[Tyr Zalo Hawk]: 712.Essays.Response Papers.F**k Books

There is certainly an overwhelming presence of ‘Yeah; I know what he means’ when one reads Gerald Graff’s “Disliking Books at an Early Age.” I for one, couldn’t help but think the phrase a dozen times during the short, but pivotal moment in the essay where he describes his experience with the critical analysis of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Although my own experience with Huckleberry Finn was quite a few years before my junior year in college, the realizations that Graff comes to due to his experience are the same ones that I myself realized not all that long ago.
Graff, being the person who avoided books all his life, discovers his passion for reading literary works only after being ‘corrupted by professional criticism’ (45). Before this life-changing incident he hasn’t the vocabulary or the know-how to effectively discuss the text which he’s been given. The introduction of professional theories and arguments into his mind broadens the scope which he has used his entire life when reading allowing him a heretofore hidden fascination with the subject matter at hand: literature. As his fascination and excitement mounts, so too does his understanding of the world into which he is now diving headfirst into. He discovers “If books really taught themselves, there would be no reason to attend classes” (45) and that “what students are able to say about a text depends not just on the text but on their relation to a critical community…” (47). All of this leads him to conclude, in no uncertain terms, that the process of truly understanding a book and searching for its deeper meanings is a social process. Reading a book by itself cannot and will never be enough (except, perhaps, in a more ‘perfect’ society than ours). We need to have a context into which we can place the text, whether in part or in whole, so that we all have some basis to start from. This is something I myself learned subconsciously long ago, but never quite articulated or thought firmly on before reading what Graff had to say. In a way, he has been my Huckleberry Finn.
There is, however, one statement which Graff makes that I’m not giddy to agree with. In his concluding paragraph he says “Choosing a topic that interests you or making an effective argument depends on having a sense of what other people are saying” (48). This, while I must admit is partially true, is by no means an opinion that I share. I do concede that the most effective argument for an interpretation of a literary work (even if Eagleton would have my ear for using the term) comes from an in-depth understanding of both sides of the question, but I wouldn’t say it’s the only way to be effective, and I especially don’t think that knowing what other people are saying will, or even should, have a measurable effect on what interests me as a reader. Long before the days when I knew what the word ‘criticism’ even meant, I was asked my opinion on books and poems and the occasional TV advertisement. Without even the knowledge of how to spell Post-Modernism I was able to make valid arguments for the meaning of passages and stanzas which I felt I connected to. Perhaps, and it has been argued, I am hardly a representative of the norm, but perhaps the norm is only a subjective abstract uniquely created in each society according to no one in particular which many agree would wholeheartedly disagree with when labeled as such (too heavy-worded?). True, I was raised in a society which left its mark on me, even if I did try wholeheartedly to avoid it, but I like to think that as someone who did avoid books as a child I still had and have the ability to determine what it is that did/does and did/does not interest me without having to consider what all the world has to say about Mark Twain. Perhaps my arguments didn’t always have the preferred terminology, and perhaps I argued things that many scholars and critics alike have reiterated a million times before, but someone has had to come up with something new to say in the argument at some point, and I like to think that perhaps people, myself included, have occasionally done it without ever knowing it.