Why I’m not an English major

It’s simple, really: literary theory is booooooooooooring.

I suppose I’d better explain. I love books. I adore literature. I’m going to be a librarian. I can’t stop writing. I “have the soul of an English major,” as they say. Or at least as the guy next to me at the devotional four or five weeks ago said.

Why didn’t I major in English, then? Wouldn’t reading literature for homework be delightful? Sure. But the English major isn’t so much about reading literature. It’s about dissecting it into unnatural, dry, and everdull theories and criticism. Who cares how the authorities interpret Huckleberry Finn? They think they’ve found yet another theme running through it? So what?

To me, all that literary criticism and theory sucks all the joy out of reading in a most dreadful and vile manner. I’m not against analyzing literature to see how the writer put it together — that’s what I do to become a better writer, among other things — but my main contention is that the English major has turned the analysis into a god, a golden calf if you will, and almost everything that’s really important about the work itself falls by the wayside.

I am aware that C.S. Lewis, my favorite author and role model, did quite a bit of litcrit, so I can’t mark it all as hogwash, even if I wanted to. This is more of a this-is-why-Ben-doesn’t-like-it post, not this-is-what-you-all-should-think post. I’m sure there are people out there that really enjoy it. Right? Well, if there are, the more power to them. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my own reading in my own way.

And now we come to why I chose my major, English Language. First off, ELang is the study of English linguistics. It’s closer to the Linguistics major than to English.

With that settled, spring term 2005 I decided to take ELang 223, and about the same time I switched my major to ELang. I enjoyed the class but still wasn’t sure if I should stick with the major. In fact, in my head I switched my major every few days. One day it was Political Science, the next Graphic Design, then Linguistics, then Computer Science, and so on. By September (of 2005) I had gotten rather frustrated with being unable to settle on a major, let alone a career path.

Shortly after fall semester began, I decided to do what I should have done a long time ago: fast about it. That Sunday, five minutes after I closed my fast, a thought came into my mind: ask your roommates what they see you majoring in and doing for a career. At the time my roommates were all from my MTC group, so we’d served in Thailand together and had been friends for three years.

And so, lying on the couch, I asked them. “Something with books,” one said. “Language, definitely,” replied another. As I listened to their replies, I knew with a certainty (and an immense sense of relief) that English Language was the major for me. Earlier that week I’d been considering majoring in both that and Computer Science, which would have put my graduation date around the end of 2009, but in that instant I knew that I was only supposed to major in ELang.

“Well, that’s great, Lord,” I said, “but now my only career plan is gone.” (Computer Science would have made it an obvious answer, but what do you do with ELang? I already knew by that point that I wasn’t meant to be an editor.)

I went home teaching that evening, and as it was the beginning of the semester, we’d just been assigned a new apartment. During the course of the introductions one of the girls said, “Yeah, I’m going to get a Masters in Library Science at the University of Maryland next year.”

As soon as she said that, BOOM! I knew I would become a librarian.

The answer was as clear as a mountain stream. At first I thought to myself, “Um, but that’s boring!” But it didn’t take long before confirmation upon confirmation poured in, and I’m now extremely excited to become a librarian. Nor have I doubted the answer for a moment. Librarianship is what I was made for. It’s so perfectly fitted to who I am and where my interests lie that I can scarcely believe people get paid to do it. :)

Going back to ELang, though, none of my spring term classes were ELang, and I really, really, really miss those classes right now. Fall couldn’t come soon enough, truly. I haunt the halls of the JFSB, waiting, ever waiting for the beginning of classes once the summer is over. Okay, so I don’t really haunt the halls, but I am filled with wistful longing whene’er I walk through them. (Which happens to be often, since I work in a JFSB lab, and the C.S. Lewis Society meets on the fourth floor.)

Because this post is already long, I’m going to make it even longer and go for a record. Last night I finished reading Orson Scott Card’s Sarah. It’s an excellent book and I can’t recommend it enough. Today I’ll get Rebekah from the library (it’s the second book in the series). I’m still plodding along with Jane Eyre (150 pages left) and War and Peace (well, 1300 pages left :)), a chapter every few days. And I started reading Orson Scott Card’s A Storyteller in Zion the other day, which I’m enjoying a great deal.

Speaking of books, I absolutely love the typography on the Penguin Classics. Whenever I want to buy a classic, I always try to get a Penguin, because they’re beautiful. They’ve got me hooked. In case you don’t believe me, last week my roommate’s mom had accidentally left a Penguin edition of Emma on our coffee table. I picked it up, of course, and was surprised to see that they’d set the type a couple points larger than usual. And the paper seemed to be not quite as off-white as usual. Well, that night I had a dream in which I was reading that copy of Emma, and the first hundred pages or so were the normal type size and paper color, but then the rest of the book was in this larger font and unusual color. There was even a corner square on the page I was on where the new paper style had been spliced into an old page. So I think it’s safe to believe me when I say I really love Penguin (and books). :)

I also find that subconsciously each day I’m always thinking to myself, “Is the library open? Is the bookstore open?” They are the center of my BYU existence. There was a long period in the fall when I hardly went to the library at all (I studied at home, and work kept me away during the day), but now I make it a point to go almost every day if I can. And before long I’ll be working there, with any luck. (As preparation for applying for the job, I’m going to memorize the Library of Congress classification scheme. Yes, I’m a nerd. :))

I’ve decided to start recording when I start books as well as when I finish them. It’ll be interesting to look back and say, “Oh, wow, it took me two years to finish War and Peace. Whereas it took me three days to finish Sarah.”

