WEBVTT 00:01.980 --> 00:03.670 Professor Amy Hungerford: This is 00:03.670 --> 00:04.850 "American Novel Since 1945." 00:04.850 --> 00:07.150 Welcome. I am Amy Hungerford. 00:07.150 --> 00:09.940 Today I am going to do a couple of things. 00:09.940 --> 00:13.300 In the first half of class, I'm going to tell you a little 00:13.303 --> 00:16.493 bit about the class and introduce some of the questions 00:16.489 --> 00:19.849 that we will think about over the term if you stay in this 00:19.852 --> 00:22.862 course. In the second half of class, 00:22.862 --> 00:27.592 I will introduce to you and start telling the first story of 00:27.588 --> 00:29.688 the term, and that's about Richard 00:29.693 --> 00:32.513 Wright's Black Boy, which is our first reading 00:32.505 --> 00:35.595 of the term. In between those two parts, 00:35.600 --> 00:40.630 I will ask that anyone who is shopping the class and would 00:40.625 --> 00:44.235 like to leave at that time do so then. 00:44.240 --> 00:47.710 I would be grateful if you would wait until that point if 00:47.709 --> 00:49.319 at all you possibly can. 00:49.320 --> 00:52.210 It just makes the whole thing work a little easier and it 00:52.209 --> 00:55.359 prevents that drop in the pit of my stomach when I see half of 00:55.357 --> 00:59.117 the class leave. So I will indicate when that 00:59.118 --> 01:01.858 moment is. Come on. 01:01.864 --> 01:12.544 Make yourself comfortable on the floor if you can. 01:12.540 --> 01:18.000 My goal in this course is to allow you or to invite you to 01:18.001 --> 01:23.191 read some of the most compelling novels written in the last 01:23.194 --> 01:25.974 little over a half century. 01:25.970 --> 01:30.810 This includes a whole range of thematic concerns. 01:30.810 --> 01:34.050 So when I look down at my list of novels--which I have not 01:34.045 --> 01:37.105 brought with me (I trust you can find it on the web; 01:37.110 --> 01:41.730 I didn't want to kill trees by making enough of these for all 01:41.725 --> 01:46.495 of you)--when I look down at my list of books and I think about 01:46.495 --> 01:50.265 what these books are about, I see war. 01:50.269 --> 01:54.569 I see war, all the way from the Trojan War, to the 01:54.565 --> 01:59.385 Mexican-American War in the 1840s, all the way up to the 01:59.387 --> 02:04.207 Vietnam War. I see love, in all kinds of 02:04.210 --> 02:12.320 guises: be they criminal as in Lolita, pedophiliac love; 02:12.319 --> 02:19.609 be they sort of ideational romantic, John Barth; 02:19.610 --> 02:23.510 be they campus love, that's The Human Stain, 02:23.512 --> 02:27.752 Philip Roth; all kinds and forms of sex and 02:27.746 --> 02:33.066 love, and then there is politics interweaving with all those 02:33.067 --> 02:37.367 things. There are questions of identity 02:37.372 --> 02:40.622 and race. There is a nervous breakdown 02:40.621 --> 02:45.231 that actually happens right here in New Haven in one of these 02:45.231 --> 02:47.931 novels. That's in Franny and 02:47.927 --> 02:51.257 Zooey. I see women who give up on 02:51.264 --> 02:55.854 housekeeping altogether and let their house go to ruin and 02:55.851 --> 02:58.491 become vagrants. I see suicide. 02:58.490 --> 03:02.730 I see slavery. All these things you can read 03:02.726 --> 03:06.626 about in these novels, but reading these novels is not 03:06.629 --> 03:09.649 just about reading about those things. 03:09.650 --> 03:14.720 It's also going to be the process of watching an artistic 03:14.716 --> 03:19.236 form unfold over a very exciting period of time. 03:19.240 --> 03:22.810 In the second half of the twentieth century and up now 03:22.812 --> 03:27.392 into the twenty-first century, writers were thinking very hard 03:27.392 --> 03:32.002 about what to do stylistically with all the innovations that 03:32.004 --> 03:35.994 come in that powerful period known as modernism. 03:35.990 --> 03:39.420 So one of the things we're going to think about together in 03:39.418 --> 03:42.608 the course is what happens to all those innovations. 03:42.610 --> 03:45.650 Are they abandoned? 03:45.650 --> 03:46.480 Are they embellished? 03:46.480 --> 03:47.750 Are they stretched? 03:47.750 --> 03:49.440 Are they rejected? 03:49.440 --> 03:54.560 What happens to those resources that the great modernist writers 03:54.561 --> 03:58.541 endowed language with so powerfully earlier in the 03:58.544 --> 04:01.774 century? So there are formal questions 04:01.774 --> 04:04.654 that we will take up time and again. 04:04.650 --> 04:08.290 There are questions that intersect between the form and 04:08.288 --> 04:11.588 the content in every single novel that we read. 04:11.590 --> 04:14.490 Now perhaps those of you who like to read fiction, 04:14.493 --> 04:17.993 and especially who like to read fiction from this period, 04:17.990 --> 04:22.050 will look down at that syllabus and you'll say, 04:22.052 --> 04:23.732 "Well, where is?" 04:23.730 --> 04:24.890 "Where is Don DeLillo?" 04:24.890 --> 04:28.210 "Where is John Updike?" 04:28.209 --> 04:32.509 My answer for the question--"Why these writers?"-- 04:32.508 --> 04:36.278 my answer for the question is the course. 04:36.279 --> 04:40.579 It's an answer that unfolds over these fourteen weeks of the 04:40.579 --> 04:41.959 term. Thirteen? 04:41.960 --> 04:46.510 Thirteen. The short answer is that I 04:46.513 --> 04:50.703 think these writers best represent all the different 04:50.697 --> 04:55.127 threads, all the different forces in the American Novel 04:55.127 --> 04:58.357 Since 1945. There are lots of other writers 04:58.359 --> 05:01.019 we could include, including those two that I 05:01.022 --> 05:03.472 named, that would equally illustrate 05:03.471 --> 05:07.061 some of the threads that I've got on the syllabus now, 05:07.060 --> 05:11.170 but these are the ones for various practical and more 05:11.169 --> 05:14.409 substantive reasons that I have chosen. 05:14.410 --> 05:17.480 Now you do have an opportunity--this class 05:17.475 --> 05:20.685 does--that my class has never had before, 05:20.689 --> 05:26.129 and that is to nominate your own novel for the last one that 05:26.132 --> 05:28.902 we read, one of your choice. 05:28.899 --> 05:32.109 Now I have done this in a sophomore seminar, 05:32.108 --> 05:34.868 and I did it in a graduate seminar. 05:34.870 --> 05:39.390 I invited my students to present some choices to the 05:39.394 --> 05:43.124 class, and then the class voted on them. 05:43.120 --> 05:44.960 It was incredibly successful. 05:44.959 --> 05:48.499 In the undergraduate course--it was a small seminar--I had 05:48.497 --> 05:52.347 groups of students proposing two novels actually for the end of 05:52.345 --> 05:56.005 the syllabus, and the exercise gets you to 05:56.012 --> 06:01.892 think very hard about what you think this period is all about. 