Ch-ch-change....

It's amazing how much the process of becoming a teacher has changed me.

Not that I consider myself to be a full-blown "experienced" teacher yet.  I'm still in the process of becoming that.  Sure, I teach college composition, and I'm teaching a literature class now, but when people ask me what I do, my answer is still that I'm a graduate student working on a ph.d.  I don't ever say that I'm a teacher, unless I'm asked whether or not I have to teach or do I want to use my ph.d. to teach.  I suppose that the actual act of teaching isn't enough to make one a teacher.  Part of that becoming involves actually thinking of oneself as a teacher.  I am struggling to get to the point where I can see myself in this light.

While there is a large support group at my school for those instructors who teach college composition, there isn't something similar for those of us who are graduate students teaching literature courses, and I really wish there was.  Each instructor has to take the initiative to reach out to other instructors and find out what similar challenges we face and get tips from each other on how to handle a wide variety of issues.  And while I always enjoy these one-on-one discussions and usually leave with the sense that I'm not the only one facing these challenges, I often feel like learning to teach literature to students is a process of trial and error.

This is where I feel like I've changed during this continuing process of becoming a teacher.  I've always been pretty self-confident, but this whole teaching business--well, that's made a pretty insecure person.  I always think I've come up with such great and stimulating questions to ask students and to open discussion but it doesn't always work out that way.  But...I will persevere and this insecurity has led me to have to always be willing to try new things.

Still, part of me wonders if even experienced teachers find that old saying true...we all lead quiet lives of desperation...

Felicia's Journey

so a little while ago i finished reading william trevor's book felicia's journey.  if you're looking for something with a happy or inspiring ending, this book is definitely not it.  but i'm getting ahead of myself.

here's a basic plot summary without giving away the ultimate ending of the book.  our title character, felicia, is a really young "Irish girl" (she's referred to that way so many times it's a little ridiculous) who--you guessed it--falls in love with an Irish lad who's a total rake.  Felicia's father tells her that she shouldn't see him because there are rumors that Johnny has become a member of the British Army.  however, daddy's warning comes to late, as felicia has already been "ruined" and finds herself pregnant with johnny's baby.  being the rake that he is, he's given her false information as to what he does for living and where he lives and leaves her with no address and a flimsy promise that he'll be back to see her at christmas before hopping on a bus and leaving.  felicia, learning that she's pregnant, determines to go to england and find her lover and break the news and then together they can decide what to do.  she goes to england, and of course can't find him.  that's where the other character--mr. hilditch--comes in.  she stops him for directions, and then later he gives her a recommendation for a place where she can spend the night.  mr. hilditch, of course, is no good man, even though everyone who knows him would testify to that very idea.  rather, he's the serial killer named on the back of the book (i don't think this is a spoiler because this is pretty obvious from the get-go).  suffice it to say, mr. hilditch gets felicia to trust him and more bad things happen to her.

it's difficult to figure out which is supposed to be felicia's greatest folly in the early part of the book--getting pregnant, leaving home without knowing where she's going, or trusting hilditch. what the author does seem to be trying to convey is that all of these follies are committed due to felicia's innocence and "simple" upbringing.  that she's completely naive and has been seduced and preyed upon by an unconscionable man.  there is also the sense too that somehow felicia's family has failed to protect her...that they were ineffectual safeguards for her innocence.  her mother died when she was a child, and her father is more concerned with felicia's state of unemployment and insists that she work part-time so that in her other time she can care for her centenarian great-grandmother and cook and clean for her two brothers who still live at home.  she has another brother who has recently married, who is a plasterer by trade, but eventually gives up that trade in order to help run his wife's family's store. her father doesn't realize that felicia has been dating johnny until it's far too late, and her brothers spend their anger on johnny by beating and kicking him one night outside of bar when he finally does return to felicia's small town after she has left. all three men are made to appear useless and completely unaware of what's going on with a woman they live with and see everyday (but then again, isn't that typical?).  further still, not only is felicia a good Irish girl, but she's a good Catholic Irish girl, who went to school at a convent.  she doesn't go to the sisters for guidance with her trouble, and there seems to be an implication that rather than aiding her in her time of need, she'll be scorned and outcasted. what further complicates all this is the one-dimensional woodenness of felicia's character.  the author doesn't do a really good job of drawing her and completing a full character.  she remains fate's plaything for most of the novel until the final climactic scene, but even then, she is portrayed as having given in to her fate without any fight and without any real interest in living life.  

