Well, What Does It All Mean?

Last week, as I was traveling around to the various tables full of booksellers during the “Moveable Feast” at the MBA conference, I spent some time at one table with a poet who, very nakedly talked about the themes in her book of poems.

It’s kind of a necessary task when trying to sell a book of poetry. There’s often no broad, unifying story hook to hang one’s sales pitch upon. So, this poet was in a tough situation and, of course, she was there for her own benefit and the benefit of the booksellers. Now, keep that in mind when I say this: her plan of attack turned me off of her book of poems because I hate being told what a poem is about.

Don’t get me wrong. I love poetry, but I almost never read the jacket copy on books of poetry until I’ve read most of the poems. It’s the same reason I get bored at poetry readings when the poet stands up there are and launches into some extended story about how they were hiking in the mountains one day and found a squirrel trapped in a soda bottle and so the poem they are about to read is about our abuse of nature. Well, fuck, now I’ve been assigned a meaning to “get” from all of this. Thanks. And, sure enough, there’s some constructed linguistic jungle gym where the poets gets in a description of the squirrel in the bottle followed by some lame, moralistic preaching.

There are two things going on there: 1) I hate being told how to interpret a piece of literature. It smacks of the group literature discussions in the English classes I endured in high school; and 2) The poet is, essentially, giving away the poem in such a way that he audience doesn’t have to work. It’s like literary TV.

I bring this up not because I was irritated by the poet specifically, but because at some point the poet asked me a question along the lines of what themes, or something like that, inspired my book. If I hadn’t been in a position where I felt a need to be charming, and if the booksellers weren’t there, I might not have frozen like a opossum on a highway.

I don’t go into a story inspired by a theme. I don’t shape my narrative or my scenes around a theme when I revise. It leads to being pedantic (and I do that enough here). I didn’t set out to write a book about love, loss, and friendship. I didn’t set out to write a book about the horrors or injustices of war. I set out to answer some questions I had about these particular characters. Why would Gray commit such a bizarre act of violence when Lian leaves him? Why would he go off to Bosnia? Why would these people go looking for him?

To me, the “theme” of a book is interpretive, therefore it is up to the reader. If I’ve answered the questions I’ve asked of myself, then, I assume, most readers will end up at the same spot. If I’m honest with the story and with the characters and don’t force it anywhere it wouldn’t naturally go, then my readers will fill in the “theme.” Theme is the answer, not the question - but the answer isn’t universal, it’s individual.

The interpretive nature of theme is why a book like “The Catcher In The Rye” is both one of the most widely taught books and one of the most widely challenged. It’s why Hemingway’s books mean different things when read at different points in a reader’s life. Hammer down a theme on a book, and you kill its power to adapt and to mean something to as wide an audience as possible.

That’s my thinking anyway.