justifying close readings in a socially constructed world

[deborah]

(I feel like I should split my professional blog into two, so the librarians don't need to read about the scholarship and the scholars don't need to read about the librarianship. If anyone who reads this is finding the alternating posts distracting, I'd be happy to take suggestions.)

I've been contemplating a post on why I think pure literary analysis of fan fiction is a worthwhile project, because there aren't many people who are looking at fan fiction as text per se. Most scholars looking at fan fiction (and developing some very rich and fascinating scholarship, by the way, which I have no intention of denigrating) are looking at it in its context and as a part of its context. Fan fiction within fandom, within the community of readers and writers, and fan fiction as an unauthorized reworking of professionally produced media. All of the scholarship is important and interesting, but my focus is on fan fiction texts as texts.

Before I talk about why I find this important, however, I realized that I might need to start with a post on why pure literary analysis is a worthwhile project, period. I think many people come out of their schooling with the vague idea that there is a canon of worthwhile literature, and that the worthwhile literature reveals great truths under a critical lens. Maybe the canon is the Western Canon of Dead White Males, or maybe it's the postcolonial canon, or the feminist revisionist canon, or the queer canon. But no matter what list of texts is used, there is still something unique about those texts that makes further examination of them fruitful and educational, or so the thought goes.

There are plenty of schools of literary theory that aren't about exploring texts in a vacuum. In those schools, non-canonical texts can reveal plenty about the cultures in which they are created and consumed. But I do explore texts in a vacuum. It's what I love doing. I'm fascinated by other scholarship about texts in context, but it is not my thing. (After a conversation with Kristina Busse, I realized this statement can be misconstrued. I do examine cultural constructs when I do literary analysis. I will look at the workings of food or gender or sexuality or labor as I read. If I were going to identify the schools of literary theory which provides my analytical lenses, I'd end up calling myself a reader response deconstructionist who is strongly influenced by gender theory, queer theory, and Marxist theory. You know, a dilettante of a postmodernist. But I look at those cultural constructs within the text, look at how they work to create meaning internally, and I don't tend to look at the production or consumption of the texts. Of course I understand that my analysis of the cultural constructs within the text comes from my external social and cultural context; I'm not a New Critic, and I don't believe in a Platonic interpretation that exists outside of socially constructed reality. But given my limitations as a theorist who lives in the world, I remain text-focused.)

So why do I do what I do? I could come up with some great critical and scholarly justifications for looking at non-canonical texts in this way. I could talk about how learning to be a close reader makes us better citizens of the world, better able to interpret the bombardment of information that exists in our world. But I'm not going to make those justifications. There's only one real reason my scholarship is what it is.

I love close reading. Love love love. Love like a much loved thing.

I love finding new tricks in a text, new ways to influence towards a specific interpretation. I love finding self-deconstructing moments in which the text works against its own project. I love the poetry of the subtle ways in which words create layers and layers of meaning, and I love peeling back those layers to see the artistry. I love that artistry both when it was probably created by authorial intent (I recently noticed the extremely subtle Odyssey parallel running through Julia Quinn's Romancing Mister Bridgerton), and I love it when it was almost certainly not created by authorial intent (the feminist and anarchist interpretations of Paradise Lost which are so powerful) -- and this is one of the core reasons why I find author intent irrelevant, because the text provides such a multitude of beautiful and rich interpretations regardless of the author's conscious or unconscious goals. (I remember in undergrad I almost couldn't write my paper on Woman Warrior because the textual artistry in that book overwhelmed me, and I felt like I was lessening to it by explaining it to people.)

I could say that I love what it teaches me about the text, about myself, about language, and that's all true. I do love the educational aspect, I do love what I learn about the world. But that's not why I do it. I do it because it's fun. I do it for joy. This is what I wrote in "Read All Over: Postmodern Resolution in Macaulay's Black and White." (Children's Literature Association Quarterly 28 (2003)) -- how a self deconstructing picture book can provide the reader with pleasure in the exercise.

I think it's time to come out of the closet about this. I don't do this to make the world a better place, even though that's something I'd like to do. I don't do this to support a queer, feminist, Marxist, or postcolonialist project, even though that, also, is something I would like to do. I do this for joy. I read closely for joy, and a study the close readings of others because that, too, brings me joy.

And I think that's enough of a reason, don't you?

Comments

[cavlec.livejournal.com]

Don't split the journal! Both is good!