06:01.889 --> 06:06.959 It's not just about what's fun to read, although it is that 06:06.955 --> 06:09.965 too. It's about thinking what would 06:09.971 --> 06:14.541 make the right ending to this intellectual trajectory, 06:14.540 --> 06:18.590 this intellectual narrative that we're going to move through 06:18.585 --> 06:21.735 this term: what would make the right ending. 06:21.740 --> 06:25.330 So it has a sort of intellectual purpose to it. 06:25.329 --> 06:28.049 But I will tell you, the students I had in that 06:28.050 --> 06:31.540 seminar did amazing things to push their choice of novel. 06:31.540 --> 06:36.720 One group nominated Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. 06:36.720 --> 06:40.550 There was a huge art installation that I walked into 06:40.548 --> 06:42.148 on that day of class. 06:42.149 --> 06:45.339 It covered the ceiling and the walls and the floors. 06:45.339 --> 06:47.569 They had done original photography for it. 06:47.570 --> 06:49.480 It was really spectacular. 06:49.480 --> 06:53.660 There was a theatrical skit for Dave Eggers' How We Are 06:53.660 --> 06:56.120 Hungry. There was campaign 06:56.115 --> 06:58.805 literature, pamphlets and so on. 06:58.810 --> 07:02.630 So people were very creative with it, and it was really lots 07:02.627 --> 07:05.787 of fun. And for me it's fun because I 07:05.786 --> 07:10.046 may not know the novel that you end up picking, 07:10.050 --> 07:13.860 and so it is a kind of challenge for me to take a novel 07:13.860 --> 07:17.670 that you've chosen and come to grips with it myself. 07:17.670 --> 07:19.430 It may be one that I know. 07:19.430 --> 07:23.210 Now let me just say in a technical way: 07:23.206 --> 07:27.776 if you decide to volunteer to nominate a novel, 07:27.778 --> 07:30.858 you'll get no extra credit. 07:30.860 --> 07:33.000 It'll do nothing for your grade. 07:33.000 --> 07:35.930 But you will get glory, whatever glory there is to be 07:35.934 --> 07:37.744 had at the front of this room. 07:37.740 --> 07:41.150 Maybe that's miniscule, but maybe it's going to be fun 07:41.149 --> 07:45.009 for you, especially if you have a sort of theatrical bent, 07:45.009 --> 07:47.409 or if you like getting up in front of people, 07:47.405 --> 07:50.445 or if you're just really, really passionate about a novel 07:50.454 --> 07:52.364 that you want everyone to read. 07:52.360 --> 07:55.700 So that's something that we will do, and I will tell you 07:55.699 --> 07:57.459 more about at mid semester. 07:57.459 --> 07:59.639 So that's the piece of the syllabus that I can't tell you 07:59.638 --> 08:01.848 about. I don't know what that dream 08:01.848 --> 08:05.778 we're going to dream together is when we read that novel. 08:05.780 --> 08:09.250 I don't know what that'll be. 08:09.250 --> 08:12.420 I want to just go over the requirements of the course that 08:12.424 --> 08:15.274 really are required, not the optional piece, 08:15.271 --> 08:18.601 just so that you understand what my purpose is 08:18.601 --> 08:22.151 pedagogically. This course is very much open 08:22.148 --> 08:25.698 to English majors and to non English majors. 08:25.699 --> 08:27.989 It's essentially a reading course. 08:27.990 --> 08:30.520 That's what I want you to take away from this: 08:30.520 --> 08:32.320 the knowledge of these novels. 08:32.320 --> 08:33.980 I want you to read them. 08:33.980 --> 08:35.690 I want you to think about them. 08:35.690 --> 08:38.870 I want you to talk about them. 08:38.870 --> 08:42.130 But I don't expect you to become an English major in order 08:42.129 --> 08:44.359 to do that if you're not already one. 08:44.360 --> 08:48.770 However, if you do happen to be an English or a literature major 08:48.765 --> 08:52.605 or someone who's just very serious about reading at that 08:52.610 --> 08:56.060 level, you will find plenty to chew on 08:56.058 --> 08:59.078 here. Not all of the novels aspire to 08:59.075 --> 09:03.235 or have as their purpose that kind of difficulty that 09:03.243 --> 09:06.453 sometimes English majors really want. 09:06.450 --> 09:10.210 They want to have to work incredibly hard at the formal 09:10.212 --> 09:13.312 level. Some of the novels have that, 09:13.310 --> 09:15.150 but not all of them. 09:15.149 --> 09:18.189 The challenge for you is to figure out: well, 09:18.190 --> 09:20.540 what do we do with those novels? 09:20.539 --> 09:25.039 What is the aim of a novel that isn't all about formal 09:25.044 --> 09:27.454 innovation? What are those novels doing? 09:27.450 --> 09:32.420 Is it just inappropriate to call them literature? 09:32.419 --> 09:34.789 Should we think about them in a different way? 09:34.789 --> 09:39.249 How should we integrate that kind of novel with novels that 09:39.250 --> 09:41.480 have more formal ambitions? 09:41.480 --> 09:44.990 So the paper length-- there are two papers required, 09:44.989 --> 09:48.819 and there is a final exam--the paper length is designed to be 09:48.818 --> 09:52.178 quite large. It's two five-to-eight-page 09:52.177 --> 09:54.467 papers. Now a five-page paper is very 09:54.468 --> 09:57.328 different from an eight-page paper if you're actually 09:57.333 --> 10:00.643 thinking about the words you choose and how you write it. 10:00.639 --> 10:03.019 If you just sort of the night before scribble, 10:03.023 --> 10:05.093 scribble, scribble until you're done, 10:05.090 --> 10:08.030 maybe there's not that much difference between a five- and 10:08.030 --> 10:09.940 an eight-page paper except editing. 10:09.940 --> 10:14.600 But substantively, if you're using every sentence 10:14.595 --> 10:18.855 in that paper, you can write a lot more in an 10:18.863 --> 10:22.503 eight-page paper, if you've used every sentence 10:22.503 --> 10:25.603 to say something substantive to move an argument along, 10:25.600 --> 10:27.560 than you can in the five-page. 10:27.559 --> 10:32.689 That's for those people who really want to push themselves 10:32.694 --> 10:37.834 and want to advance a really significant piece of thinking 10:37.828 --> 10:41.358 about a novel. Now I will also say that a 10:41.360 --> 10:45.550 five-page paper written well can trump an eight-page paper 10:45.548 --> 10:48.338 written poorly any day of the week. 10:48.340 --> 10:52.220 So you don't have to write long papers, but what I'm saying is: 10:52.215 --> 10:55.775 the room is there for you to stretch out if you want to do 10:55.777 --> 10:58.137 that. The final exam: 10:58.136 --> 11:03.616 you should do well if you read, and if you come to lecture, 11:03.618 --> 11:06.358 and if you attend section. 11:06.360 --> 11:09.390 The process of doing those three things will have allowed 11:09.394 --> 11:12.704 you to already have thought quite a bit about these novels. 11:12.700 --> 11:13.750 You should remember them. 11:13.750 --> 11:15.090 I think they are quite memorable. 