Both of the readings this week left me completely spent, and I loved it. Doyle is right to celebrate the flexible nature of the essay. Yet, where Doyle’s essay is an enthusiastic declaration on the freedom of the genre, I feel that Rankin’s essay is a lesson on how to powerfully wield it.
First of all, both authors challenge the established rules of Standard English grammar and syntax in their writing. After reading many student compositions, and after experiencing a few of my own epic failures, I have determined that this ability--the ability of an artist to know when and how to break established constructs effectively--only comes after the artist has mastered them. (Have you seen Picasso's early works?) When done right, these choices complicate and enrich the reader’s overall experience.
Doyle’s repetitive sentences of praise for the essay roll on and on, leaving me nearly breathless by the end. Rankine uses the same tactic in her writing, but she is more frugal in her choice of when and where. Her timing, combined with her subject matter and imagery, not only took my breath away, but elevated my pulse at the same time. Thank goodness both authors serve their chunks of prose small enough to be swallowed whole without choking, and thank goodness for breaks that allowed me the chance to come up for air.
What I found to be so effective in “Citizen” was how Rankine used two styles, or forms, of essay to prepare and influence my reaction to the subject matter. Her first section contains chunks of lyrical prose that rise to the top of each page. Each chunk captures an experience of casual racism. These chunks are full of imagery and run-on sentences that decide the speed and emotion of the read, and create a slight sense of confusion. I felt that the use of “you” in these chunks invited/challenged/dared me to almost approach the experiences as a participant. Moment after moment, page after page of casual racism led me to wonder if there was no end. Later in her writing, Rankine compares racism to “a low flame, a constant drip” that builds until someone breaks. Her form reflects her intent, and it left me completely worn out.
With this form, Rankine emotionally prepares her audience. By the time the I have arrived at the more straightforward essay on the racial injustices against Serena Williams, I have been sufficiently emotionally contextualized.
Cheryl, I totally agree with you in so many ways. And I wasn't quite sure how to phrase it but yes these pieces left me feeling spent. And also on your grammar note I hate to admit how totally true this is, and right you are. Sometimes I like to pretend like the mistakes I make are these artistic choices, but the truth is I don't know what rules I am breaking and so the affect is always less than desired and so uncontrolled that everyone, including myself, is just really confused. Boo hoo.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't and probably am still not sure how to respond to Rankine's piece, and in a way do not think I can on a content level. I always feel, adn perhaps I should, that I immediately out of my realm when any race card or culture card is put on the table. This deep fear of saying the wrong thing, of being that person has led to years of silence and to be honest a lack of education in an arena where I feel like, I don't get a voice, no matter how much I read or know or what I think. I'm not sure it will ever matter, it's not a conversation I am invited into, and I do not mean that in a sad sort of way. There I go again, being careful. So, in that Cheryl I like that you turn toward language and toward syntax, a ground any piece of writing by anyone can be evaluated of discussed upon, it is almost like math in a way. It transcends content and speaks in a universality of writing itself. I had hadn't put together the way I am led up to the Serena section of the piece, but hearing you point this out, it seems not only obvious but perfectly crafted. I never would have had the same reactions, and likely did not at the time of these events taking place, as I did when it followed those more casual musing and moments on race. I did feel rather disjointed for many of the sections and I wonder if that isn't an attempt by the writer to replicate the feeling being had within the piece itself. Like, I am always inevitably left out in some way.
I also have to take a moment and rave about how much I love the Doyle piece. He is the same writer of the hummingbird piece last week, yes? I think so. And I am s enthralled in his voice just as I was in last weeks, and he even says, "we just dig the voice." And I dig that he uses the word dig! It kind of rattled my mind a little this easy concept that in essays we gravitate because we are using something so much closer to a speaking voice than we would in any other genre. I also felt a little warm and fuzzy inside when he went off about how fun it is, how there are no rules, how we can do whatever we want. And the whole time I am thinking, no wonder I love this much.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed both essays. The Rankine was the evocative one, in terms of challenging my thinking; the Doyle I loved because it was just so joyous to read. It was like a guy scribbling on a roll, just spontaneously erupting with energy. But of course he surely edited, thought it through and revised to some degree, but such is his craft that I couldn't see or feel that kind of laboring. It was as if words flew off the paper and raced forward and I was on the raft with him heading through the rapids (do I have enough metaphors here?). It was a pleasure to read it.
ReplyDeleteRankine's was not a pleasure to read, in that sense. It had too many difficult things to say. Instead of a raft heading downstream, hers was submersion, looking under the surface by looking at the surface, the every day, the established and unquestioned. Perhaps each story was a dive into that deep water. Each story was epiphanal in itself, cumulatively they were an indictment.
