphony, and the second half of the show featured Dvorak's Cello Concerto, which had me on the edge of my seat (literally) from about three minutes in. I came home, electrified, and immediately looked it up on youtube. I sat at my table, still dressed for the 32 degree evening, and watched the entire concerto again. 

Free will, and human agency came up during the Sunday School discussion today. Composers were given freedom to create incredible works like this one, and for that I am grateful. 

Other interesting notes this weekend: 

Earlham's back campus, with last (I hope!) remnants of snow.

A story of the extraordinary and quotidien (simultaneously) nature of the immigrant experience in the US on the New Yorker Fiction podcast.

A story of those blindsided by Trump's executive order to ban Muslims from seven countries in January on This American Life.


A poem called "We Refugees" by British poet Benjamin Zephaniah, which grade 9 looked at on Friday.

The stuffed shells recipe that the Young Adult Friends made for the Meeting's meal trains on Friday.

Zombies, and exegesis and eisegesis

This past Sunday I tried to determine if I should participate in the adult Sunday school class, which was talking about Biblical interpretation, or if I should seclude myself in order to do work associated with my job as Director of Religious Education.

My most recent post revealed that I chose Sunday School, and that I benefited from Jim's discussion of how the Bible's conflation of God and King aided colonization efforts in Africa.

Another thing I gained was an understanding, at long length, of the terms exegesis and eisegesis. I have heard these terms often, even looked them up, and never known, really, what on earth they were saying.

This week Keith described exegesis as looking at the text for what it is, and analysing it based on its context: who, when, why" kinds of questions. This analysis is objective and critical.

The other term is eisegesis, and refers to what we do when we read our own context and experience into a text. When you listen to a song, are you applying the relationship in your life to the one described in the song? When you read the Bible, are you appalled by the treatment of women, because such treatment is odious in your culture or system or morals? That's the result of eisegesis, or a subjective reading of a text.

Today I asked the 9th graders to respond to these images:

Graffiti under the bridge in Richmond

An embellishment on the railing of the gorge trail

Cave paintings from 30,000 BCE

Petroglyphs from 10,000 BCE

They provided a litany of comments to each other, which I eavesdropped on as I walked around the classroom. I then summarized what I heard to the class, and it occured to me that they had engaged in both these kinds of analysis. It was not part of my lesson plan, but I put both words up on the board, and asked Ms. Rayburn to look up the spelling in case I was wrong (I was). I said what I thought they meant, and how the class had been engaging in both. I didn't tell them that I hadn't learned these terms myself until that weekend....

I think it made them feel important! We continued to refer to those terms during the rest of our discussion of the graffiti and cave paintings we looked at.

What has been interesting this afternoon is that I've looked at a few videos that talk about exegesis and eisegesis. They are all about Biblical interpretation, and they all warn against eisegesis, the subjective reading. I find that curious.

First of all, I think it's hard to distinguish between these two kinds of analysis. Can we really be objective? I don't think so.

Second of all, eisegesis is, to me, the more relevant of the two kinds of analysis, because a text's meaning is created from what you bring to it. A text is dead until a reader injects meaning into it.

We will encourage eisegesis in our classroom. I'll talk to the classes tomorrow about my findings.

In other news, we were in the library with the tenth grade today, taking standardized testing. After the test was done, the students were asked to sit quietly in the library while the others finished in the library computer lab. I was watching. It was interesting to see which students remained sitting and stayed in their chairs with their phones, and which went over to the book shelves to explore titles. The students with the highest averages in the class went over to the books. Those who struggle with reading and writing stayed with their phones.

One boy came over and explained to his friend, who was talking to me, that a new book in a zombie series had come out. It held up the book, and was so excited. It's just the kind of book that I would be sorry to see students holding up, were I not reading Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer. She says, let them read whatever they want - any reading is so much better than no reading, that there is no room for judgment.

Now, I agree. This student, who is often less than engaged in class, was speaking with uncharacteristic excitement about this series, which is a horror series. Of course our class would be boring to him, if that is what he wants to read about.

More on this book later - after I finish it. It was my goal to finish before the end of February, so I need to read the last chapter before I go to bed. I've already promised this copy to three other English teachers before it's due back to Inter-Library Loan at Earlham.

Bible as literature, and independent reading programs

Today after Meeting, Sunday school addressed Bible interpretation. We watched a short ESR video about how the Bible should come with a warning label: Use with caution.

I didn't really listen to the video, I was writing down service project ideas for the youth (including the construction of bar tables for fellowship hour. It's awkward to have a good conversation with someone trying to hold a cup of coffee, and a paper plate full of food, which you can't eat, because your other hand is holding coffee.)

During our small group discussion, Jim brought up a point about Biblical interpretation I appreciated. He said that the way we use language influences the way we think of people. So when we say that God is "He," we start to think of men as being higher and more godly. When we refer to God as "King," we start to see kings as higher and more godly.

During colonization of Africa, Jim pointed out, this conflation between God and King served European monarchs very well, as the missionaries taught the colonized people their religion, and the connection between the King who is God and the King who is in France or Britain, was established.