11:15.090 --> 11:19.290 They are quite distinct from each other, and you should be 11:19.288 --> 11:23.928 able to manage with that final exam without undue difficulty. 11:23.929 --> 11:26.529 I will say that the reading load is heavy. 11:26.529 --> 11:28.109 I have made some adjustments every year. 11:28.110 --> 11:32.550 I'm trying to deal with the fact that there are so many 11:32.549 --> 11:37.479 novels I love written between, say, 1985 and the present that 11:37.483 --> 11:39.953 are over 400 pages apiece. 11:39.950 --> 11:41.540 So what do you do with those on a syllabus? 11:41.539 --> 11:44.429 Well, I guess it's the problem that people who teach the 11:44.430 --> 11:46.480 eighteenth-century novel always have, 11:46.480 --> 11:48.530 or the Victorian novel: the Victorian novel like the 11:48.525 --> 11:50.125 triple-decker, the three-volume novel. 11:50.130 --> 11:52.720 At least I don't have those. 11:52.720 --> 11:55.710 But what I've done is to excerpt some of the texts 11:55.710 --> 11:58.820 earlier in the term--and actually there's a slightly 11:58.823 --> 12:02.423 heavier reading before break than there used to be-- so that 12:02.424 --> 12:05.114 it's a little bit lighter after break, 12:05.110 --> 12:06.730 when we're doing those long novels. 12:06.730 --> 12:10.360 Okay. Last thing: This course, 12:10.362 --> 12:15.872 as you may have noticed from our friends behind us, 12:15.865 --> 12:22.905 is being filmed as part of the Yale Open Courses Initiative. 12:22.909 --> 12:26.029 It is an initiative funded by the William and Flora Hewlett 12:26.030 --> 12:28.750 Foundation. This is one of eight courses 12:28.746 --> 12:32.416 being offered this year that are being videotaped. 12:32.419 --> 12:36.369 They will be made available free to the public via the 12:36.367 --> 12:40.687 internet, so this is a way of allowing the world to benefit 12:40.686 --> 12:43.066 from what we all do at Yale. 12:43.070 --> 12:47.070 That said, what we try to do--what I will try to do, 12:47.073 --> 12:51.943 and what I hope you will try to do--is to forget about them. 12:51.940 --> 12:55.680 It's sometimes hard for me, but I trust that you will be 12:55.684 --> 12:58.944 able to do that. So forget about that. 12:58.940 --> 13:03.420 The point is not to cater to that camera, but to do what we 13:03.418 --> 13:07.278 do, and to show the world what it is that we do. 13:07.279 --> 13:10.669 Now I like to ask questions in lecture. 13:10.669 --> 13:15.159 I really am just not a fan of the sort of zone-out model of 13:15.159 --> 13:16.629 lecture audition. 13:16.630 --> 13:19.250 So I will ask you questions. 13:19.250 --> 13:23.520 The only annoying thing I will have to do is to repeat your 13:23.523 --> 13:25.883 answers. So I hope you will not object 13:25.878 --> 13:28.778 to that, because you don't have microphones on you, 13:28.779 --> 13:32.379 and it's very cumbersome to get them back to you, 13:32.382 --> 13:36.662 so we're not going to mike you so that your answers can be 13:36.659 --> 13:38.459 heard. All right. 13:38.460 --> 13:42.810 Any questions so far about what I've said? 13:42.810 --> 13:45.960 Okay. Now I want to talk about 13:45.960 --> 13:49.480 the handout. Those of you who don't have it: 13:49.484 --> 13:53.004 there are a couple more up front here. 13:53.000 --> 13:58.180 13:58.179 --> 14:00.459 There should be the rest of a stack over here. 14:00.460 --> 14:03.140 Oh, no. These are my notes. 14:03.140 --> 14:05.710 Are we out? Yeah, there are a couple more, 14:05.712 --> 14:07.372 and if you don't have one you can share. 14:07.370 --> 14:24.280 14:24.279 --> 14:30.649 What I have here for us to look at together today are two little 14:30.650 --> 14:33.710 texts. I'm going to read parts of them 14:33.712 --> 14:37.562 to you, and together I think they give you the sort of 14:37.564 --> 14:41.784 snapshot I want you to have of where literature stands, 14:41.779 --> 14:46.719 where reading stands, at the middle of the twentieth 14:46.721 --> 14:48.931 century. The first one is an 14:48.932 --> 14:52.722 advertisement for the Random House edition of James Joyce's 14:52.723 --> 14:56.183 Ulysses, and this appeared in 14:56.179 --> 15:00.249 The Saturday Review of Literature in 1934. 15:00.250 --> 15:03.520 So I'm going to read just parts, and I'm going to skip 15:03.519 --> 15:06.109 around a little bit and stop and start: 15:06.110 --> 15:09.510 How to enjoy James Joyce's great novel, 15:09.505 --> 15:13.895 Ulysses. For those who are already engrossed 15:13.904 --> 15:16.764 in the reading of Ulysses, 15:16.759 --> 15:20.799 as well as for those who hesitate to begin it because 15:20.795 --> 15:24.745 they fear that it is obscure, the publishers offer this 15:24.751 --> 15:28.871 simple clue as to what the critical fuss is all about. 15:28.870 --> 15:33.250 Ulysses is no harder to understand than any other great 15:33.251 --> 15:36.861 classic. It is essentially a story and 15:36.859 --> 15:39.249 can be enjoyed as such. 15:39.250 --> 15:41.600 Do not let the critics confuse you. 15:41.600 --> 15:45.530 Ulysses is not difficult to read, and it richly rewards 15:45.533 --> 15:47.923 each reader in wisdom and pleasure. 15:47.919 --> 15:52.479 So thrilling an adventure into the soul and mind and heart of 15:52.476 --> 15:55.206 man has never before been charted. 15:55.210 --> 16:00.060 This is your opportunity to begin the exploration of one of 16:00.063 --> 16:03.413 the greatest novels of our time. 16:03.409 --> 16:08.819 What I want you to notice first of all is the kind of reader 16:08.823 --> 16:13.503 that's being invoked here for that modernist classic 16:13.503 --> 16:17.883 Ulysses. It is not the fussing 16:17.879 --> 16:20.639 critic. Now if you read down, 16:20.643 --> 16:24.773 if you sort of skim down, you'll see that kind of 16:24.767 --> 16:27.427 language applied to critics. 16:27.430 --> 16:31.140 They seem fretful. 16:31.139 --> 16:34.959 They seem interested in obscure knowledge. 16:34.960 --> 16:39.280 That's how this advertisement represents critics, 16:39.283 --> 16:44.063 even though it also invokes critics to describe what's 16:44.057 --> 16:46.667 powerful about the novel. 16:46.669 --> 16:50.739 So there's a sort of two-faced representation of the critic. 16:50.740 --> 16:54.160 But the important one, I think, is that dismissal of 16:54.158 --> 16:57.538 the critic. The point of this advertisement 16:57.543 --> 17:02.003 is to make you feel like you don't have to know what the 17:02.002 --> 17:05.572 critic knows in order to read this novel. 17:05.569 --> 17:10.879 What you need is something like strength or bravery. 17:10.880 --> 17:14.260 Listen to that language: "For those who are already 17:14.264 --> 17:17.114 engrossed in the reading of Ulysses, 17:17.107 --> 17:20.557 as well as for those who hesitate to begin it." 17:20.559 --> 17:24.309 The people already engrossed are the strong ones, 17:24.309 --> 17:28.839 and "you can be that!," this advertisement wants to say. 17:28.840 --> 17:31.940 You can be the strong reader. 17:31.940 --> 17:36.680 That hesitation--"those who hesitate to begin it"--it's a 17:36.681 --> 17:41.001 kind of feminized, mincing approach to the novel. 17:41.000 --> 17:43.950 It's sort of like those fussy critics. 17:43.950 --> 17:48.780 So this advertisement tells you that the great classic of 17:48.782 --> 17:52.972 modernism is something you stride into like a man, 17:52.970 --> 17:59.430 but you don't have to be a particularly extraordinary man 17:59.430 --> 18:02.830 to do so. "This monumental novel about 20 18:02.828 --> 18:07.088 hours in the life of an average man can be read and appreciated 18:07.086 --> 18:10.996 like any other great novel once its framework and form are 18:11.001 --> 18:13.721 visualized, just as we can enjoy Hamlet 18:13.719 --> 18:16.579 without solving all the problems which agitate the 18:16.580 --> 18:17.930 critics and scholars." 18:17.930 --> 18:21.670 There's that agitation that I was talking about. 18:21.670 --> 18:25.640 "The average man": this advertisement wants you to 18:25.641 --> 18:30.261 see Ulysses as a story about a man you can identify 18:30.260 --> 18:32.850 with. So you don't have to be a 18:32.853 --> 18:34.853 critic; you have to be strong; 18:34.850 --> 18:35.760 but you know what? 18:35.759 --> 18:41.129 You can be the average man, because this is a story about 18:41.125 --> 18:44.965 the average man. "With a plot furnished by 18:44.974 --> 18:48.864 Homer, against a setting by Dante, and with characters 18:48.858 --> 18:53.458 motivated by Shakespeare, Ulysses is really not as 18:53.460 --> 18:57.820 difficult to comprehend as critics like to pretend." 18:57.819 --> 19:02.579 This is like saying "dress by Prada, shoes by Ferragamo." 19:02.579 --> 19:05.419 It's as if there are brands--Dante, 19:05.417 --> 19:09.087 Shakespeare, Homer--that are identifiable. 19:09.089 --> 19:13.429 They're familiar,and-- what's more--they carry with it that 19:13.426 --> 19:15.516 sense of cultural capital. 19:15.519 --> 19:17.369 So what do I mean by cultural capital? 19:17.369 --> 19:22.899 It's that knowledge that makes you one of the elite of your 19:22.897 --> 19:25.857 world. It's also that knowledge that 19:25.855 --> 19:29.555 an educated, sort of belletristic reader of The 19:29.564 --> 19:33.124 Saturday Review of Literature would be very, 19:33.123 --> 19:34.943 very familiar with. 19:34.940 --> 19:40.300 So in a sense it tells you this work of art is of a piece with 19:40.300 --> 19:44.360 what you already know; it's familiar in those ways, 19:44.356 --> 19:46.786 and you shouldn't be afraid of it. 19:46.789 --> 19:51.829 At the same time it's part and parcel of that elite body of 19:51.827 --> 19:56.777 knowledge, so again there is this kind of two-facedness to 19:56.779 --> 19:58.689 the advertisement. 19:58.690 --> 20:03.010 It's both Everyman, and it's the elite, 20:03.013 --> 20:06.543 who will best read this book. 20:06.539 --> 20:13.399 Now I want to contrast that with what we see from Nabokov in 20:13.401 --> 20:18.521 this essay, Good Readers and Good Writers. 20:18.520 --> 20:19.610 This is from 1950. 20:19.610 --> 20:23.210 20:23.210 --> 20:28.310 Now the part of the essay just prior to this explains that he 20:28.308 --> 20:33.238 gave this little quiz that you see to some college students 20:33.236 --> 20:36.036 when he was giving a lecture. 20:36.039 --> 20:38.889 So this is what he asked them to do: 20:38.890 --> 20:44.020 Select four answers to the question 'What should a 20:44.021 --> 20:47.101 reader be to be a good reader?' 20:47.099 --> 20:50.349 "The reader should belong to a book club." 20:50.349 --> 20:55.679 "The reader should identify himself or herself with the hero 20:55.676 --> 20:58.846 or heroine." "The reader should concentrate 20:58.846 --> 21:00.876 on the social, economic angle." 21:00.880 --> 21:05.230 "The reader should prefer a story with action and dialog to 21:05.233 --> 21:08.273 one with none." "The reader should have seen 21:08.273 --> 21:09.663 the book in a movie." 21:09.660 --> 21:11.790 "The reader should be a budding author." 21:11.789 --> 21:14.379 "The reader should have imagination." 21:14.380 --> 21:16.930 "The reader should have memory." 21:16.930 --> 21:19.590 "The reader should have a dictionary." 21:19.589 --> 21:24.369 "The reader should have some artistic sense." 21:24.370 --> 21:27.660 And Nabokov says: The students leaned 21:27.662 --> 21:30.122 heavily on emotional identification, 21:30.115 --> 21:34.105 action, and the social, economic and historical angle. 21:34.109 --> 21:38.359 Of course, as you have guessed, the good reader is the one who 21:38.356 --> 21:41.926 has imagination, memory, a dictionary and some 21:41.934 --> 21:45.064 artistic sense, which sense I propose to 21:45.060 --> 21:49.790 develop in myself and others whenever I have the chance. 21:49.789 --> 21:53.439 There are at least two varieties of imagination in the 21:53.440 --> 21:56.470 reader's case, so let us see which of the two 21:56.471 --> 21:59.641 is the right one to use in reading a book. 21:59.640 --> 22:03.040 First there is the comparatively lowly kind which 22:03.040 --> 22:07.430 turns for support to the simple emotions and is of a definitely 22:07.433 --> 22:10.443 personal nature. A situation in a book is 22:10.437 --> 22:13.937 intensely felt because it reminds us of something that 22:13.944 --> 22:17.124 happened to us or to someone we know or knew, 22:17.119 --> 22:21.639 or again the reader treasures a book mainly because it evokes a 22:21.642 --> 22:25.082 country, a landscape, a mode of living which he 22:25.079 --> 22:28.249 nostalgically recalls as part of his own past, 22:28.247 --> 22:30.607 or, and this is the worst thing a 22:30.609 --> 22:33.419 reader can do, he identifies himself with a 22:33.418 --> 22:35.088 character in the book. 22:35.089 --> 22:40.479 This lowly variety is not the kind of imagination I would like 22:40.478 --> 22:43.518 readers to use. What a crime! 22:43.519 --> 22:46.569 How many of you are guilty of this kind of reading, 22:46.572 --> 22:48.582 ever? Okay. 22:48.580 --> 22:52.080 Nabokov, be gone. 22:52.079 --> 22:54.829 But he wants to get at something here, 22:54.832 --> 22:59.302 and I think it's helpful to put it next to that advertisement 22:59.296 --> 23:03.626 for Ulysses. He wants you to think about 23:03.634 --> 23:05.714 reading on his terms. 23:05.710 --> 23:09.040 His terms are very much informed by a modernist 23:09.036 --> 23:13.366 sensibility of what literature is all about--and I'm going to 23:13.374 --> 23:17.934 say more about what that is when I lecture on Lolita--but 23:17.929 --> 23:22.339 it's very much in contrast with that Ulysses ad. 23:22.340 --> 23:26.670 "Don't identify. It's not about you. 23:26.670 --> 23:27.730 It's about something else." 23:27.730 --> 23:30.300 Well, what is it about? 