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A ‘life-changing’ book
Two weeks ago, after my class and I read Lydia Millet’s My Happy Life, we talked about how the book affected us. I asked them to describe how they felt immediately after they finished reading the book. I tried to explain to them that after I finished reading My Happy Life, I just sat in my house at my desk and stared at the wall and felt emotions, but as I felt the emotions, I had a hard time realizing which emotions I was feeling, as if the realization that I was feeling emotions was incompatible with the actual feeling of emotions. Does that make sense? Then I stopped talking and looked at my class and giggled.
Anyhow, some of the students also added their experiences to my own, and though I can’t remember all that was exactly said, I remember that what was often described was this sense that the book left the student both feeling happy and sad (this seemed to be an exciting part of the conversation because it required us to keep in mind sadness and happiness simultaneously), that the book had made the student think about the ‘details’ and ‘little things’ of his or her life (remember the narrator’s collection of tiny objects?), that no matter how shitty you think your life is…and so on.
Then a student called the book ‘life-changing,’ and I asked her what that meant, had the book actually changed anything in her life? Well no, she said, nothing had actually changed, she still did the usual things, but she felt that how she thought about things had changed. So then, certainly, the change in your thinking has led to some change of action, I said. Again, not exactly, she said, but the student insisted that, still, her life had changed in some way, that the book had changed her life. She just couldn’t explain how.
I wasn’t convinced, so I told my class the story of my reading Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov this past summer, a book that should have changed my life, but didn’t (so I thought a couple weeks ago). I told them that I had begun reading the book the day I left for Russia and had finished reading the book on the flight home, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I told them that I recalled thinking as I finished the book that I really wished I had some direction in my life, that I wished I ‘knew’ things, wished I had principles and didn’t always feel confused by people and words and so on, and I told them that I sat in my airplane seat and wrote down on a sheet of paper, which I have since lost, a little list of things I meant to do, once I got home, to improve myself as a person. The list said things like be a better husband, commit to writing for real, be serious at teaching, and so on. I told them that it was a very sincere and melodramatic moment in my life, one caused by a ‘life-changing’ book, that has since passed into the history of me, a mere blip in the randomness of my life. I told my class that all of this happened in June, but that I had not actually changed the way I lived each day. I felt like the same person as I did earlier; therefore, I couldn’t help but doubt someone who claimed to have had their life changed by a book. I told my class that I thought this phrase, ‘a life-changing book,’ was a consequence of some cultural fascination with immediate gratification. I know, blahblahblah, roll your eyes (though I do think there is something to that discussion and to my disliking of the phrase ‘life-changing,’ I realize now that I wasn’t being fair, that I was purposefully misunderstanding change and how it could come about, that I was being stubborn — sometimes I do this in class and have to catch myself).
Or rather my students catch me.
And one did this time. She suggested that change does not have to be immediate. She said the change could occur slowly, that it was probably still occurring, that my sharing this with them right now was evidence that the book was still working on me, however subtly. I didn’t think much of her comment at that time, but it has since caused me to revisit this book; I hope to post about it soon. Her comment reminded me that I ought to try to make sense of it and of, in a bigger sense, the phrase ‘life-changing’ and how I am affected by reading literature.
Tags: lydia millet, my happy life
this is a really great post, ryan.
this is a really great post, ryan.
also, is that you in the picture?
also, is that you in the picture?
it is me yes
thankyou
it is me yes
thankyou
great post. hmm. it’s got me thinking.
i would say that The Stranger, for me, was life-changing. i can’t yet gauge the difference in action taken (so, it wasn’t immediate outside of the once-finished shit-now-i-have-to-examine-and-define-my-belief-system moment) but it lead to a more serious examination and experience of art and philosophy and being. if that makes sense.
but that book, and maybe two others, have had that subconscious slow burn effect on me. if it pervades your thought in any way, and deeply, than i would say it is unavoidably life-changing (sans the buzzword nature of the term; which is to say that probably more moments than can ever be recalled within the span of a lifetime ultimately are life-changing in the most subtle, quasi-quantum ways.)
brain is humming. sorry if none of this makes sense.
great post. hmm. it’s got me thinking.
i would say that The Stranger, for me, was life-changing. i can’t yet gauge the difference in action taken (so, it wasn’t immediate outside of the once-finished shit-now-i-have-to-examine-and-define-my-belief-system moment) but it lead to a more serious examination and experience of art and philosophy and being. if that makes sense.
but that book, and maybe two others, have had that subconscious slow burn effect on me. if it pervades your thought in any way, and deeply, than i would say it is unavoidably life-changing (sans the buzzword nature of the term; which is to say that probably more moments than can ever be recalled within the span of a lifetime ultimately are life-changing in the most subtle, quasi-quantum ways.)
brain is humming. sorry if none of this makes sense.
i think it’s probably a good thing that you are stubborn in your pov as a teacher.
i usually don’t realize things unless someone says something i disagree with. i think some of my best teachers said things they didn’t believe on purpose all the time so i could ‘prove to them’ why they were wrong (in fact, i often couldn’t believe they thought what they were saying was true) and then they would have this smirk on their face and never tell me what they did.
sometimes i later began to agree with them but changed my mind or something, and continue to debate myself on many of those points all the time. i think that’s a good thing. and i don’t think questioning the validity of the term ‘life-changing’ is bad, at all
i think it’s probably a good thing that you are stubborn in your pov as a teacher.
i usually don’t realize things unless someone says something i disagree with. i think some of my best teachers said things they didn’t believe on purpose all the time so i could ‘prove to them’ why they were wrong (in fact, i often couldn’t believe they thought what they were saying was true) and then they would have this smirk on their face and never tell me what they did.
sometimes i later began to agree with them but changed my mind or something, and continue to debate myself on many of those points all the time. i think that’s a good thing. and i don’t think questioning the validity of the term ‘life-changing’ is bad, at all
Wallace’s Oblivion
(You are still young)
Wallace’s Oblivion
(You are still young)
what does ‘you are still young’ mean?
what does ‘you are still young’ mean?
your nut sack is full and perky?
your nut sack is full and perky?