of course, i can't comment upon this without discussing what seems to be an overt attempt to make a political statement about Irish/British relations.  this book was written in 1994.  but it seems to me that with the character of johnny and the rumor that he (being native Irish) is in the british army not only speaks to the lengths that irish have been forced to go in order to survive, but also it can be read as a metaphor for empire--the evil, cunning british seducing the innocent, simple irish and then walking away, feeling no responsibility at all for the destruction they've wrought, leaving the irish to deal with the ramifications and consequences of the imperial encounter.  even felicia's continued passivity and hilditch's aggressive behavior (hilditch being british) only repeats that imperial encounter except in a different setting--which would seem to suggest that the irish are not safe from the british in their own country or in england.  felicia's corrupted innocence and her ultimate fate seem to be inescapable and irretrievable.  perhaps that's why this book doesn't have a happy ending.

while i think trevor's character development is lacking (unless of course, he intended this so that felicia could stand in for the greater idea of Ireland) his writing is beautiful and evocative. on that level, i can see why there were so many rave reviews printed on the back of this book. also, there seems something very familiar in the style of this book.  meaning, this is the third book in a row that i've read by an irish writer.  this book is more contemporary than dubliners, but it does have a modernist feel to it as far as the style of storytelling.  i suppose as i read more contemporary irish writing i will be able to better be able to tell whether this is a tradition of irish literature.  meaning, even though it's not "modern" it can be said to be a descendant of that literary genre.  it's odd because here i am once more, not sure whether i liked this book or not.  i can say that i liked it more than the third policeman.  i can also say that it leaves me with a lot to think about and ponder over, and there was even a moment when i wondered if my 110 students would like this book.  i also wonder if a lot of scholarly work has been done on this book and whether or not my reading is what everyone else sees.  in any case, if you pick up this book, be prepared for the possibility of an unsatisfying ending.  

next up -- brian moore's lies of silence.  it seems like i can read a book every two days, so perhaps a new blog post by 8/6. but no guarantees!

The Third Policeman

So I finished reading The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.  This is a strange strange little book. But I have to say that there is definitely a panoptic moment near the end of it that might prove useful in future writing.  However, the silver lining comes, strangely after book has ended. there's a page where the author is writing to william saroyan telling him that he thinks he could turn the book into a play.  In this letter, he basically explains the premise of the story that you don't get if you haven't been reading particularly well.  I'll try not to give away the entire story, but O'Brien explains that the story is a metaphor for what he thinks hell must be like for those who have earned a ticket there.  It's a place where you have to live the same events over and over again, never learning that you are dead or that you're even in hell.  What this letter doesn't make clear, though, is another odd thread that weaves through the book, and honestly, this may have been explained in the front matter to the book that I skipped (as is my generally rule since I don't want to have the story spoiled for me before I even start it).  The main character is constantly talking about a philosopher--de Selby--who I assume is a fictional person created to add a farcical element to the story.  Throughout the book, there are footnotes that explain particular aspects of de Selby's research, since the main character fancies himself to be a foremost authority on de Selby and has hopes of publishing a book about him and his work.  I had thought that eventually there would be some kind of parallel between the critics of de Selby's work who are alluded to in the footnotes and the main characters of the novel, but if there is supposed to be some parallel, I gotta admit that I didn't quite catch it.  Interestingly enough, in O'Brien's letter to Saroyan he does say that the story is intended to be funny, and yet he also expresses his uncertainty as to whether or not the comedy actually comes across.  I, too, wonder about this so-called comedic element that the story is supposed to have.  The back cover of the book that gives the typical snapshot of what the book is about also says that it is supposed to be funny.  I just didn't get the humor.  I mean yes, the business with the bicycles is funny, but if I were recommending this book to someone, I certainly wouldn't tell them that it's funny.  Then again, maybe it's just a kind of dry humor I failed to get.  

The good news is that finishing the book gives me another check mark on my exam lists, and check marks are what I am all about these days.  The next book up:  Felicia's Journey by William Trevor.