Hurley House Fine Books

Greatly Exaggerated

This one. Yeah. The essay “Greatly Exaggerated” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again*.

This is maybe, yeah, a little more aimed at academics. It’s about (OK, as I remember, because it’s been a week or more since I read it) “author-ity.” Like how author is different from writer. Critical-theory wise.

He refers to a lot of lit-crit theorists of whom I’d never heard — Foucault, Derrida, Barthes, Said — had I not been married to Patrick when he was getting his Ph.D. And some who are totally new to me. Not being a lit-crit person myself. Or an academic. Or even a college graduate.

I digress.

But yeah, speaking of not being a college graduate. Yeah, I wasn’t really into college. I mean, the drinking was fun.
drinky crow
And meeting all kinds of different people from different backgrounds was great. But class? Meh. Not so much. And once I learned where to find the answers I needed — you know, how to look things up. For real. — and how to think — you know, for myself. Critically. Analytically. — I didn’t really feel like staying in school. I tend to learn more on-my-own-like. Just researching and practicing.

Long story short, though. I probably would have liked it (college) a lot more if I’d a.) known what the heck I even wanted to do with my life (I still don’t, really. Does anyone?), b.) majored in English, like I always said I would when I was younger (instead of dabbling in business admin (?! I know, right?), radio-television, theater (that was pretty cool though)), and, possibly the most-likely-thing-besides-meeting-Patrick-there-(which unfortunately I did not)-to-make-tree-actually-enjoy-college, c.) had DFW for a professor.

Reading this essay really made me wish I’d had the opportunity to take a class with DFW. And (if you read the last two paragraphs, you know this already) I’m not a big class-taking kind of person, so that’s saying a lot.

This is the fifth post in a series.