[deborah]

that's good to hear, thanks. I never know what my readers are interested in seeing. I suppose I'm pretty good about cut tags, so people can always just skip. *g*

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Don't split the journal!

Given my current state and my ignorance of deconstructionism, I have to say that this is a soothing intellectual discussion but I'm not entirely sure I follow what you are talking about. I like unpacking texts myself...

Can you recommend a book on deconstructionism that won't make me want to throw it against the wall?

yes

[colorwheel.livejournal.com]

Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, by Lois Tyson. there's a chapter on deconstruction and chapters on other yummy schools as well. (structuralism, marxism, new criticism, psycholanalytic, readers response, etc.)

just as friendly as the title claims!

Re: yes

[cavlec.livejournal.com]

ICONLOVE.

Re: yes

[colorwheel.livejournal.com]

yays!

used with permission of the artist, craig swanson at perspicuity.com. (http://www.perspicuity.com/) (i think you'll like the cover he has up, too. *g*)

[deborah]

thank you! Good to know.

I don't know that book colorwheel suggested but I trust her; she's very good about understanding user friendlyness.

My issue with people who talk about deconstruction is the get the feeling that a lot of them think deconstruction will be endangered if it's not protected behind a wall of completely impenetrable jargon. Whereas I think it's incredibly useful tools for the world at large.

Here's my nutshell version of deconstruction: looking only at the text in front of you, figure out with the intention or the project of that text is (this is different from the author's intent, which is unknowable). Now look at the words, and look at all of the different ways in which the text undercuts or works against its intended project.

The important thing to remember and deconstruction is that the word is made up of both destruction and construction. Yes, you look closely at a text in order to take it apart -- but then you put it back together again and see something exciting and new.

My canonical example is always Paradise Lost. The intention of that text is to glorify God and condemn the Fall, but a close reading of the poem shows ways in which it glorifies the Fall and is strongly ambivalent about God. But in taking apart the text's intention, you replace it with something else, something different, something exciting. Of course, that something else *also* contains the seeds of its own deconstruction.

Clear as mud, right?

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

> I do this for joy. I read closely for joy, and a study the close readings of others because that, too, brings me joy.

That's why I do it, too. I have New Historicist tendencies (not exclusively, but it seems to be some of my best work), but the motivation is the same. I think I've never really understood literary critics who are motivated by anything else. (Er, that came out wrong. I think I mean, regardless of what other motivations they might have -- which may well be worthwhile -- if personal joy isn't one of them, it's hard for me to see the point.)

And while I certainly don't adore/admire every book I read, I don't like talking about why I hate something when I could instead be talking about why I love something. So many classes seemed to be full of haters, though.

[deborah]

no, I completely understand. Amy Stern and I recently wrote a paper comparing Rob Thomas' Veronica Mars with his novel Satellite Down. It wasn't until we started working on the paper that we realized that we have committed ourselves to closely reading a book we both hate, hate with a fiery burning passion like a big hatey thing. Yes, of course, it was still pleasurable to find all the elements of the text that supported our arguments, but overall, there was a lot less joy in the experience that I am usually seeking. As you say, we could be spending that same energy finding something exciting in books we love.

[kbusse.livejournal.com]

I've always thought Hesse's Glasperlenspiel to be a quite appropriate metaphor for what we do in academia.

Otoh, I *am* quite invested in discourses of ethics. Even--or maybe particularly--in arenas where you don't expect it, like deconstruction...

[deborah]

I haven't read it, but a quick Google of the game description makes me think that you have a very good point. And now I've added something else to my to be read list, dammit. *g*

Like I said, I am fascinated by discussions of ethics. I like watching them, and reading them, and following them, and even participating in them in my role as an intelligent and ethical layperson. But as a literary critic it's not why I'm reading or writing -- that is to say, my interest is as an educated layperson, not as a scholar.

Also, I adore your icon.

completely off topic

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

but i thought of you as i read this on the train this morning:

It is very hard, being a reader in Invisible Writings.*

*The study of Invisible Writings was a new discipline made available by the discovery of the bi-directional nature of Library-Space. The thaumic mathematics are complex, but boil down to the fact that all books, everywhere, affect all other books. This is obvious: books inspire other books written in the future, and cite books written in the past. But the General Theory of L-Space suggest that, in that case, the contents of books as yet unwritten can be deduced from books now in existence.

-Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies