A few months ago, I read a novel that my uncle wrote. In one part of the story, the character talks about his college experience . . . at BYU. This bothered me at first. Why did my uncle name the university? Suddenly I was trying to imagine the elements of the story taking place on the sidewalks that I tread every day. I felt betrayed somehow, because the story felt shallow and even stupid in the context of the university that I attend. I tried to get over it by reminding myself that Louisa May Alcott was praised for writing about what she knew. This wasn’t entirely effective, though. Can I dare to admit that I am concerned about what this means for others who are reading the book? Can they know what it means to be a student at Brigham Young University? Will this story be tainted by their false ideas about it? Or, perhaps, I am analyzing the wrong group. Maybe it is only those of us who have attended BYU that would have this reaction that I was struggling with.
As I have pondered this recently, I think that is exactly what it is. BYU is far too familiar to me. The mystery of the novel was lost on me when it was tethered to world that is not up to interpretation. I can take the word university and make it whatever I want—attach my own experiences it to it, or fantasize about things that were never part of my college experience, but I cannot do that when university becomes a specific university and most particularly, my university.
This idea is exactly what chapter one focuses on. Yet, even as I was reading about finding art in the ordinary, I found myself wrapped up in the everyday of other people. What about my every day? If that refrigerator were my refrigerator and that dog were my dog, would I look at it the same way? Of course not. Would I value it as much? Probably not. As I consider this, it seems arrogant to me: they way I look at an ordinary refrigerator and dig into the image looking for meaning, but somehow don’t feel the same need to dig into a photograph of my own refrigerator. Why? Because I already know my story. But do I really?
I thought this post was extremely intriguing Liz because your comments actually set up a context which changed how I viewed the situation. It's kind of an interesting phenomena because no matter what, whenever we tell some sort of story, we're always setting up a context for the audience in which they experience what we want them to experience. For you, you told us about your Uncle's novel and the effect it had on you as an actual student at the University he wrote about. In spite of the fact that I'm in the same educational situation as you, I can appreciate how your Uncle's novel made you uneasy simply because of the context of your story. I obviously don't have an uncle who has done that but even so, because of how you told your story, I was able to appreciate the sentiments you have and understand your meaning. What I'm trying to say is 'well done Liz, I get where you're coming from thanks to context you provided me.'
ReplyDeleteThats a super good example of the concept of the platonic ideal! That's what I got out of your post. You read the word 'campus' and your mind's eye creates the image of an ideal campus, not necessarily one that actually exists, but one that's full of elements of a college campus. Like, if a movie has a scene in a library, they don't have to take you to (such and such) library on Avenue X and Cicero, but you just have to see things, like books and shelves, that will create the library environment.
ReplyDeleteWe do that with every story we hear when we aren't given every single detail, so it makes sense that it's sort of a disappointment when some as specific as 'BYU' is mentioned.
I guess that's just the romanticism in us, not wanting to be part of the mundane, but wishing that this life, in my opinion, was more like a movie.