Too Absent Herald

For the last couple weeks a few of us at the school have been caught up in a penchant for interjecting the phrase “That’s what she said” after any statement that can even remotely contain a prurient meaning. Notwithstanding the valuable linguistic and semiotic researches this exercise supplies, I am here setting myself up for a zinging…

I’ve been sitting in with an English class, and I have to read the June 2, 1910 (Quentin) section of The Sound and the Fury. The first part, Benjy’s, went well. I read seventy-some pages at a sitting/laying, which I haven’t had to do in years. But, just as before, Quentin puts me to sleep.

The excitement, however, has not been wanting. Right from the top, page one, things are sharper and clearer than they were when I was (which makes it understandable) trying to squeeze a decent 12th grade reading syllabus in between keeping up with Greek, Euclid, Tinbergen, and Homer.

Right here, the second paragraph of the first page, when Benjy hears the golfers yell “Here, caddie.” It’s just…

[Now that I am upon the point of putting this down, I am actually embarrassed] I was able to pick up on the “hitting” and that that means golf, and that that means they sold the land that Benjy loved to a golf course… And the selling of LAND is, well, a big thing… I’ve even written (at SJC) a parody of the Benjy section, with “they were hitting” as a refrain.

But, hand to heaven, I never realized (if realized is even the word [and it is not, but to get the true sense I'd have to use Greek]), or became fully aware of — the fact that the golfers’ say “CADDIE.” That is, Benjy follows them because they say the name of his lost sister, constantly.

This is one of the big drawbacks, so to speak, of having had an education that focused ONLY on the primary sources. I am (usually) blissfully unaware of the norms of literary criticism. This usually comes up with Joyce, who, excepting the ability to read Latin, had a poorer education than I have had.

But man, . . . it freaked the kids out when I couldn’t stop talking about he fact that “caddie” is Caddie.

So as I was formulating this post in my head, just as I came in the door, I thought that I would wrap up my observation with a maxime along the lines of: Everything’s better the second time.

When such a maxim comes to mind (mine, at least), I quickly run through other situations in which this maxim might apply (“Can I make this law a Law for all mankind?”). I decided that I could apply it. And thought that I would end the post with

Every thing is better the second time around. Everything.

And thus the coda: That’s what she said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 9:53 pm and is filed under the small stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.