23:30.299 --> 23:34.089 So what is the authentic instrument to be used by the 23:34.091 --> 23:38.851 reader? It is impersonal imagination 23:38.852 --> 23:42.132 and artistic delight. 23:42.130 --> 23:45.020 What should be established I think is an artistic, 23:45.016 --> 23:48.546 harmonious balance between the reader's mind and the author's 23:48.549 --> 23:51.019 mind. We ought to remain a little 23:51.020 --> 23:55.260 aloof and take pleasure in this aloofness, while at the same 23:55.259 --> 23:59.139 time we keenly enjoy--enjoy with tears and shivers--the 23:59.140 --> 24:02.300 interweave of a given masterpiece.To be quite 24:02.302 --> 24:06.472 objective in these matters is of course impossible. 24:06.470 --> 24:10.930 Everything that is worthwhile is to some extent subjective. 24:10.930 --> 24:14.920 For instance, you sitting there may be merely 24:14.921 --> 24:18.551 my dream, and I may be your nightmare. 24:18.549 --> 24:22.139 (Some of you might think that after Lolita.) But 24:22.140 --> 24:25.500 what I mean is that the reader must know when and where to 24:25.495 --> 24:29.865 contribute his imagination, and this he does by trying to 24:29.871 --> 24:34.451 get clear the specific world the author places at his 24:34.446 --> 24:39.056 disposal. If there is a balance of power 24:39.064 --> 24:44.834 between the writer and the reader in this little vignette, 24:44.830 --> 24:50.900 the power really I think finally resides with the writer. 24:50.900 --> 24:57.650 It is the writer whose world the reader is here asked to get 24:57.654 --> 25:00.744 clear. You are asked to use your 25:00.743 --> 25:04.833 imagination to enter a world made by the writer, 25:04.829 --> 25:09.089 a world of imagination, and so it's the writer who 25:09.088 --> 25:11.608 directs you in that way. 25:11.609 --> 25:14.679 You are not asked to imagine a place you knew, 25:14.676 --> 25:18.556 something from your history, something from your knowledge 25:18.559 --> 25:21.739 of yourself. It is not about finding the 25:21.740 --> 25:25.220 average man--which you are--also in the novel, 25:25.224 --> 25:27.474 there staring back at you. 25:27.470 --> 25:31.290 It's about finding some other dream world. 25:31.290 --> 25:33.730 Maybe it's a nightmare world. 25:33.730 --> 25:38.480 So, for Nabokov, he wants to imagine a kind of 25:38.481 --> 25:44.301 literary encounter that's very much separate from those other 25:44.298 --> 25:48.078 things he talks about: other media; 25:48.080 --> 25:51.080 the movies; having seen the book in the 25:51.078 --> 25:54.078 movie; from the life that we all lead 25:54.077 --> 25:57.257 when we work and when we go to school; 25:57.260 --> 26:00.510 the social, economic angle. 26:00.509 --> 26:03.369 He wants to read it as apart from the emotions, 26:03.366 --> 26:06.526 although he wants to enlist those emotions in a very 26:06.534 --> 26:10.034 specific way. Remember those "tears and 26:10.032 --> 26:13.112 shivers." Those have to be the tears and 26:13.109 --> 26:14.929 shivers of impersonality. 26:14.930 --> 26:18.870 That word, "impersonality"--made famous by 26:18.867 --> 26:21.077 T.S. Eliot who advocated 26:21.076 --> 26:26.646 impersonality as the ultimate stance of the artist--that is 26:26.646 --> 26:32.116 the stance from which all great art should proceed. 26:32.119 --> 26:37.779 So Nabokov imbues that state of impersonality with certain kinds 26:37.778 --> 26:42.898 of emotion and then asks the reader to be as impersonal as 26:42.897 --> 26:46.397 that modernist artist also must be. 26:46.400 --> 26:51.690 So what I think we get from these two little readings today 26:51.688 --> 26:56.378 is a sense of where literature finds itself at a kind of 26:56.380 --> 26:59.770 crossroads. What kind of reader are writers 26:59.773 --> 27:03.733 in this period looking for, and what do they want from that 27:03.728 --> 27:06.738 reader? To what context do they address 27:06.738 --> 27:09.148 themselves? Is it a social context? 27:09.150 --> 27:10.570 Is it a literary one? 27:10.570 --> 27:12.260 Is it a psychological one? 27:12.260 --> 27:13.890 Is it a philosophical one? 27:13.890 --> 27:18.230 Is it a political one? 27:18.230 --> 27:20.940 What should the novel strive to do? 27:20.940 --> 27:25.890 What can novels do in the world? 27:25.890 --> 27:28.650 What is the role of the imagination? 27:28.650 --> 27:35.890 How does that factor into what the reader lives in daily 27:35.893 --> 27:38.673 reality? What is the status of 27:38.674 --> 27:42.024 identification? Is that the primary model of 27:42.022 --> 27:44.702 readership? Is that what makes people want 27:44.703 --> 27:47.523 to read? Is that what should make people 27:47.520 --> 27:50.470 want to read? These are some of the questions 27:50.467 --> 27:54.157 that these two readings raise, and they are questions that we 27:54.160 --> 27:57.360 will return to over and over throughout the term. 27:57.359 --> 27:58.689 Now, I'm going to stop there. 27:58.690 --> 28:01.970 I've gone on longer than I expected. 28:01.970 --> 28:04.430 I'm going to let shoppers leave, and then, 28:04.433 --> 28:07.503 in a very short time, I'm going to pick up again and 28:07.497 --> 28:09.297 talk about Richard Wright. 28:09.299 --> 28:15.469 So anyone who wants to leave now please do so. 28:15.470 --> 28:18.290 And please sign in, by the way, guys, 28:18.291 --> 28:19.781 before you leave. 28:19.780 --> 28:23.500 The sheets are coming around. 28:23.500 --> 28:26.840 You can sign in right there. 28:26.840 --> 28:33.090 28:33.089 --> 28:38.409 Oh, there are sign-in sheets there. 28:38.411 --> 28:41.941 Thanks. Those are my notes. 28:41.944 --> 28:44.404 Yeah. Don't take those. 28:44.404 --> 28:47.954 Right here. Oh, the syllabus? 28:47.952 --> 28:48.652 Oh. Oh. 28:48.651 --> 28:52.501 Let's see. Do I have any more? 28:52.500 --> 28:54.630 No, it's not. Hey, KC. 28:54.631 --> 28:57.881 KC, can I borrow your handout? 28:57.880 --> 29:05.700 Can he have it? I'll give you another one. 29:05.700 --> 29:09.730 Okay. I'm going to start even though 29:09.734 --> 29:16.884 it's still in flux here 'cause I don't want to lose my time. 29:16.880 --> 29:19.730 Ooh, that's bad. Whoa. 29:19.726 --> 29:22.976 I'm stepping over you. 29:22.980 --> 29:27.710 I'm so sorry. Thank you. 29:27.710 --> 29:30.350 All right. That was dramatic, 29:30.347 --> 29:31.757 wasn't it? Okay. 29:31.761 --> 29:34.421 All right. Now, we've talked about the 29:34.418 --> 29:39.398 imagination. Now I want you to use it. 29:39.400 --> 29:42.750 Imagine that you are a writer. 29:42.750 --> 29:44.960 That's all you've ever wanted to be. 29:44.960 --> 29:50.000 You're at a very happy time in your life. 29:50.000 --> 29:53.560 You just wrote a really successful novel. 