Blog Paper

Sarah Grossman

Dr. Paul Gleason

EN 327: Shakespeare: Tragedies

October 13, 2008

Undecided Reading Style

I’ve always loved to read and most likely either liked a book or hated it. This text-self method of reading lasted throughout middle school and high school. For a short while, I even disliked reading because there was always a written paper assignment attached to the book or specific symbols teachers expected me to find while reading. However, college brought about a different way of reading literature. For once, the text had meaning outside symbols and the teacher’s thoughts. When I took Non-Western Literature a couple of years ago, it was the first time I was questioned to really analyze the story, characters, and connect them to today’s world. Since then, I have picked up other books written by the non-Western authors we studied, fiction and non-fiction, reading them in a different light.
I cannot completely say I am in a text-other text or a text-world stage just yet because it really depends on what I’m reading. If I’m reading a non-fiction book about a topic that is going on in the world today, I am going to relate it to situations I have seen in real life or heard of that are also stated in the book. If I’m reading fiction, then I am more likely to relate it to another book, especially if I’m reading multiple works by the same author. However, while reading Romeo and Juliet, I did relate the fiction of the story to aspects that match up to real-world situations. When Romeo behaves like a lovesick puppy and almost is weakened by the power of love, I related that to how men can sometimes act that way in real life. In my blog I said, “…women, seen as weak, may be stronger when it comes to love. Men…just seem to fall apart when truly in love.” I made the same connection with Hamlet. I saw Gertrude kissing Hamlet as using her sexuality because she didn’t know what else to do. In my blog, I said that even in today’s society, women use their sexuality to their advantage. “Women should use their [sexuality] to get what they want.” Magazines, movies, books, etc. send women messages to do just that. Reading fiction, I usually don’t think about the real world or making connections. I get engrossed in the story and just read to escape reality for a bit. However, with Non-Western Lit and Contemporary Lit, this may become a thing of the past.
Text-other text is what I usually experience when reading fiction. When I read Titus Andronicus, there was a character that reminded of another character in a book. Aaron is a false character, but he reminded of a real-life person in Devil in the White City. Aaron says, “Some devil whisper curses in mine ear/ And prompt me that my tongue may utter for/ The venomous malice of my swelling heart” (V.III 99). Aaron is saying that the devil causes his behavior. H. H. Holmes makes a similar statement in Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. He says, “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.” Devil in the White City is not fiction, but it reads like fiction. Sometimes it’s one line and sometimes it’s the entire story that reminds me of another book.
After reading Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep’s Chase, I read Dance Dance Dance, and started reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Having the same authorship, the three books read about the same. The style of writing is similar; the pace of the story is similar, so when reading one, the others stick in my mind. However, if it’s the same author writing the books, it makes sense that one of their books will remind me of another one they’ve written. However, currently I am reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk and it’s about a character named Ka who goes back to Turkey to report on a series of mass suicides. In the process, he reunites with a past love, Ipek. Immediately, it reminded me of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle because Toru Okada is trying to track down his wife, Kumiko. There’s also a detailed description of the main character’s day-to-day life that I’ve seen in Haruki Murakami’s books.
Text-World connections usually occur when reading non-fiction. With a major in Elementary Education, I’ve read a number of books concerning kids today, how they think, their expectations out of life, and their relationship with the media. Books such as Branded by Alissa Quart, Generation Me by Jean M. Twenge, and Born to Buy by Juliet Schor deal with today’s generation of kids pouring into our elementary and middle schools. Working at the YMCA in various school districts, I see up close the points these authors are trying to make. I definitely work with kids who have that sense of entitlement and are giving into the media and the way it markets to kids. I also am currently completing my Clinical II in a seventh grade classroom at Lake Shore Middle School and the kids are all the way suburban, from wealthy families, and seem more unsatisfied than ever, just as the previously-mentioned books say.
One of the main text-world connections I’ve made is with the kids that are discussed in a chapter in the book Branded. Quart devotes a chapter to how students today more than ever feel the pressure to receive SAT tutoring, get into an Ivy League school, and head towards a lucrative career. The seventh graders at Lake Shore worry about their grades on a daily basis because their parents are all over them. Looking at their getting-to-know-you sheets I handed out, most students stated they wanted to be doctors or lawyers, most likely because those are the careers of their parents. It hasn’t been discussed, but these students probably don’t know of any other option besides a university. They’ve been branded. I guess purposely choose books that have something to do with what I am dealing with in real life.
To continue the shift of text-world reading, I should probably pick up the newspaper more often. I’m not always on the ball with today’s happenings. Traveling more, meeting new people, and experiencing different cultures can also expand my background knowledge for when I read. I think also really trying to view what I read in a different light, similar to how we read the Shakespeare tragedies in class. We look at the characters and situations in a way I would never do on my own. Now having that experience, when I read, I can hopefully read a book and think of different references that I can relate to the real world.