And one of the first books I’ve begun reading under this new system is The Silmarillion. I’d read parts of it before (well, one part), but I’m starting from the beginning, reading about the Ainulindalë. It’s good stuff. I think I’m also going to start reading Fellowship of the Ring again, because I’ve only read LOTR once and it was eons ago.

Lately I’ve been tempted to come back to work in the evenings, in a mad rush to finish all this IAP stuff (last night I pushed the new redesign live, by the way) and Beyond and everything else. But for the past few days, I’ve rebelled and spent each evening reading for a few hours. And that has made all the difference, to quote Frost.

Reading rejuvenates me, fills me with energy and life and confidence and everything I need to keep on going. I’m so much happier now than I was a few months ago when I was hardly reading anything. More clearly than ever before, I’ve realized that I read to live. I would die without books.

Good thing I’m going to become a librarian, huh. :) Oh, my personal collection is now at 644 books.

And yahoo for long posts. :P

Yay for librarians! My mom is a librarian. And I worked in a library too–actually two of them at the same time. Now, the next question is what *kind* of librarian do you want to be? Reference? Circulation? Collection development? Cataloguing? Interlibrary loan? Archives? I was in interlibrary loan, but if I were going to become a librarian, I would want to be in collection development.

:) That’s a good question. I do know that I want to get experience in all the different areas in a library, but as for where I want to end up in the end — Reference, I think? But I really don’t know. It’s all interesting to me, frankly. Or georgely, depending on your mood.

Anyway, I’m applying for a job at one of the reference desks at my university library this fall, so hopefully I’ll get in and start getting some experience. (Though I was a volunteer at my public library back home several years ago, so it’s not like I’m completely without experience.)

Out of those you listed, Reference would be fun because I’d get to answer all sorts of interesting questions and sleuth stuff out for people. Circulation would definitely give me lots of opportunities to talk with people, which I like. Collection development would be nice because I’d have to read even more widely than usual, and I’d get paid to buy books. :) Cataloguing is fascinating to an organizational nerd like me, along with metadata and all that. (It comes from being a programmer, I think.) Interlibrary loan is interesting but probably not what I’d want to do. Archives would present the opportunity to work with old documents and books, which is always cool.

So I suppose my answer is, “Every kind.” Or, “The best.” Or whatever. :)

a few things:
1. i think you’ll make an excellent librarian. both my mother and my sister toil away at orem public library, and receive all kinds of benefits, including free movies. i’ve always envied their power of recommendation.
2. literary theory and literary criticism are quite different. i have often found myself not just frustrated, but furious, with many literary theorists and literary critics for managing to ignore and thus destroy the literature. if you ever want to read a fantastic one, though, i would recommend both james wood (my personal favorite) and marilynne robinson, who wrote one of my favorite novels, gilead (won the pulitzer last year) and one of the best books of essays i’ve ever read, the fall of adam.
3. have you taken cmlit 201? i’m teaching it in the fall…you could participate in the production of a medieval mystery play…

you might want to talk to robert means, the cmlit librarian at the hbll. i don’t know quite why, but maybe he could point you in particular directions…

After I wrote this post, I came across several essays in Orson Scott Card’s book A Storyteller in Zion, many of which (”Sermons in Critical Form,” “Art as an Act of Charity,” “Prophets and Assimilationists”) talk about this very thing, the corruption of both literary theory and criticism. (He says it has spawned from artistic elitism, turning one’s nose up at the popular art/literature/music of the day. I think he’s probably right.)

One interesting thing he brings up — I can’t remember which essay it’s in, though — is that readers don’t read for the theme. You know, the literary critics say the theme of such-and-such novel is “Man’s only salvation is through himself,” or whatever the case may be. But only literary critics look at literature that way. Most readers read for the experience, to vicariously live through the events portrayed, and that is what they get out of it, not some distilled theme drawn out so a critic could write a paper about it.

Anna: I’ll have to check out Marilynne Robinson’s works. Talking with Robert Means is a good idea (I’ve been planning on talking with a handful of librarians, to get a better feel for what they do, but Robert wasn’t on my list). I haven’t taken CMLit 201, and my fall/winter schedule is a tad bit packed (getting my major classes and GEs done in time to graduate), but maybe I can audit it…