29:53.560 --> 29:55.480 Everyone loved it. 29:55.480 --> 29:59.090 It was unlike anything that had been written before. 29:59.090 --> 30:02.260 It was very well received. 30:02.259 --> 30:05.429 You decided, "for my next project I am going 30:05.425 --> 30:07.335 to write about my life." 30:07.339 --> 30:09.949 You've had a hard life, by the way. 30:09.950 --> 30:12.560 You've had a hard life. 30:12.559 --> 30:16.189 That hard life, you think, is really what made 30:16.190 --> 30:18.610 you into the writer you are. 30:18.609 --> 30:22.169 It's what allowed you to speak so powerfully to people in your 30:22.173 --> 30:24.983 first novel, and you've always wanted to write an 30:24.978 --> 30:27.958 autobiography. So that's what you do; 30:27.960 --> 30:30.230 that's what you take up as your next project. 30:30.230 --> 30:32.530 So you write the story of your life. 30:32.530 --> 30:36.200 It's nearly 400 pages long. 30:36.200 --> 30:40.150 It gets a really nice reception at a very good publisher. 30:40.150 --> 30:41.290 It's in page proofs. 30:41.290 --> 30:42.780 Everything's going great. 30:42.780 --> 30:47.340 You're thrilled. And then someone says to you, 30:47.338 --> 30:49.088 "You know…." 30:49.090 --> 30:51.360 Imagine this is Oprah. 30:51.359 --> 30:54.659 Oprah gets page proofs of your novel. 30:54.660 --> 30:57.990 She's thinking about putting it on her book club, 30:57.988 --> 31:01.458 and--if any of you know anything about contemporary 31:01.455 --> 31:05.615 literature--getting on Oprah's Book Club makes your sales for 31:05.615 --> 31:07.275 the next 20 years. 31:07.280 --> 31:10.510 It's huge. There is no more powerful 31:10.508 --> 31:16.288 marketing force in contemporary fiction than Oprah's Book Club. 31:16.289 --> 31:21.199 It even does wonders for Tolstoy when Tolstoy gets on 31:25.440 --> 31:27.400 So you get on Oprah's Book Club. 31:27.400 --> 31:29.530 Oprah asks for the proofs for your novel. 31:29.530 --> 31:32.810 She takes them. She says, "This is great, 31:32.807 --> 31:34.217 but you know what? 31:34.220 --> 31:38.060 I think--that last hundred pages--you should get rid of 31:38.063 --> 31:41.153 it." And you think about it, 31:41.146 --> 31:46.686 and you say yes, and it comes out in that form. 31:46.690 --> 31:49.560 And there you are, and, for the next 40 years, 31:49.557 --> 31:53.507 no one ever sees the novel that you wrote, or the autobiography 31:53.508 --> 31:55.418 that you wrote originally. 31:55.420 --> 32:00.360 It's still only two thirds of what you ever wrote it to be. 32:00.359 --> 32:02.529 Well, this is what happened to Richard Wright. 32:02.529 --> 32:06.439 This is pretty much exactly what happened to Richard Wright 32:06.436 --> 32:10.006 in 1944. So he had published Native 32:10.006 --> 32:14.996 Son in 1940 to great acclaim, a very successful 32:15.001 --> 32:18.981 novel. In 1944, he completed Black 32:18.982 --> 32:25.562 Boy, then called American Hunger, and he had placed it 32:25.558 --> 32:31.618 with Harper and Brothers Publishing Company in New York, 32:31.619 --> 32:35.389 and they were very happy with it. 32:35.390 --> 32:39.140 It had a first part called "Southern Night" and a second 32:39.142 --> 32:41.942 part called "The Horror and the Glory." 32:41.940 --> 32:45.930 "Southern Night" was about his experience growing up in 32:45.926 --> 32:49.776 Mississippi. So he was born in 1908 in 32:49.775 --> 32:54.725 Mississippi, and in 1927--I think it's '27; 32:54.730 --> 33:01.310 let me get my date right--in 1927 he moved to Chicago, 33:01.311 --> 33:06.371 moved north. And in the 1940s he moved to 33:06.369 --> 33:10.399 Paris, and he died there in 1960. 33:10.400 --> 33:17.430 So his was a progression out of a very poor, Southern childhood, 33:17.429 --> 33:22.449 from a black family led by a single mother, 33:22.450 --> 33:27.260 to the circles in which Gertrude Stein moved in Paris. 33:27.260 --> 33:29.050 So this is a long trajectory. 33:29.049 --> 33:31.119 Well, Black Boy, or American 33:31.117 --> 33:32.967 Hunger, as it was then called, 33:32.970 --> 33:36.420 covered the part in Mississippi, and then the 33:36.423 --> 33:39.253 beginnings of his life in Chicago. 33:39.250 --> 33:43.480 Now the part about his life in Chicago was the part that was 33:43.480 --> 33:47.710 finally cut from the novel--I'm going to keep doing this, 33:47.710 --> 33:50.550 call it the novel versus the autobiography, 33:50.547 --> 33:54.467 and I'll explain why I make that mistake a little later--it 33:54.465 --> 33:56.825 was cut from the autobiography. 33:56.829 --> 34:00.779 Now he had this in page proofs with Harper and Brothers, 34:00.776 --> 34:04.936 and Harper and Brothers sent the page proofs out to various 34:04.938 --> 34:09.528 writers for blurbs and also sent it to the Book of the Month Club 34:09.531 --> 34:11.111 Editorial Board. 34:11.110 --> 34:15.600 The Book of the Month Club was a mail-order book club that 34:15.603 --> 34:18.993 started in 1926, and it became an incredibly 34:18.994 --> 34:21.994 powerful engine for selling books, 34:21.989 --> 34:25.179 just as Oprah's Book Club is today. 34:25.179 --> 34:28.949 In 1926, it had about 4700 members. 34:28.949 --> 34:33.749 Just three years later it had 110,000 members: 34:33.750 --> 34:36.950 110,000 subscribers in 1929. 34:36.949 --> 34:41.899 By the '40s and '50s, it was incredibly powerful. 34:41.900 --> 34:47.360 So what we have is this marketing juggernaut getting 34:47.356 --> 34:51.526 interested in Wright's autobiography. 34:51.530 --> 34:54.470 So they take it up, and the board decides that they 34:54.473 --> 34:56.713 only like the "Southern Night" part. 34:56.710 --> 35:00.630 They don't want any of the part of the story of his life in 35:00.633 --> 35:03.883 Chicago, and that's what he finally agrees to. 35:03.880 --> 35:09.070 So in the summer of 1944 he embarks on this correspondence 35:09.070 --> 35:12.900 with a woman named Dorothy Canfield Fisher, 35:12.900 --> 35:16.130 who was one of the editorial board of the Book of the Month 35:16.129 --> 35:19.689 Club, and they go back and forth trying to figure out how he will 35:19.693 --> 35:22.983 revise the ending to "Southern Night" so that it sounds like 35:22.979 --> 35:26.379 the end of a book rather than the end of a section of a longer 35:26.376 --> 35:30.436 book. Now for Wednesday I am going to 35:30.438 --> 35:36.358 ask you to go online to the Beinecke Digital Archive and 35:36.360 --> 35:38.730 read those letters. 35:38.730 --> 35:40.390 We hold them here. 35:40.389 --> 35:42.499 They are not published anywhere, so this is kind of 35:42.497 --> 35:44.197 fun. This is one of the special 35:44.204 --> 35:45.774 things about being at Yale. 35:45.770 --> 35:46.660 We have those letters. 