I think I had a different read on both of these pieces. With Rankine's piece I was pulled right in. Her language (in the begining half) was evocative and thought provoking and for me as a white male helped me to experience racism in a way that permeates daily life. When she uses lines like, "as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you" and "acting like this moment isn't inhabitable" one begins to understand the incremental rage that she describes in the second half with her exposition on Serena Williams. What I found distressing was her lack of investigation of the other factors involved with regards to the incidents and tennis generally. It wasn't Serena suffering from poor line calls and loss of tempers nor was she solely the only professional tennis player to have their body set against the stodgy white background. This reminds me of our discussion last week about omitting crucial details to serve the purpose of the story--which by omission change the entire tack of the read. In Rankine's case I think she would have been better served to use her own experiences because it grants the reader the specificity needed to process the information she is giving us. When you bring celebrity into the mix I think the entire argument becomes another abstraction to filter through to find meaning. And interpretation of events becomes murky and further complicates the discussion.
ReplyDeleteWith Doyle's piece I think I took issue with the way he contructed his argument. I happen to agree with most of his assertions about the essay and I do believe Doyle when he says, "isn't hearts and heads the point". However I think that hearts and heads can be won successfully using any genre and that the essay doesn't have an exclusive rein over the ability to connect to the hearts and heads. Additionally when Doyle uses rhetoric like, "decipher, dental work, glittering neurotic screen, and door step" in reference to the genre he wishes to reflect the merits of the essay against, I think that he diminishes his argument by devaluing other genre. Certainly we can agree that these epithets can be tagged to all writing and what Doyle is espousing about the Essay can also be to blame for door stops, dental work and indecipherablity. My point is this, Doyle is really pointing to clues that are characteristic to all good writing (even if he doesn't think so) and if we read his essay with this in mind we can pull away some tangible guidance to pull into our own writing--no matter what genre it might lay.
I'm really enjoying reading the comments this week on these two provocative pieces. You got us off to a good start Cheryl. The Rankine piece is exhausting. I agree. One of the blurbs on the back of the book says that the book "comes at you like doom." Naturally, white readers of work on racism--especially if they're serious, self-aware people--feel implicated by the narrative. How to respond to this? One option is to be dismissive--"thank god, I'm not like that"--but somehow that seems too self-serving, too dishonest. I think most of us just feel morally exhausted--sad that the world is this way, guilty about our privilege, and silent, not knowing what to say. I studied African American literature in grad school, and fiction didn't make me feel this way. Nonfiction always did. Yet a careful reading of Citizen, which is not crippled by moral exhaustion and guilt, still has much to offer. You're right, Cheryl and Erin, that Rankine's lyric language is safe grounds for analysis, but so too is the idea at the heart of her Serena essay: that "actual anger" among racism's victims is risky business because it risks psychological disassociation Serena had to create a different persona to function as "graphite" against a white background, but when "actual anger" surfaces, the face sweating under the mask is suddenly someone else entirely. Someone threatening. Someone rude. Someone profane with "no respect for the game." It's hard to imagine living like that.
ReplyDeleteI share the enthusiasm about the Doyle piece, which exemplifies the playfulness that he argues is the beating heart of the essay.
Is it naive or wrong of me to believe that I can (and even am invited to) have empathy for Rankine's experience?
ReplyDeleteWhen I read a piece with this type of "you" pronoun, I automatically read it as an invitation to view the world through the narrator's eyes for a moment: Imagine this.
Imagine this: The girl, looking over at you, tells her mother, these are our seats, but this is not what I expected. The mother's response is barely audible--I see, she says, I'll sit in the middle.
Imagine this: Feeling somewhat responsible for the actions of your neighbor, you clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard. He looks at you a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants. Yes, of course, you say. Yes, of course.
Imagine this: At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?
Will I ever fully understand the impact or significance of these moments in Rankine's life? Absolutely not. Just like I will never understand what it's like to have an abortion and/or make a decision like that. Yet to me, if I've read a piece that contains a foreign experience and then all I can do is say to myself "how awful that this happens--how awful that she has to endure this" and leave it at that, then I personally feel like I'm not doing the piece justice, as a reader.
For me, one of the reasons I write is to be understood--not just comprehended, but understood. Will a person ever truly, deeply understand exactly my experience? No. (Not even those who go through the experience with me.) In order to do that they would've had to follow me since birth and have my exact mindset (which is never gonna happen for any of us). But could someone try to understand me--feel what I felt, if only for a short moment? I believe they can. And my hope, at least for my writing, is that they do.
Just a sidebar: I thought Rankine's book won the poetry award at a recent thing, and it did. I'm not sure if this changes things, but these pieces we read did feel closer to essays than poems--so it would be interesting to see if more of what we consider poems to look like, make up the rest of the book. I liked the Rankine pieces a lot--they didn't l;eave me worn out, but intrigued and provoked, as though people of different races/experiences/privileges would relate more or less to certain rhetorical aspects of the prose. I could have happily read the rest of the book. The Doyle essay was playful, as the title suggests, but I did find this kind of boring. I'm a lot more into David Foster Wallace and the way he combines sentence pyrotechnics with a concrete subject--and one that is investigated.
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