Reading:reverse

I will begin from the rear end in this presentation. I wish to do that precisely because one of the points made by the author (Kamala Visweswaran – Fictions of Feminist Ethnography, 1994) departs in a belief of a chronology or time lineage to show continuities, divergences, contingencies and restraints. I wish to intertwine my reading story with the review of the book, thus “atemporally” scaffolding my reading and the text. I begin with the words of another critic, presented at the back cover of the book:

Textually innovative, theoretically vigorous, often lyrical, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography is both intellectually provocative and a pleasure to read.
(Dorinne Kondo, back cover on book)

This initial unsettling feeling I so often get when reading non-canonical, visionary and poetic academic work, has once again got hold of me. These initial emotions repudiate all the bright notions I’m sure the author wants to convey. First feeling: What the hell is she saying? (Fierce Anger, at her and me in stereo – why can’t she write more accessible or am I plain stupid?) “This book will enrage as many readers as it will engage”, another critic, Arjun Appadurai, boldly states at the back side of the book cover. Then comes the next feelings: Too difficult, just shut off. So I benignly transmute; at once become blind, deaf, stiff, rigid, catatonic, imperforated. Of course I could read the text again and again. And should. We always say we should, will, must. And then time reminds of itself. The text is placed back into the bookshelf, nibbling and itching on my bad conscience, cursing my reading in-obedience. I move on – spatially and temporally – with parts of the text’s grammatics etched in some remote backpart of my brain, probably finding light and oxygen sooner than I would have imagined.

We do not go well together, the text and I, we are incompatible at this conjuncture. I am tired, she awaits me. She forces me to alter my principles. I cry on red cotton sheets while I receive the shoulder massage I have needed for a week (on days that thoughts of her should not be). I do not understand the unfamiliar references, the language that is not mine, the difficult topic addressed (ch 5 in particular). Her syntax – phrases; syllables; letters – inaccessible. Reaction: tired tears. Language and thought so vex, demanding (time, which I do not seem to possess in the excess needed for proper reading-understanding; energy, which I appear to find so little of right about now; effort, something lacking; motivation, existing but hidden under all sorts of life-junk). Occasionally joyful; impinging; thrusting me to explore prescriptive dictionaries, new semantics trickling under my skin. Favourite word of the month in a learnt tongue (the hold ons, losses, re-f(o)unds – oh yes! I have known you before Mr Juxtaposition and Ms Rhizomatic, siblings of imaginary universes and imploded metaontologies). But you, words, merely touch the surface, fluid and fleeing, leaving scarce marks of nothingness. (Panic panic, what should I say on Tuesday? Why didn’t I read more: earlier, later, before? Good doctoral girl finally in break down, break up with university? I should of course write and present the traditional book review just to prove every conventionalist wrong, that I too, have attained Academia’s writing conventions.) I dream of her, while my stomach cultivates the gastric ulcer my Western social heritage and my fitness lifestyle quarrel over in (de)colonizing (1-0 to WSH). I curse at her for troubling my sleep and ruining my days off.

Time again. Had I had more of it, I would… have read differently. But what if I, just frankly, refused to read? Refused to read in a way designed for doctoral students?

Refused to read, properly? The amount of reading, the form and type of readings? Deferred to read? Betrayed the text, the authors, EVERYTHING? (When does this confusion end, or begin, and where do I enter, depart, arrive or exit?)

I have probably misunderstood everything, been too lazy, disengaged or failed to put enough effort and time in to the task. I have yet to disentangle the various forms of refusals, deferrals and antagonism texts such as these sparks in me. They surely do not stem from the same resistance cells, they do not all say the same things, in all occasions. I’m convinced that the texts are great, they always are. I just can’t see the greatness for all the trees – not now, not here. (Context of reading, reading-story; Richardson 1997, 2000)

Reading in reverse?

Next day. Proper work day, hence propensity for efficiency. Still however, these incompatibility emotions hovering. Birthday breakfast over, full office day ahead. Text in different (new?) light. “Feminist ethnography as Failure” – heart-success!

Maybe it is because I do not (wish to?) understand that I cannot get what she is after. Part of me knows, that part which also is ashamed of my (racial) privileges although it should rather acknowledge and act. It is a reminder of limitations and restrictions: of what I am allowed to speak of, of things I need to do my homework on, of always personal issues of ranges I cannot fully grasp.

Maybe it is due to me being in a continuous critical mode, not actually reading. Constantly countering, rebutting, finding pockets of this’s and thats, buts and rathers. I am not really READING: actively letting the flow of her syntax reach the inners of me, keeping it inside long enough so I can grasp her (pain, joy, sorrows, despair, anger, hope and delights). Keeping her at bay legitimates my refusal to partake, be occupied by and melt into what she actually says. (Then I realize that she has succeeded to engage, to provoke and stir up controversy through her text.)

Two weeks after, hindsight. Emotional reading inflicts emotional writing. Had I not encountered her, this text would not have been. I would not have been. Would not have wanted to become anew. Again. And again. Thank you.