35:46.660 --> 35:49.190 You can go and touch them. 35:49.190 --> 35:52.840 You can read them online, and I want you to read those in 35:52.842 --> 35:56.562 addition to reading the sections that I have indicated. 35:56.559 --> 36:02.079 You can see what happens when Wright starts coming up against 36:02.081 --> 36:07.121 these demands on his manuscript, and I will project them during 36:07.122 --> 36:09.802 class too so that we can talk about them. 36:09.800 --> 36:15.210 36:15.214 --> 36:19.194 therefore very much under pressure as a literary 36:19.187 --> 36:23.157 object--and it really was a literary object. 36:23.159 --> 36:26.469 I think we can make the mistake, thinking about 36:26.471 --> 36:29.651 autobiography, that it's somehow not literary. 36:29.650 --> 36:33.820 But in fact it's very literary, and part of what makes it 36:33.821 --> 36:38.141 literary is the fact that you have to choose what scenes go 36:38.142 --> 36:39.932 into that narrative. 36:39.929 --> 36:42.269 You can't just write every single thing that happened in 36:42.269 --> 36:43.629 your life. You have to choose. 36:43.630 --> 36:48.660 Well, critics took it fairly straightforwardly as the account 36:48.663 --> 36:52.713 of a life and in that sense, taking it that way, 36:52.708 --> 36:57.368 some of them were a little disappointed with what they held 36:57.372 --> 36:58.822 in their hands. 36:58.820 --> 37:01.900 For one thing, it seemed exaggerated to some 37:01.896 --> 37:03.606 people. So the first scene, 37:03.610 --> 37:06.880 as we will discover in Black Boy, is when Richard, 37:06.880 --> 37:11.290 young Richard--I think he was 6--burns down the family house 37:11.293 --> 37:14.813 playing with matches underneath the curtains, 37:14.809 --> 37:19.349 and his mother finds him where he has hidden under the burning 37:19.347 --> 37:22.767 house and flogs him until he is unconscious, 37:22.769 --> 37:26.239 and he's sick for a good, long time after that. 37:26.239 --> 37:28.389 Okay. Critics were like "I don't 37:28.387 --> 37:30.947 think so. That doesn't seem right." 37:30.949 --> 37:36.589 A mother flog her son until he's unconscious didn't seem too 37:36.588 --> 37:39.688 credible. As time went on there were 37:39.685 --> 37:43.535 other kinds of complaints, these about accuracy. 37:43.539 --> 37:47.609 So, for instance, his mother in the book is 37:47.612 --> 37:50.912 represented as being uneducated. 37:50.909 --> 37:52.749 Well, in fact she was a schoolteacher. 37:52.750 --> 37:57.120 Now there is a difference between scholars on how long she 37:57.115 --> 37:58.795 was a schoolteacher. 37:58.800 --> 38:01.540 Some say she was a sort of long-term successful 38:01.537 --> 38:03.067 schoolteacher. Others said, 38:03.070 --> 38:05.730 "Well, she only taught school for a couple of months." 38:05.730 --> 38:08.470 So this was not--didn't seem to be--accurate. 38:08.469 --> 38:12.599 Then there was another scene in the autobiography, 38:12.599 --> 38:16.109 where Richard, who is the valedictorian of his 38:16.105 --> 38:20.525 high school class, writes his valedictory speech, 38:20.534 --> 38:25.064 gives it as required to the principal beforehand, 38:25.059 --> 38:29.349 the principal demands certain kinds of changes, 38:29.348 --> 38:31.398 and Richard refuses. 38:31.400 --> 38:35.730 Well, apparently Richard in real life did not refuse to make 38:35.726 --> 38:37.866 those changes. And imagine, 38:37.867 --> 38:42.627 in a book that then undergoes this publishing history that I 38:42.626 --> 38:45.926 have described, this is kind of a symbolic 38:45.932 --> 38:49.092 scene. This is a scene of whether you 38:49.094 --> 38:53.644 as a writer compromise yourself in the face of authority that 38:53.643 --> 38:56.073 resists what you want to say. 38:56.070 --> 38:58.260 So in the book it's a very important scene. 38:58.260 --> 39:02.240 It's the moment when Richard really finds his voice and it 39:02.239 --> 39:06.079 gives him the strength eventually to leave the South. 39:06.079 --> 39:12.489 But in real life apparently he did cave. 39:12.489 --> 39:16.649 Then there came to be questions about whether the 39:16.650 --> 39:21.610 scenes, the stories in the book, actually did happen to him. 39:21.610 --> 39:25.750 So there is this story about his Uncle Hoskins who takes his 39:25.749 --> 39:30.029 horse and cart with Richard in the back and drives it into the 39:30.028 --> 39:34.308 middle of the Mississippi River as a kind of practical joke on 39:34.307 --> 39:36.567 Richard. Well, apparently this is not 39:36.571 --> 39:38.541 something that happened to Richard Wright. 39:38.539 --> 39:40.249 This is something that happened to Ralph Ellison. 39:40.250 --> 39:43.920 39:43.920 --> 39:48.960 Where these stories come from began to be a problem. 39:48.960 --> 39:50.610 So what is autobiography? 39:50.610 --> 39:54.870 What is this genre that Wright is working with? 39:54.869 --> 39:58.079 It raised these kinds of questions on the one hand. 39:58.079 --> 40:03.389 But then there was another kind of question, and that was coming 40:03.386 --> 40:05.236 from the other side. 40:05.239 --> 40:10.989 This is what William Faulkner wrote to Wright upon reading 40:10.987 --> 40:14.627 Black Boy. He said: 40:14.630 --> 40:17.790 The good, lasting stuff comes out of 40:17.789 --> 40:21.719 one's individual imagination, and sensitivity to, 40:21.719 --> 40:26.309 and comprehension of, the sufferings of Everyman--Any 40:26.306 --> 40:30.536 Man--not out of the memory of one's own grief. 40:30.539 --> 40:34.979 I hope you will keep on saying it, but I hope you will say it 40:34.981 --> 40:37.421 as an artist, as in Native Son. 40:40.625 --> 40:43.765 the other side. It's not fictional enough. 40:43.769 --> 40:46.729 To write about your life and to pretend that you're 40:46.725 --> 40:50.445 communicating the memory of what happened to you--your grief, 40:50.449 --> 40:54.989 your private grief--doesn't contain that universalizing move 40:54.990 --> 40:57.530 that fiction, by its very essence, 40:57.529 --> 40:59.889 contains. And you see that (you can 40:59.889 --> 41:03.099 remember back to that conception of literature we see in the 41:03.099 --> 41:05.439 advertisement for Ulysses) it's about 41:05.438 --> 41:08.598 everyman, that greatness in literature 41:08.597 --> 41:13.817 comes from its ability to speak to some archetypal Everyman, 41:13.820 --> 41:18.470 Any Man, and Faulkner capitalizes those words in his 41:18.467 --> 41:21.837 letter as if they really are types. 41:21.840 --> 41:26.320 Well, Wright himself described that difficulty of 41:26.323 --> 41:30.813 writing his autobiography, and these are the terms he 41:30.807 --> 41:33.427 used: I found that to tell the 41:33.431 --> 41:37.011 truth is the hardest thing on earth, harder than fighting in a 41:37.012 --> 41:39.832 war, harder than taking part in a revolution. 