What exactly did I do wrong that I never have any chance to talk about literature with anyone?
Everything else worked out in my life, including the stuff that seemed fantastical when I first decided upon it. But I didn’t manage to arrange things so that I could talk about literature. With people, I mean.
I’m a professor of literature. I spend most of my day reading literature in several languages, thinking about it, writing about it – but I don’t have interlocutors.
I’ve been participating in an online book club, and every meeting shows me how invigorating and precious I find an opportunity to talk about literature. It’s online, though, so not quite real.
What should I have done differently?
Clarissa's Blog 
(puts on Clarissa shrink hat)
Well, what do you get out of arranging your life to avoid this thing that you enjoy?
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It’s an excellent question but I’m completely out of insight on this one.
Anybody? Cliff? Please do your magic.
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“Cliff? Please do your magic”
Sidewalk Analyst Pyscho…… I mean Sidewalk Psychoanalyst is on the case!
This situation probably stems from cognitive dissonance.
You want to talk about books and literature but on the other hand your social batteries quickly extinguish and some part of you realizes that meeting people and only talking about books is not going to happen…
Other people, normal people, mix topics of conversation so even a conversation about books will have lots of long meandering detours as participants talk about family, money issues, cars, home repairs and lots of things that would likely just annoy you because… how can they go off on Gertrude’s sprained ankle and just dismiss what Joseph said to Vivian in the emergency room like that? Was the accident a metaphor for their failing relationship or were the nurses’ uniforms reflections of their emotions? That nurse in pink… was she a symbol Vivian’s frustrated sexuality? And what was with all the judgy adjectives?
Similarly, academics tend to draw tight circles around their area of specialization and the rest of their lives so literature professors are very unlikely to want to talk about books in their free time.
So it’s less that you failed to create a situation where you talk about books with people but that the particular context you want doesn’t really exist…
I like the comment about librarians… when you’re no longer chair you could ask if the local library is looking for volunteers….
I might also suggest trying to start a book club on your own but…. not sure if that pig will fly.
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Done differently? Not been an Academic. I picked librarian and have been discussing literature for 30 years: great fun.
The good news is you are also a mom. Once you get a homeschool co-op set up, you will have book discussion groups galore. By the time your daughter is in high school you’ll have full blown Socrates circles.
It’s a joy!
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I have always managed to talk about literature with 1 or 2 colleagues in my life, but it requires time and one-on-one conversations, which is a luxury. I write time, because literature is never the first subject to discuss. Literature comes after work or family.
I also think it is ideal to find people outside of academia to talk about literature, because I noticed that some people in the academia, when discussing literature, are not natural. They are in a working mood and want to show off. I hate this.
Ol.
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People in our field aren’t all that interested in literature. Most got into for political reasons, and the emphasis in “cultural” and “interdisciplinary” work is always counter to literature itself.
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Totally. Also, most of the education in literary studies is about parsing works of literature to look for departures from the liberal dogma. People don’t even know there’s another way to read.
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