Confucius said that

Let me preface this by saying I'm at the parents' fidgeting on the computer and I found an old Reading Response from one of my Fiction classes at Columbia on Henry James', The Turn of the Screw. It was SO humorous I had to post it. So IF you decide to read it please keep in mind that Arnie is my instructor and WomiE and I were undergoing a previous breakup. WomiE is the ex-husband.


Ken Williams
Fiction Writing Advanced
Wednesday 1pm-5:20pm
2.14.07

The Turn of the Screw and Thoughts on Process

I still kinda feel as awkward about the reading as I did having gone through it in class. I went to my “ex husbands” house that evening and while he was choking back a cigarette doing his Don Corleone impersonation, watching the Godfather, I attempted the first few sentences of The turn of the Screw, on my own and totally missed everything. Reading shouldn’t be that hard, I thought. And I kept thinking back to class and how you, Arnie, was able to dissect every few words of text, like they do in Bible class on Sunday, and interpret the meaning flawlessly. It was like you were this Dali Lama-Fiction-man—one with the metaphor. You became the verb. And I began feeling inadequate sitting on the toilet, because that’s where I read when I visit my “ex husband”, because I couldn’t become the verb. I wanna be the verb.

So what happens in my family when one of the Williams’ children has a school project: a book needing to be book-reported, or a ten page paper and a ten o’clock deadline, a presentation needing to be outlined, or a thesis needing to be researched and written—what happens is that when one of us, whichever sibling needing the help, gets stuck behind in their semester assignments, the call tree gets executed. At work, and I work at a bank, when disaster strikes or a tornado hits, or whatever happens that affects our “continuity of business”—is what my manager always says, the same thing happens!—Everyone gets called. And this is what this is, me being unable to read past the intro of The Turn of the Screw, a crisis. And that’s what family is meant to do; support one another through times of crisis.

So I get one sister on the phone, and there’s only three of us kids, and so then that sister calls the younger sister and before you know it we join together and unite. Somebody will do the research and somebody will do the writing. In my case…well, more specifically in this case… we huddle around in a circle, Indian-style, and pass the book around like a blunt. We have a reading orgy. And depending on the amount needing to read we’ll take the book for either a page to a few pages and read aloud, much like the semi circle in class, and we’ll pass the material to the next person and the next person until finished. Much of my educational career has been learned through this method of crisis. Only during a crisis do we call upon the powers of each other and tackle the fiendish toilings of a overdue assignment. We don’t wanna see each other fail. So just like Power Rangers determined to defend all that is wholesome and true, I and my sisters collect from across the galaxy at my parents house, in my parents living quarters and settle the chaos.

My issues with the reading would be the structure of the sentences and the language of the narrator along with the sentence structure. My sisters and I got tricked several times with having to manage reading the text and being able to comprehend what was going on. The commas were too great. There’s just too many goddamn commas. Being on the outside listening in I couldn’t relax enough to “see” what Henry James meant for his audience to see, and being on the inside reading out, I was too worried with being able to vocalize the passage correctly than with concerning myself with understanding the story. Who selected this damn book!? So I think the issue that I’m having with this book so far is the juxtaposition of the language to the very dense and stylized approach to the writing. Did I confuse anyone?

In my writing, and what I love about educating myself to become America’s Next Top Literary Genius, is that writing is a creative practice, like painting and/or sex. Writing is a skill. And with any skill—a skate boarder has to fall off a ramp a few times in order to understand how to balance himself appropriately for the next time. (That’s actually kinda extreme of a circumstance, but sure). Singers have to crack and pigeons have to crash but what I’m getting at here is that writers, when we write, we have to create, and in the act of creation, when we’re all lost in the fumes of our own fictional-universes, as a god and a writer, you have to be willing enough to test the waters, so to speak, with your language. We have to first taste the air before stepping outside in the frost.

That whole “comma” motif that Henry is doing?-- feels stifling. I feel stifled to complete the story. I’m so disinterested because the language is already dense and now I’m having to jump another hurdle in trying to piece together the meaning behind every sentence. But that’s how you cross that bridge from being a person who likes to write versus being a writer. You have to get out there and you have to get gangsta on the page. Henry got gully!

I mean, I’ll be damned, reading shouldn’t have to be that hard. Did I say that already?? Well, let me reiterate, reading should NOT be that hard, Henry! His mother should've spanked him! But if you don’t write hard, I guess, you’re not writing. Likewise if you don’t experience anything you’re not living. You have to be able grab the bull by the horns and pull sometimes…not all the time, but sometimes. Confucius said that.

So I mean like kudos to Henry… *snap* *snap* and all that jazz. But for future reference…scratch this book off the repertoire. I don’t ever wanna read this book again!