“i usually don’t realize things unless someone says something i disagree with. i think some of my best teachers said things they didn’t believe on purpose all the time so i could ‘prove to them’ why they were wrong (in fact, i often couldn’t believe they thought what they were saying was true) and then they would have this smirk on their face and never tell me what they did.”
i like this a lot. i say so many ridiculous things so often i doubt i am committed to anything i really say. i just wanna get my students talking and most of the time it can happen by just saying something you know is flawed. its a good conversation starter.
I liked this post a lot, and I liked that book a lot, too.
“i usually don’t realize things unless someone says something i disagree with. i think some of my best teachers said things they didn’t believe on purpose all the time so i could ‘prove to them’ why they were wrong (in fact, i often couldn’t believe they thought what they were saying was true) and then they would have this smirk on their face and never tell me what they did.”
i like this a lot. i say so many ridiculous things so often i doubt i am committed to anything i really say. i just wanna get my students talking and most of the time it can happen by just saying something you know is flawed. its a good conversation starter.
I liked this post a lot, and I liked that book a lot, too.
this is great, it is something i think about. i hear people say that books change their lives, and it makes me feel like a bad reader. i think it would be more often accurate to say that a book changed my mind, or my heart
this is great, it is something i think about. i hear people say that books change their lives, and it makes me feel like a bad reader. i think it would be more often accurate to say that a book changed my mind, or my heart
haha, indeed!
haha, indeed!
Nice work buddy.
Nice work buddy.
i liked this. sometimes i think to myself ‘white noise changed my life’ and laugh and feel silly and a little shame at my shallow thoughts sometimes. lets move it to the next level. so far all i’ve done is have my cable cut off.
reading ‘underground man’ was sort of ‘life-changing.’ realizing that cosmic bitterness and indignation could be turned into art maybe.
i liked this. sometimes i think to myself ‘white noise changed my life’ and laugh and feel silly and a little shame at my shallow thoughts sometimes. lets move it to the next level. so far all i’ve done is have my cable cut off.
reading ‘underground man’ was sort of ‘life-changing.’ realizing that cosmic bitterness and indignation could be turned into art maybe.
I’m excited to learn of your students’ responses. Next term, I’m teaching My Happy Life, alongside Sapphire’s PUSH, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Kevin Wilson’s Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, and the Keillor-edited poetry anthology Good Poems for Hard Times. The theme, lifted from the antho, is “hard times.” I hope the course is life-changing.
I’m excited to learn of your students’ responses. Next term, I’m teaching My Happy Life, alongside Sapphire’s PUSH, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Kevin Wilson’s Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, and the Keillor-edited poetry anthology Good Poems for Hard Times. The theme, lifted from the antho, is “hard times.” I hope the course is life-changing.
“as I felt the emotions, I had a hard time realizing which emotions I was feeling, as if the realization that I was feeling emotions was incompatible with the actual feeling of emotions.”
that in and of itself can be explored for sleepless days. i remember years ago when i would unintentionally slip into a meditative state and hover in the space of awareness where there is an active awareness without language-based thoughts, in which awareness became a gathering place for the contents of consciousness, emerging emotions and whatnot, which, yes, i had no idea what emotions they were and the moment i tried to mentally frame or articulate what i was feeling it would then dissolve and slip away. of course a lot has already been said and a lot more could be said about the nature of observation, whether scientific or phenomenological, and how it sometimes alters the nature of that which is being observed; which overlaps heavily with the concept of defamiliarization, from a literary and psychological standpoint.
two monks were sitting in a field and one monk pointed to a tree and said ‘they call that a tree’ and both of them started laughing. ‘the moviegoer’ has a few interesting passages about defamiliarization of everyday objects, very reminiscent of heidegger. but consciousness, when objectified by an act of self-awareness (as in your case above), is even more amazing and inconceivable as a simultaneous observation-observed event, an at once split-and-divided phenomenon even when artificially self-contained as in a sensory deprivation tank. it takes very little to defamiliarize one’s own consciousness, and consequentially one’s own sense of self. life is so whacked. and so boring. all at the same time. it’s fucking nuts.
“as I felt the emotions, I had a hard time realizing which emotions I was feeling, as if the realization that I was feeling emotions was incompatible with the actual feeling of emotions.”
that in and of itself can be explored for sleepless days. i remember years ago when i would unintentionally slip into a meditative state and hover in the space of awareness where there is an active awareness without language-based thoughts, in which awareness became a gathering place for the contents of consciousness, emerging emotions and whatnot, which, yes, i had no idea what emotions they were and the moment i tried to mentally frame or articulate what i was feeling it would then dissolve and slip away. of course a lot has already been said and a lot more could be said about the nature of observation, whether scientific or phenomenological, and how it sometimes alters the nature of that which is being observed; which overlaps heavily with the concept of defamiliarization, from a literary and psychological standpoint.
two monks were sitting in a field and one monk pointed to a tree and said ‘they call that a tree’ and both of them started laughing. ‘the moviegoer’ has a few interesting passages about defamiliarization of everyday objects, very reminiscent of heidegger. but consciousness, when objectified by an act of self-awareness (as in your case above), is even more amazing and inconceivable as a simultaneous observation-observed event, an at once split-and-divided phenomenon even when artificially self-contained as in a sensory deprivation tank. it takes very little to defamiliarize one’s own consciousness, and consequentially one’s own sense of self. life is so whacked. and so boring. all at the same time. it’s fucking nuts.