41:39.829 --> 41:42.409 If you try it, you will find that at times 41:42.414 --> 41:44.184 sweat will break upon you. 41:44.179 --> 41:46.569 You will find that, even if you succeed in 41:46.566 --> 41:49.996 discounting the attitudes of others to you and your life, 41:50.000 --> 41:53.630 you must wrestle with yourself most of all, fight with 41:53.630 --> 41:57.600 yourself, for there will surge up in you a strong desire to 41:57.603 --> 42:00.643 alter facts, to dress up your feelings. 42:00.639 --> 42:04.639 You'll find that there are many things you don't want to admit 42:04.642 --> 42:06.482 about yourself and others. 42:06.480 --> 42:10.450 As your record shapes itself an awed wonder haunts you, 42:10.445 --> 42:14.115 and yet there is no more exciting an adventure than 42:14.116 --> 42:16.756 trying to be honest in this way. 42:16.760 --> 42:21.670 The clean, strong feeling that sweeps you when you've done it 42:21.669 --> 42:27.199 makes you know that. And even though in that little 42:27.204 --> 42:33.374 passage he suggests that it's a struggle to be truthful, 42:33.369 --> 42:37.349 a struggle to be accurate, a struggle not to dress up your 42:37.354 --> 42:40.364 feelings with some sort of embellishment, 42:40.360 --> 42:45.950 he at other times says that, well, some of the stories did 42:45.948 --> 42:50.718 come from other people, some of the stories he included 42:50.715 --> 42:54.965 did come from other people's experiences, not from his own 42:54.972 --> 42:57.962 life, and that this is allowed and 42:57.955 --> 43:03.315 allowable because what he aimed to do was produce a generic life 43:03.322 --> 43:06.562 of a black boy living in the South. 43:06.559 --> 43:10.689 And from the titles we know he considered for this book, 43:10.692 --> 43:15.202 none of them make that claim "The Life of Richard Wright." 43:15.200 --> 43:16.880 None of them say that. 43:16.880 --> 43:21.820 It's always Black Boy, American Hunger. 43:21.820 --> 43:24.140 These are not person- specific. 43:24.139 --> 43:28.639 These implicitly make a claim to the generality--at the 43:28.644 --> 43:32.154 national scale, or in the racial sense--the 43:32.147 --> 43:35.147 representativeness of this life. 43:35.150 --> 43:39.700 And, indeed, what more powerful testimony to 43:39.695 --> 43:44.935 the power of narration is there, the power of a story, 43:44.941 --> 43:49.741 to say that you heard a story and it became as if part of your 43:49.738 --> 43:53.418 experience, that you heard Ralph Ellison 43:53.420 --> 43:57.570 tell that story, and somehow you began to live 43:57.567 --> 44:00.827 it yourself? So what we see in the 44:00.829 --> 44:04.809 publishing history of Black Boy and also in its 44:04.813 --> 44:08.803 reception brings us back to those questions that I was 44:08.798 --> 44:11.728 raising at the beginning of class. 44:11.730 --> 44:14.860 What is the relationship between writing and the world? 44:14.860 --> 44:18.070 What's the relationship between the writer and the reader? 44:18.070 --> 44:22.620 What's the relationship between fiction and what we all 44:22.618 --> 44:25.228 experience as the real world? 44:25.230 --> 44:29.720 Our course over the term will come back to this question over 44:29.721 --> 44:33.021 and over again, and it will also come back to 44:33.015 --> 44:36.155 the generic question of autobiography. 44:36.159 --> 44:40.999 Even so experimental a book as John Barth's Lost in the 44:40.995 --> 44:46.335 Funhouse is totally absorbed in the problem of what it would 44:46.340 --> 44:49.140 mean to write about yourself. 44:49.139 --> 44:53.299 It's a persistent problem partly because it always raises 44:53.295 --> 44:56.855 these issues of fictionality versus truthfulness, 44:56.858 --> 44:59.528 of honesty versus embellishment. 44:59.530 --> 45:03.140 It also raises the question of how a self is made. 45:03.139 --> 45:06.989 If we look forward to the end of the term when we read The 45:06.985 --> 45:09.545 Human Stain, which is about a man, 45:09.550 --> 45:13.330 Coleman Silk, who tries to and succeeds in 45:13.334 --> 45:15.184 passing as Jewish. 45:15.179 --> 45:19.899 He's a black man, and he passes for his whole 45:19.897 --> 45:24.397 life as Jewish, and in doing so rejects his 45:24.400 --> 45:28.070 family. In a way, what Coleman does is 45:28.073 --> 45:32.233 write his autobiography, a fictional autobiography, 45:32.228 --> 45:35.218 in the very process of living it. 45:35.219 --> 45:41.789 So Roth imagines lived life as fictional in the same register 45:41.785 --> 45:46.485 as a novel, or as truthful--dubiously so, 45:46.489 --> 45:51.499 perhaps--in the same register as an autobiography. 45:51.500 --> 45:54.570 So these are questions that will come back to us. 45:54.570 --> 45:58.270 This is part of what I find so compelling about fiction and 45:58.271 --> 46:00.761 literature in general in this period. 46:00.760 --> 46:04.390 And this is why I study it; this is why I teach it: 46:04.394 --> 46:10.164 because that interface--between the imagination and the world, 46:10.159 --> 46:14.329 between literary art and trying to tell the truth about 46:14.332 --> 46:18.502 something, between form and content--those contacts are 46:18.504 --> 46:21.444 very, very close, and they're very 46:21.444 --> 46:25.294 compelling, I think, in part, because other media 46:25.292 --> 46:29.142 are so powerfully on the rise in this period. 46:29.139 --> 46:33.079 Literature has to figure out where to stake its claim. 46:33.079 --> 46:36.129 What can literature say that nothing else can? 46:36.130 --> 46:40.560 How can it address us in a way that is compelling in a way that 46:40.555 --> 46:44.165 nothing else is? Can we make those kinds of 46:44.169 --> 46:46.229 claims for literature? 46:46.230 --> 46:50.670 The writers on the syllabus consistently try to imagine a 46:50.669 --> 46:54.149 way to make those claims, make those claims for the 46:54.154 --> 46:56.524 primacy and the importance of what they do. 46:56.519 --> 47:00.199 And I think that--in addition to being able simply to 47:00.198 --> 47:03.238 understand the literature of your moment, 47:03.239 --> 47:07.179 to understand the literary world in which writers, 47:07.176 --> 47:10.386 probably among you sitting right here, 47:10.389 --> 47:14.679 that world in which you will bring forth your next novel, 47:14.676 --> 47:19.266 what that world looks like--you can understand that world, 47:19.269 --> 47:23.279 but also you can understand how art confronts the world in a 47:23.282 --> 47:25.052 much more general sense. 47:25.050 --> 47:28.820 That's what's exciting, and that's what I invite you to 47:28.818 --> 47:31.328 think about with me in the course. 47:31.329 --> 47:33.969 So I'll stop there, and hopefully I'll see some of 47:33.974 --> 47:35.004 you on Wednesday.