Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Thoughts on Commencements


I had the opportunity recently to attend my brother’s graduation, from Vassar College in upstate New York. My brother Jason graduated with a degree in Film Production. It occurs to me that if there was possibly a worse major than English with which to graduate in the current hiring climate, Film Production might take the cake. Amazingly, Jason seems somewhat less than dead-panicked at his nonexistent prospects (a characteristic that I suspect has often distinguished us as siblings in the past—I believe it was all of October of my senior year when I had my first nervous breakdowns about joblessness?). In any case, I am very proud of Jason, and I cannot say enough how brave I think he is to have committed to do what loves to do. I shall be happy to report back on his progress. At the moment there is little to state for the record, beyond his intention to move to New York City in a few weeks time.

The occasion of Vassar Commencement brought a number of topics to mind, and gave cause for some introspection on my part. Primarily, marking the anniversary of my own graduation a little less than a year ago, I thought back on what my expectations had been at that time, in June 2008. Inevitably, this in turn led me to juxtapose these expectations with how events have actually unfolded. And finally, I began to ponder what has happened to me personally; in regard to my fundamental character, and in what ways I may have indelibly and ineluctably changed in the past year.

Last June, despite the fact that I had been through several interviews with no job offers in sight, I believe that I was still well convinced of the immense value of a Literature degree from an institution such as Stanford. I thought it a classical degree. A degree of tradition, even, one that great men had lived by and prospered. Steinbeck, I told myself, was an English major at Stanford, and he didn’t even bother to graduate. I did. True, I might have admitted, the Engineers and Computer Scientists of my class might have it slightly easier—but just initially, surely. I knew that eventually greatness and perfection were coming my way in the form of a letter of offer, and a little extra work at the outset would only make that accomplishment that much sweeter. I remember being irked at the graduation speakers for the English department’s ceremony. A defensive theme ran through all of their remarks: defending the value and usefulness of an English degree, reassuring us that we, too, were important and had much to offer to the working world. ‘Of course we matter,’ I bah-humbugged to myself. ‘We are the lovers and the crafters of language! Celebrate that! Don’t question it.’

And then I graduated. And I got a job. And it was not perfection, and I was not a crafter of language, I was the bitch at the bottom of a law firm food chain. And I had plenty of time, in my desperation and malcontent, to consider the heights to which my wonderful traditional classical humanities degree had flown me.

Do not fear, dear reader, there will be more on Law Clerk desperation later (and yes, I will still maintain that an English degree has value, if not the immediate economic kind). But suffice it to say, that sitting through the Vassar Commencement remarks, and listening to my brother talk about his situation, I came to one major conclusion. I do not know what I want to do, what I am capable of doing, nor do I have the foggiest idea what I would be genuinely good at doing. This triplet scares the hell out of me. It also occurs to me that it is less of a conclusion than it is a sweeping statement of bewilderment.

My sentiment about the past year, as best I can describe it, is a sense of unraveling, a losing of conviction, a disintegrating and remolding and re-disintegrating of expectation. Which brings me to my third and final question: have I changed? I believe I enjoy the same things as I did before; books, scones, ponies, friends. Has my personality changed? Despite that period of time during which I came home from the law firm crying at least twice a week, I do not consider myself any more bitter or disaffected than I was a year ago. (One point I must concede is that I have moved in with my boyfriend, which I would like to believe has not affected my character too much, but I suspect may have influenced me more than I would like to admit). What else may have shifted? The way I look, gesture, speak, write? I wear loafers now. I suppose there’s that.

My thoughts on commencements, then, are as follows. In my experience, graduation was not a conclusion. It was not a clean transition. It was not, even, a clear-cut introduction to the next “phase of my life.” It was merely a gaping, ponderous opening to a rabbit hole. Which I was promptly pushed through, and rapidly lost within the depths.

Luckily, however, being an English major, I have certain resources to draw upon. I was thinking today about Stephen Daedalus, shape-shifting on the shore, constantly changing and refashioning himself in metaphor. I count myself in league with Alice, growing larger and smaller and forgetting the poems she thought she knew. Or, if you’d prefer a cinematic touch, I’ll throw in Juno’s retort: “I don’t know what kind of girl I am.”

At least in literary company, a girl can be a little less lonely in her loafers, perhaps.




Tuesday, May 26, 2009

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

To cleanse the palate, I thought we might start with some Keats:

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.