My 11th grade high school English class had a group of idealistic boys falling in love with Emerson and Thoreau. I had known this group of boys since elementary school when we all moved in a pack of popularity and conformity. Then seemingly overnight, their hair grew long, they stopped playing sports and they started listening to the Grateful Dead in the midst of the rise of rap music in the 1980s. I was drawn to them from my place in the shallows of cute outfits, gossip and Madonna. One day during our English class, one of them gave a presentation on the evils of capitalism and the value of self-reliance. At the end of his speech, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and a dollar bill. He flicked the lighter and the flame lit up bright and wavering. He brought the flame to the dollar bill, and we all watched the money burn in shock and amazement.
(A visit to Walden Pond to further contemplate Thoreau in his own neck of the woods…)
I thrived in high school English classes by listening to these boys discuss literature. I took notes as they talked hoping I wouldn’t be called on to contribute. Then on the test, I would write an essay invoking their words, their insights, their opinions all while trying to find my own understanding of the high school literary canon and the deep philosophical ideas they advanced. I thought of these boys often in college as I struggled to figure out my focus. I kept taking literature classes filling myself with words, with ideas, until it became obvious I should major in English. I ignored my fears that I wouldn’t be able to get from the literature what I was supposed to get because the words would always just be beautiful words to me and because reading would always be private for me, an experience I would not want to share with others around a seminar table filled with English majors. I was intimidated by the English majors at college; they all seemed to be the money burning types with an Emersonian air about them of having figured it all out. I felt intellectually inadequate with no original thoughts, just the ability to rehash what I heard others say. I was always hiding my dirty secret that I was raised on books but they were bestsellers by Robert Ludlum and Danielle Steele, beach reads not coffee shop reads.
I felt this same literary intimidation when we stopped to visit William Faulkner’s grave in Oxford, Mississippi. I half expected to see a group of English majors circled up seminar style at the tombstone spouting literary criticism and drinking whiskey. As I Lay Dying was required reading alongside Emerson and Thoreau in my 11th grade English class. Our English teacher, a picture of femininity in dresses every day and platinum blonde hair that lay in waves, gave us the necessary background information on stream of consciousness technique. But no matter how hard and quiet I read in my upstairs bedroom, I could not follow the plot. I read the CliffsNotes, slim black and yellow contraband volumes that back then could be purchased at the bookstore not googled with anonymity like today. If caught with CliffsNotes, the punishment in my circles felt like it would be to wear an embroidered scarlet letter, C for cheater, P for poser, S for simpleton.
I came to the grave with appreciation for what Faulkner really represented for me, that time in our life when we begin to stretch ourselves, our minds particularly, beyond our familial inheritances. In high school English class, books and discussion illuminated something inside of me that helped me move toward a life of the mind, contemplative, introspective, reflective.
My husband, who is a history teacher, also found Faulkner impenetrable when he was younger, but when our oldest son chose As I Lay Dying off a ninth grade reading list, Chris decided to read it with him. They had conversations about how well Faulkner knew his people and how masterfully he captured the poor, white, Southern experience. With a middle age perspective on his own mother, Chris was drawn to the matriarchal power of Addie and the subtle and not so subtle influences she exacts on her children. My son praised the character development and Faulkner’s mastery of perspective. Jack sounded a little like those boys in my English class, and I admired him and his keen mind. And I still do today.
After our visit to the grave, we went to Square Books in the charming historic district of Oxford, MS. We bought a used copy of As I Lay Dying for our daughter to read.
All through lunch at Boure, a lovely restaurant in the historic square, the book peeked out from the bookstore bag waiting patiently for Emma. We ate Shrimp Po Boy sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches and salmon sandwiches and were astonished by the feel of the napkins at Boure forgetting for a moment that we were in cotton country.
After lunch, Emma settled in the backseat of the car with Faulkner. She smoothed the curling corners of the used book and stared for a moment at the 1985 cover of Addie’s body in the rustic coffin built by Cash. She began reading on the highways of Mississippi heading out of Oxford. She sighed and shifted in her seat, leaned her head against the car window, her eyelids heavy. The book slid to the floor. She picked it up later, read a few more pages then exclaimed to us all, “This makes no sense!” She tossed it on the floor, pushed it under the seat with her foot and would not be persuaded to read further. I love her independent mind (the same way I love Jack’s keen mind) and how she is like me but not like me. At her age, I would have pretended to read, faked my way through it.
As for Emma, she left it dog-eared at page 77, and at the end of the trip, we found Faulkner still shoved under the seat.