in my youth, during my masters at memphis state, long may the old name live!, i mocked a professor for making a boon companion of a novel’s character.
well, not really, i didn’t mock her for that… i mocked her for the novel she chose. but her’s, and maybe this is what you do when you make a novel’s character your boon companion, was more bibliomancy than anything else.
there is a certain chilean authorix, who isn’t bad, much like mitchner’s not a bad author, but if you want the source read hemingway. anyway, there is a certain chilean authorix whose first literary career was little more than the blatant copying of garcia marquez… and technically this is true. she is, no doubt, the best of the many magical realtors out there peddling their fantastical 3rd worlds to wide-eyed, world-savy 1st worlders… i digress.
after she let us know that she makes no major decision in her life without first consulting the main characters of the novel at the beginning of the class, i, quite gauche, asked her… doesn’t it seem to you that this isn’t anything more than 100 years of solitude, just from a woman’s perspective. she turned red; her head spun 360 degrees and she yelled across the room: “you could never understand this novel… you’re a man.”
it wasn’t until after the class that i began to mock her. but, since then i’ve had other female friends tell me how much this novel means to them and that this book is a woman’s book, that as a man i could never understand it.
This is a really strange story since, of men, you are more likely to understand a woman’s book.
by greg—Dec 6, 09:08 AM
in seriousness
and forgetfulness,i had a comparable story to tell all ready last night., but in sleep i forgot it.it has been remembered!in a seminar i once attended, over the course of three weeks we studied reception criticism. as with all seminars we had final papers to write. one of my co-seminarees, who had already made herself something of an outsider, resolved that she would estrange herself from everyone for good. she would write her essay about moll flanders, she said, and she would disagree with everything we had studied. “i believe these characters are real people, she asserted, because they act like real people and inhabit my mind in a way that no mere characters ever could! the way you people talk about characters is immoral.” with that she proceeded to chastise us for ruining her three weeks with so much empty talk of theory and stuff.
by greg—Dec 6, 11:20 AM
wow! that’s a great story!
re:1 uh, thanks? i suppose.
by Jeremy—Dec 6, 11:31 AM
It was a tense moment, to be sure. We all, including the professor, thought she was insane.
by greg—Dec 6, 11:34 AM
One of B’s colleagues during her masters once wrote a mass email, whose recipients included all of the students in her cohort, detailing how she had eaten her housemates food, and how guilty she felt over it. School had started only a few months ago, and they all barely knew each other.
Same girl asked B if she could borrow her debit card to buy a plane ticket a few weeks later.
by JH—Dec 6, 01:07 PM
Although the girl I mentioned seems to be simply neurotic, rather than straight-up crazy, as seems to be the case with your example.
by JH—Dec 6, 01:19 PM
Also, you neglected to add, she was a mooch.
by greg—Dec 6, 01:22 PM
A magnificent one, yes. I haven’t even told 1/4 of her mooching stories. More than once B and I have lain in bed laughing ourselves sore in the belly about this girl.
by JH—Dec 6, 01:32 PM
Well? The comment box doesn’t fill itself with text, you know.
by greg—Dec 6, 01:40 PM
Oh you’re insatiable! (And I’m so gay for saying that.) The stories lose much of their humor if you don’t know the parties involved. Suffice it to say, nearly every holiday break she somehow got herself invited to some student’s family’s country home (she had an uncanny knack for ferreting out who came from money and who didn’t). She even browbeat someone into letting her use their house in Switzerland when they weren’t even there themselves!
by JH—Dec 6, 02:06 PM