NEW
Library Project
Volume 2, Number 1 - Fall 2003
Program
Pushes Beyond Merely “Loving the Story”
by Sarah
Hirschman
I
was describing People and Stories—Gente y Cuentos to an acquaintance.
She seemed interested, although she had trouble believing that we could
develop a conversation about literary stories with people who had “so
little education.” But all of a sudden she smiled and seemed happy to
have broken through her doubts.
Ah, now I understand! Rather than to plow
through all that stuff academic literary critics do, you just bring people
to love the story.” I was appalled at the misunderstanding.
Reading a short story is an adventure, a complex
voyage into a text but also into our own memories that surface as we read.
Experienced readers—those who have had the luck of a good education,
have come into contact with more than one culture, who have read widely
and enjoyed art and music—have learned to organize the multifaceted
world that a literary text can bring forth. As they read, intensely and
critically, they discover themselves, as well as delight in the flights of
imagination that the story stimulates. In other words, they experience
empowering joy as they orchestrate the discoveries that the story
generates.
In designing People and Stories—Gente y
Cuentos, I’ve tried to ask myself how I could share that experience of
reading. Could a story be critically discussed and enjoyed if people had
not read many literary texts before (although we should never
underestimate knowledge of the Bible and of a rich folklore)? How could we
conquer the fear of encountering a “difficult” text; how could we
stimulate the imagination and get people to use their voices, while at the
same time helping them to gradually develop a richer, more critical
understanding of the story?
I decided that the project could be a hinge
joining “high culture” and a popular public by dividing the process
into two parts. First, work along the method of ordinary critical literary
analysis in preparing a text for discussion. Secondly, find ways, through
appropriate preparation of questions, to bring the salient literary
characteristics of the text to stimulate the imagination of a new public,
rich in life experience but poorly prepared for the task of critical
discussions.
So in our workshops we help future coordinators
to go through this two-stage process: first, prepare the short story for
discussion as a literary critic would. Find the poetic salient points,
look at the rhythms, the repetitions, search for the mysterious shadows,
the echoes, the structure. Then proceed to the second stage and build
questions on the salient items listed during the preparation. Those
questions help participants get involved in the thick of the story’s
poetics while encouraging them to react to them in their own ways.
What participants bring to the story is not
previous academic training but life experience, and some of the
discussions resulting form this amalgam often astonish with their
originality. The story acts on the imagination but is itself enriched by
those unexpected readers who are delighted to hear themselves share
interpretations influenced by their own memories, their own diverse
backgrounds.
No, we do more than just offer stories to love!