I am a technical person – I do my level best to base my
arguments on logic over emotion. However, if Steve Almond were trying to argue
me into falling in love with his character’s beloved, he would not have a hard
time. It’s one thing to observe the consequences of desire in literature, it’s
another thing completely to feel the character’s whirlwind of emotions that
make the consequences irrelevant. I think this is what I found to be most
remarkable about Almond’s readings – he’s able to show the yin and the
yang of love. Where many authors seem to get caught in either romanticizing or
being bitter about love, he was able to let the character’s emotions in the
moment shape the tone.
Steve Almond did the most beautiful job of showing the
delicacy and the value of love and desire despite their inevitable downfalls. He
was able to describe the situation from the perspective of the person in love
in a real and relatable way, which is a difficult feat. While we were reading The Bad Girl, the general consensus of
the class seemed to be that Ricardo was being outrageously pathetic for his
lover. I didn’t feel Ricardo’s burning need for the Bad Girl’s acceptance – it
seemed like the reader had to delve deeper into the text to feel any character
empathy. Similarly, Madame Bovary was overwhelmingly disliked for her
flightiness and poor decisions. Although I found her relatable in some ways, I
had a hard time mustering up empathy for her situation because I didn’t feel as
though I had a raw understanding of her emotions. If Ricardo and Emma were
Almond’s characters, I don’t think I would have doubted their intelligence or
motives in the least.
I am nothing even reminiscent of a creative writer – the
characters in my writing are typically Greek letters and symbols that appear in
equations. However, I still found a lot of value in what Almond had to say
about exposing his characters emotionally through sex and desire. When in love,
I believe people are most vulnerable. Realizing a desire, or acting on that desire
opens a certain window of vulnerability because to our desires define what we
lack. In Skull, for example, Sharon’s
desire for Jake to be turned on by her false eye reflects the lack of
acceptance she’s felt in the past. Steve
Almond’s ability to convey that message so clearly is incredible; if anyone else
had tried to summarize Skull, my overall
reaction would most likely have been skepticism and doubt. He tackled something
of a mountain in this piece. Almond makes such a strong emotional argument about
the intimacy of skullfucking (I genuinely could not think of a less vulgar term
to use here) that you can’t even question it. It doesn’t seem strange or taboo,
and I can honestly say that there are very few things that can alter perception
that thoroughly.
On a casual sidenote, I went into the lecture with no
preconceived notions about Steve Almond, but left absolutely enchanted. I very
much enjoyed his readings and I feel as though I took a lot away from that
lecture. I surprise myself in saying this, but he actually made me wish I were a writer. This may not sound
noteworthy, but I can’t remember ever wishing to be anything other than a
mathematician. Although I still don’t anticipate any career changes in my
future, Almond certainly made me see and appreciate the art of writing in a vastly
different way.
No comments:
Post a Comment