The monarchs made it their goal to turn the tribal leaders into petty despots, whereas before the imposition of colonial rule the tribal chiefs had functioned more as Quaker clerks, discerning the will of the group based on a deep and spiritual awareness of the needs and desires of those making up the governed body. Insert foreign King and outside monetary incentives, and those capable leaders are rendered petty despots.

The Bible implies that Kings are Godly, in the English translation.

Just now I said, "The next time students read". I might have said "The next time I teach Things Fall Apart," but based on the book I'm reading right now, about how to encourage students to be life-long learners, I might never teach that great novel again, or any other great novel for that matter.

I have written already about my current reading of The Book Whisperer, but today I'm more excited about it than I have ever been. The chapter I just read discussed the problems of the whole-class novel. I am well aware of these, but I have never really given credence to my hesitations because reading novels together as a class just seems like the obvious thing to do - everyone does it in high school English classes.

Everyone, that is except Donalyn Miller and the other teachers she's won to her side.

When reading all-class novels, the good readers resent the slow pace. The slow readers resent the difficulty and the need to read aloud in front of their peers. Making sure that everyone is on the same page in terms of comprehension is a time consuming process. Reading during class takes up a lot of time. Assigning reading to do at home is problematic because there will always be students who don't read at home, and thus are behind in class. These will likely be the students who need the most help anyway.

Thus far I have resisted Miller's arguments against reading literature together as a class because I think there is so much good that comes from discussing the issues raised in a text as a class - the kinds of themes and ideas that students are not able to pull out of literature on their own, but are definitely capable of seeing once it's pointed out, and enjoy discussing.

Miller addressed this concern with one small sentence, which had not fully occured to me. Used short stories and poetry, images and film to explore themes and topics together, then ask students how they connect with the independent reading books they are reading. If students can transfer the skills learned in a discussion about a short story to the books they are reading on their own, that's all the proof you need of comprehension.

I am already imagining my tenth graders, and how relieved many of the able readers would be if we could just stop reading things together and get down to reading what they wanted to read. How much would their vocabularies and background knowledge on various things increase?

Also, I am thrilled at the idea of getting to focus on short stories, poetry and nonfiction together, and even film! Ah! I can't wait to have my own classroom.

Signs from God that help in making decisions

These are the kinds of signs I dream of, the ones that help in making decisions. Lately I've been tempted to walk up to Eden Grace's house, and rap on the door and say, "OK, time to tell me where I'm headed next." It was she who, in 2014, introduced me to Joyce Ajlouni, my first contact at the Ramallah Friends School. It was she who, in February 2016, came to Palestine and told me about Earlham's MAT program. So where to now, Eden?

I've been asking God too, and I struggle all the time with the idea that God reveals things on his timing. I want to know where I'm going to be next year, right now.

Today I got a beautiful metaphorical reminder that God's timing isn't designed to frustrate me, it's designed to make sure I don't jump the gun with my own actions, or stay too long in one situation which is not the right one.

It was a long few days in the 9th and 10th grade classrooms. I finished on Friday afternoon having worked frantically through lunch with several students who were a) irate that their grades for their final Macbeth essays were so low and wanted to edit and resubmit and b) trying to download video portions of their presentations for the afternoon classes. Just before fifth period I scarfed my lentil soup, cold, while standing in front of the computer.

After school I organized all the presentation rubrics from the afternoon's classes, and let the feeling of Friday wash over me. It was not a particularly calming feeling this week, given that we're starting two new units next week, both of which I have yet to plan. I felt agitated. It was 65 degrees and I wanted to go running, but the western sky was ominous and the hourly forecast promised scattered thunder storms.

I decided to go out anyway. It was already raining when I jumped off the porch, but it wasn't raining hard. After a few minutes when my body warmed up, it was perfect to have the light rain as a perpetual shower. There were very few cars on the road, and no runners on the footpath.

It was getting dark fast, not just because it was 5:45, but because the clouds were now really moving in. I contemplated whether to shorten the route. It was such a pleasant run. I thought I probably should, since as I approached the fork that would take me home early, lightning brightened the sky three times.

Just as I approached the foot of the stairs and was about the forego them and keep going, a fork of lightning jabbed the sky and thunder sounded shortly afterward. I said aloud, "OK!" and went up the stairs to the shortcut home.

The rest of the way home was fairly peaceful, but not 30 seconds after I got onto the porch, the lightning became at least four times as frequent, and the rain began falling in torrents.

That lightning was God, telling me right at the moment of necessary action, "Turn here". I didn't get a warning before then, because I was still enjoying the run, and it was still OK to be running. When God was ready for me to redirect my energy, for my own best interest, he let me know with a gesture I couldn't ignore.

That's the way it's going to be with where I end up teaching next year. I really don't need to know right now where I'm going to be. I'm still enjoying the "run" where I am now. And this is still the right place for me. God will let me know when to take a sharp turn up the stairs when it's time for me to actually jump.

A poem that is saving arachnid lives

I have two spiders living in my apartment, entirely because of a poem I read at Meeting (it was printed on the cover of the bulletin) last week: 

Allowables
- Nikki Giovanni

I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Not even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn't
And she scared me
And I smashed her

I don't think
I'm allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened