(Yeah, I know I am inconsistent with my categorizing system – and it’s probably of more concern to me than to you…)
This may sound very – well, queer, but I think I first came across the literary term “queer reading” only this semester. I mean, I am familiar with the concept and have been since – 1998, I mean, it’s what I do! but I was not aware that this was actually something that you could legitimately do in academia (I love the term academia – and I love that it surprises me with little things like this).
So, we had to read this really BAD book (I have already mentioned that I have very strong opinions and being decidedly annoyed with a book usually means that it was either sexist – I still read Stephen King, though -, homophobe or just plain boring) – it’s called “The Moviegoer,” by Walker Percy (and I know that there are people out there that like this book, but I do not) -, it bored me senseless. But we had to write some comment on our blackboard about some of the things we read, so I commented on it and put my thought about the main character’s sexuality in there which might be called the only slightly interesting thing (although “interesting” is too strong a word). I wrote about my conviction that Binx Bolling is deeply closeted and might even be gay (this is not a contradiction, see my blog about not-so-literally gay-ness). I put some textual evidence in (like he is obsessed with movie cowboys, his relationships with women are superfluous and follow a self-destructive pattern, he denies his homosexuality – which is always a good/bad sign, right? – and he goes on endlessly about his “search” which I read as “coming out, already.”
Anyway, my prof was delighted with my “queer reading.” And I thought: “queer reading,” that sounds really cool! So, when I started reading “The Awakening” for the second time this semester (for my lit-paper) I thought about how queer it is (I only read the beginning and I think it is actually queerer than the rest of the book where Chopin seems to take some of the lesbian imagery away again). And I wrote a queer reading of “The Awakening.”
The downside of this is: if “reading queer” is an academic discipline (is “discipline” the right word?) it means that not everybody reads queer – I know what you’re thinking: D’uh! But… is it actually something that we can learn – or teach? Is “reading queer” taken away from the “queers”? And is that necessarily a bad thing?
I was very aware this semester that a queer discussion of a text was not something that came up naturally in any class but my gender-class. I do not think that the topic was actually avoided but that my classmates were actually not aware that it was missing. So, if “reading queer” is taught, maybe it will sensibilize the straight majority to the fact that there is a reading that does not come naturally to them but is still there. If that is the case I feel that I have failed my fellow students by not getting into it enough – would it have been so bad to say: Mademoiselle Reisz is a big DYKE.
Well, maybe not in those words, but I guess it would have been possible. I will try to do better in the future.
Where y’at!
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