Kevin Dinning

How It Happened That I became An English Major In The Early Years Of The Twenty First Century

                It somehow seems to start in high school.  Possibly the watching of the movie Pi to get an A in my Sophomore English class, but most likely the reality of my English future was taking shape in my junior and senior year of high school.   The unrelenting back up of why the reading of the classics is important combined with the ability to examine life through literature must be where I start my English life.   Rachel Donadio provides glints and specs of shine to my dull memory of the past six and a half years of English.  In struggling to receive my degree in Education, I gradually realized I wanted to get my English Literature degree also.  Donadio’s topic and comments are definitely evident in the past few years of my college career, but mostly by means of the fact that I am a student who has taken multicultural literature classes with a bunch of students studying themselves.  In reading Donadio’s essay I find it discouraging that this is the first time I have reflected on English studies as whole.  It is hard to tell whether the importance in reading the Western Cannon overshadows the importance of other literature, but as a student of English I am fascinated with Donadio and her thoughts.  Through my years of college life movies have always been present, so I find myself even more absorbed in the Adam Gopnik piece about abridged literature.  The comparison of special features DVD’s and the commentary of the movie to the abridged version of Moby Dick, and how they all relate to what the audience is reading/ watching and what the author actually wanted makes me think.  I do not know what I feel about abridged literary works however.  There are definitely times when I wish I could have read an abridged version, but would I be saying that now if I had read the abridged version, or would I be asking myself, “Did I miss something?”   And then I begin to wonder if the unabridged version is any less whole because the original was probably edited anyway, so is there really any difference?