Yes, Books Can Talk to Each Other (and It Helps to Listen)

My fourth-grade mind struggled to stumble upon a truly original idea for the last “invention convention” of my schooling career. I was repulsed by the notion of “inventing” a device that someone had already thought of. If not for my father’s reassurance that “every idea comes from another idea,” my pursuit would have been futile and endless. I recalled this instance from my childhood as I read Foster’s words, “there is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature.” Whether consciously or unconsciously, writers site, allude to, symbolize previous stories, poems, plays, movies, as well as the themes, characters, and motifs from them. With this knowledge in mind, how then does a writer make his/her work truly unique and, as the commonly reoccurring command that every English teacher threatens to his/her students states, “not merely restating what has already been said?”

            According to Foster, how the author weaves the elements of other works into his/her own work, how they themselves interpret the work, and how the correlation, the “conversation” between the author’s work and an older piece, is what makes each story unique (while also strengthening the message). It is analogous to why musicians still play Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven. Each artist’s interpretation of the pieces of music has to be individually their own (not just playing the notes or “restating what has already been said”). Or take Jazz where the same standards have been played for decades. There is, of course, improvisation after the original melody is played where the musicians harmonize their own melody based on the chord progression of the tune. In both cases the artists, the writers, are creating their own unique work from somebody else’s famous piece that still resonates with people.

            Resonance. People love resonance. We love making connections and associations with things we are familiar with (that’s why the psychologists who make the SAT are evil). So when a ghost appears to a young boy warning him of the evil new ruler/stepfather and his betrayal to the crown/family, or when a character sacrifices himself to save a large group of people, we as readers are drawn towards these connections helping to make the reading experience more meaningful. Making parallels between texts adds more depth to the story and helps to implant the themes and meaning in our minds. But, as Foster underscored, recognizing a reference in a text is not an imperative for still obtaining the full potency of the story. Take Lord of the Flies for example. The first time I read the story I did not recognize that Simon was a Christ figure. Yet the story still maintained its powerful efficacy. Knowing that Simon was a Christ figure certainly did add significance to his death and magnified the brutality of the savage boys; it added a layer of meaning. However, Golding did not simply make Simon entirely alike to Christ. The differentiation between Simon and Jesus, the fact that Simon was not able to save the boys, by dying, from their sins, further intensifies the viciousness of the boys and causes the reader to beware of the evils man is capable of. Seeing the reference to the Gospel in Lord the Flies enhances the themes and message Golding imparts to his readers.

           

So it is for good reason that English teachers reiterate the necessity to stray away from plain restatements. The world has become increasingly more demanding of creative and clever insights and ideas. When we start working after college we are using prior knowledge to help us carry out our job just as the writer uses prior texts to write their story. But our job is to use that prior knowledge, the prior texts, in unique and meaningful ways to better the world around us.