Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Catcher in the Ryan

Last night, as I lay in the semi-dark, staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep (it seems I still can't get used to the fact that it never really gets dark in the suburbs/city), I was wondering what kind of book my life would make. I mean, if my life were a novel, 1) Would anyone read it? and 2) Would it be a work of "literary merit," as my high school English teachers used to say? It's one thing to be a popular book, a "page-turner" if you will (or if you won't)--the kind of book that you buy in mass market paperback at the duty-free counter in the airport when you have a four hour layover in Milwaukee and "actually find quite interesting." It's another thing entirely to be a book that is critically acclaimed, a classic, or at the very least controversial.

Somehow I doubt my book would be challenging in any sort of profound way (maybe the bits about my mom would work out to be some sort of heart-warming "Secret Life of Bees" or "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" thing, but that's no "Jane Eyre" or "Great Gatsby"). I think the problem is that I'm just too sane. I'm a stable, well-adjusted young woman, and stable, well-adjusted people make for inconsequential, mediocre literature at best. I posed the thought to my ex-boyfriend tonight over zombie-slasher video games, saying,

"I feel like you have to be Holden Caulfield to be someone of literary merit. It's like you have to be seriously f***ed in the head to make good literature, right?" Tom looked pretty puzzled, wearing his trademark incredulous half-grin as he slashed a group of living dead through the head with a chainsaw and said,

"I think you have to be pretty f***ed in the head to have a thought like that."

It was a surprising response and I almost pissed myself laughing, but maybe he's right? Maybe my strange thoughts alone are "f***ed-up" enough to grant me passage into the realm of classic literature. Maybe it's not so much the less-than-controversial things I have done in my life that make me interesting, and more the ridiculous nonsense that goes on in my head that counts (very Holden Caulfield, actually, but far less masochistic and suicidal). Then again, maybe I'm just talking to myself again and I'm just another dime novel, after all.

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