Narrative

Story. Yesterday a student came into the writing center with an assignment. Hemingway claimed that the phrase "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" could be read as his autobiography. This student's teacher wanted him to identify what made that phrase a story and what could that story mean. I asked him what he thought made that phrase a story. He looked at me, smiled apologetically and said, "I'm sorry, Ma'am, I don't actually think its a story, I'm just writing that it is for the assignment." I hope the student left yesterday with a changed mind as well as a changed paper.

Hemingway's story, the terse collection of words and punctuation, imposes on the reader the lens through which he's asking us to look at him. Most of us go through life making stories out of experience; we interpret interactions, actions, and inaction narratively. Chronology, connections, and climax slip into our thoughts and spill out of our mouths often without us consciously aware of the verbal construction at work. As I find myself looking back and trying to craft my experiences into a mildly entertaining narrative, I'm more aware than usual of the potential for artificiality.

Story. I ventured inside the library on Monday. My religion and literature in Early Modern England had me comparing two different early english translations of the Bible. Our instructor stood in front of class and said, "now, I want you to realize what is at stake in the work of translation; you're literary scholars, this is what you do best. Get to the library and actually look at the Bibles we have there. Find a passage that is different between translations. Try to use some of the early ones, the Douay-Rheims, Geneva or Tyndale translations would be best. I guess if you have to use the Authorized King James Version, that's fine."

So there I was, in the library as ordered; I'd dutifully looked up the Douay-Rheims Bible, and I had the call number. I knew I was on the right floor because I was knee deep in biblical commentaries and concordances, but I could not find this book. So after walking up and down the three flights of stairs to double check that I had the right number, checking and double checking the library map and guide, I did what any young bewildered student might do; I asked a librarian for help. What did I get? A very nice albeit condescending tour of the third floor of the library, complete with a lesson on how to read call numbers (that stung my pride a bit...after all, I did know how to read call-numbers) and a lecture on the purpose of the reference section--something I was also aware of. All of which was spoken in a thick eastern european accent. What did I learn? The library stacks are half floors. So I needed to go up a half flight of stairs to 3a in order to find my book. All I can say is, that definitely wasn't on the map.

Story. The Douay-Rheims Bible is the Catholic translation of the Vulgate into English. It has undergone several revisions since the sixteenth century, but my understanding is that it remains heavily dependent on the Latin. The Tyndale and Geneva Bibles were early protestant translations that attempted to return to the Greek and Hebrew roots of scripture to translate. An early disagreement between Tyndale and Thomas Moore was Tyndale's choice to translate "ecclesia" as "congregation" rather than "church". Tyndale argued that people needed to know ecclesia included the laity as well as the leaders, and that it referred to a body of believers rather than an institution. However, later protestant translations returned to "church" as the translation of ecclesia. Our instructor used this example to illustrate the difficulty of translation when dealing with divinely inspired literature. He argued the reformers insisted optimistically that the ultimate meaning of the text could be understood and agreed upon by all true believers. However, if the meaning of language is created by the communities that use it, then differences in communities will ultimately create difference in interpretation. Interesting stuff, eh?

Story. Due tomorrow: writing assignment, unwritten.

Goodnight!