Z: I’m done with my homework; now it’s time for Facebook!
K: Only if William Golding has a page.
Z: (Laughs.) I wish he had a page. I’d ask him what that book (Lord of the Flies) means.
K: (K goes to her room and returns with her notebook.) If he had a page, this is what he’d say, “There have been so many interpretations of the story that I’m not going to choose between them. Make your own choice….The only choice that really matters, the only interpretation of the story if you want one is your own, not your teacher’s, not your professor’s, not mine, not a critic’s, not some authority’s. The only thing that matters is first the experience of being in the story, moving through it. Then any interpretation you like, if it’s yours, then that’s the right one because what’s in a book is not what an author thought he put into it; it’s what the reader gets out of it.”
Z: Thanks, Mom. Where’d you get that?
(K detects a hint of sarcasm.)
K: Golding.
K: Only if William Golding has a page.
Z: (Laughs.) I wish he had a page. I’d ask him what that book (Lord of the Flies) means.
K: (K goes to her room and returns with her notebook.) If he had a page, this is what he’d say, “There have been so many interpretations of the story that I’m not going to choose between them. Make your own choice….The only choice that really matters, the only interpretation of the story if you want one is your own, not your teacher’s, not your professor’s, not mine, not a critic’s, not some authority’s. The only thing that matters is first the experience of being in the story, moving through it. Then any interpretation you like, if it’s yours, then that’s the right one because what’s in a book is not what an author thought he put into it; it’s what the reader gets out of it.”
Z: Thanks, Mom. Where’d you get that?
(K detects a hint of sarcasm.)
K: Golding.
