My colleague Terry Krueger had an article in the Bend Bulletin today in which he used a metaphor* to describe the growing size of our classroom syllabi. The tenor of the metaphor was the classroom syllabus. The vehicle was a novel. The ground was the concept of "things with many pages." His point was that the current institutional expectation that we clearly state every possible do or don't and our graded or behavioral response thereto has encouraged us to produce syllabi greater than the 2-6 typed pages we received when we were but graduate students.
The novel he offered as an example was one known for its length: War and Peace.
Now, my question. Why use this particular example? Why not Freedom? Why not Middlesex? Why not some other great contemporary tome, popular or literary?
Perhaps because a more creative metaphor would have called attention to the writing of the piece rather than to the point that appears when we extend the metaphor to the inevitable question, who is going to read either?**
Of course it could be we're looking at one of the differences between a readerly and a writerly text, and because Terry's purpose is persuasive, I think, I think he's probably thinking of his audience. (That's at least three thoughts and plenty enough for one post.
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*By the way, if you surfed to t-bob's homepage, you could see her interest in Great Pyrenees, an appropriate obsession for a college teacher. I mean, not everyone can have a poodle.
** If you click to these pages, please make sure you read Dan Coleman's comments.
1 comment:
Why not Freedom or Middlesex? My guess is because the writer is more familiar himself with Tolstoy's novel.
Our department is decidedly split between those who read contemporary fiction and those who do not.
But yes: Tolstoy as an allusion to a "big book" was still, most likely, a good rhetorical choice.
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