I'm having a hard time forcing myself to read Callirhoe. I hate it; and I also hated An Ephesian Tale. I know there is arguably little difference between these two dreadful pieces of literature and that of Daphnis and Chloe, but I cannot, will not, sit here and blog a lie. I can't pretend to like this stuff; I would not read it if it weren't required material, and I don't read modern day romances either. I love fiction, which can be grouped in that larger, catch-all genre of romance, but not these awful, formulaic love stories. I can't stand those terrible episodic murder mysteries my mom reads either. At least she doesn't read romance novels, though. Nothing irks me more than when people, usually men--no offense meant guys, I know the men to which I'm referring to here are not a fair representation of your esteemed gender--assume that my love of literature is based solely upon the reading of Harlequin romances. "No," I usually sneer at them, "I prefer to read good literature."
Hold up. Since when have I turned into to such an elitist, literary snob? I hate snobbery just about as much as I hate romance novels and the two afore mentioned class readings. I just want a little bit of substance in my reading life. Is that so unreasonable? Perhaps. I totally appreciate and recognize the indelible and ancient patterns of storytelling, and I delight in seeing them artfully retold time and again; but the flimsy archetypes and predictable contrivances of "low-brow" literature just don't cut it for me. I read because I want to know...something. But what that something is, I'm not exactly sure. I love literature because it has its tentacles in almost every other aspect of life and culture. I love literature for being a mirror to hold up to my own selves, and I love it for being a lens which I can use to peer into the selves of others, real or imagined. You see, I've never read to escape; I read because I'm a voyeur, because I want to make those connections and I want to find that something, whatever it may be. And I feel there is nothing left for me to find in these stories composed of such immense breadth and platitude. I have come to desire stories of depth, created by layers of murky descent. I don't want to be told who is good and who is bad, I want to seek that truth out for myself.
And so, I shall conclude my rant with a Frye quote: "Great literature is what the eye can see: it is the genuine infinite as opposed to the phony infinite, the endless adventures and endless sexual stimulation of the wandering of desire. But I have a notion that if the wandering of desire did not exist, great literature would not exist either" (30). He's right of course, and not just because he's Frye, but because without the lower rungs we would not be able to climb to higher literary realms. Oddly enough, I believe that these higher realms are actually located in the depths of the Ocean, rather than the shallows. Counter intuitive, I know, but it makes perfect sense if we consider the fluidity of time-space outside of the earthly plane, which is where the Ocean also resides. As writers and storytellers we are merely conduits of a power far greater than ourselves. The "low-brow" is no less important than the "high-brow," but I have decided to discard my worn out slippers and tread into the web cast by the Sirens' call, echoing from within those murky, unfathomable depths.
No comments:
Post a Comment