In Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, the narrator says "there is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." The idea is that you're not the one who opens the door, it opens itself without your being aware. And you can only know in retrospect. What I would add is that not one door but many open throughout your lifetime.
The last major door I'm aware of opened in 2nd year, about five years ago. I say "door" but if its appearance depends on the impact it has on your life, then I should call it a portal. First semester of 2nd year we had a course about the British Empire. It was long and difficult because we had to learn about the simultaneous histories of Ireland, South-Africa, India and Canada (there was no Australian studies specialist at the time). That was my first glimpse into Canadian history.
During the same semester we had a literature class in which we studied Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, and Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World. We were all divided into groups for this class, and the teacher I ended with was Claire Omhovère -- the big Canadian studies specialist there (she wrote her thesis on Robert Kroetsch). She told us about art, about paintings, about words, about what it means to create, about the world you can see in just one work if you learn how to look. She planted so many questions, so many seeds in our little brains, that to this day I still feel the consequences of that class.
During the second semester, my friend Chloé and I received an email by that teacher, telling us she had invited a Canadian author for a reading, and he'd make an appearance in her 3rd year class before the reading, and would we be interested to come? We naive little students couldn't believe our luck. The teacher we admired so had remembered us, and we would get to meet a Canadian author. So of course we went to the 3rd year class, whose students didn't seem much impressed or enthusiastic. Or maybe that's just because we were insanely impressed and enthusiastic. Anyway that's how we "met" Thomas Wharton, whom I hope now we didn't scare. Thankfully we were way too shy to speak and talk nonsense. The reading was great too, he first talked about the process of writing Icefields, and then he read the first pages of Salamander. Both novels I read as soon as I could.
The last major door I'm aware of opened in 2nd year, about five years ago. I say "door" but if its appearance depends on the impact it has on your life, then I should call it a portal. First semester of 2nd year we had a course about the British Empire. It was long and difficult because we had to learn about the simultaneous histories of Ireland, South-Africa, India and Canada (there was no Australian studies specialist at the time). That was my first glimpse into Canadian history.
During the same semester we had a literature class in which we studied Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, and Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World. We were all divided into groups for this class, and the teacher I ended with was Claire Omhovère -- the big Canadian studies specialist there (she wrote her thesis on Robert Kroetsch). She told us about art, about paintings, about words, about what it means to create, about the world you can see in just one work if you learn how to look. She planted so many questions, so many seeds in our little brains, that to this day I still feel the consequences of that class.
During the second semester, my friend Chloé and I received an email by that teacher, telling us she had invited a Canadian author for a reading, and he'd make an appearance in her 3rd year class before the reading, and would we be interested to come? We naive little students couldn't believe our luck. The teacher we admired so had remembered us, and we would get to meet a Canadian author. So of course we went to the 3rd year class, whose students didn't seem much impressed or enthusiastic. Or maybe that's just because we were insanely impressed and enthusiastic. Anyway that's how we "met" Thomas Wharton, whom I hope now we didn't scare. Thankfully we were way too shy to speak and talk nonsense. The reading was great too, he first talked about the process of writing Icefields, and then he read the first pages of Salamander. Both novels I read as soon as I could.
A couple of weeks later Claire Omhovère invited us to a colloquium where PhD students presented papers on their research. All in Canadian studies, of course. It was a very small group, and I think I was the only student who had come to just listen (Chloé was in England). I had lunch with them, and yet again, I couldn't believe my luck. They were all grown-ups to me, and I had no clue why the teacher would want me there. It is very clear now that she was simply making sure some of those seeds she had planted in my brain would have a chance to burgeon.
So the door that opened in 2nd year led me to choose Mme Omhovère's 3rd year class without a second thought. The name of the class was "Inarticulate Arctic." It was about explorers in Canada, Franklin's expeditions, travel writing, clichés in Robert Service's poems, Wiebe's A Discovery of Strangers, appropriating voices, Canadian postmodernism, and so on.
And see now the plant of research is slowly growing in that brain of mine.
So the door that opened in 2nd year led me to choose Mme Omhovère's 3rd year class without a second thought. The name of the class was "Inarticulate Arctic." It was about explorers in Canada, Franklin's expeditions, travel writing, clichés in Robert Service's poems, Wiebe's A Discovery of Strangers, appropriating voices, Canadian postmodernism, and so on.
And see now the plant of research is slowly growing in that brain of mine.
3 comments:
I must say that this portal was big enough for both of us. The only main door I can remember before that year was at the age of 13 when I discovered how English could be a delightful world to wander in.
That's how I feel with my first-year English class. It was then that I knew that I needed to get my PhD in English. Also, my 3rd year Book History class introduced me to the wonderful world of Book History, which I'm now persuing as my focus. It's strange how these things happen, no?
Also, have you not read The Logogryph? If not, you simply must go get it right now. It was the first book of Thomas Wharton's I read and is definitely my favourite book of all time. I cannot recommend it enough.
Oh I was going to suggest "what moments defined your present and future?" as a possible topic for your blog, but you answered it here! Nevermind :)
I'm ashamed to say I haven't read The Logogryph yet, for lack of time, mostly... but it's on the top of my books-I-want-for-Christmas list, although I know I won't be able to read it before July 2007. I also want to read Warren Cariou's Lake of the Prairies, and John Steffler's The Afterlife of George Cartwright, too. This life won't be enough, that's for sure.
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