Lifting the Veil
My son "sees" math. It is to the great detriment of our educational system that for the most part, math is rote--and for most kids, dreaded. I hated math. Feared it, thanks to possibly the worst teacher in the history of mankind who taught me math in seventh grade. She ruined the subject for me and made me hate school. Of course, my revenge was to depict her quite well in one of my books.
Then, a few years ago, I read one of my favorite nonfiction books EVER. I highly recommend MY BRAIN IS OPEN by Bruce Schecter. I don't know the author, this is just a plug for a phenomenal book that will change your mind about math. When I read it, my mind opened to amazing ways in which some people SEE math. My son is one such person--though he's only 10. He SEES math. He sees it in three dimensions; he sees it in ways that amaze me.
I see the world a little differently too. I see stories in the people I meet. I see demons and angels and good and evil and human pathos and all sorts of things in the stuff of ordinary life. Then I write about it.
For me, as awful as my seventh-grade math teacher was, my ninth-grade English teacher was the opposite. I remember reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. And for the first time, a teacher made me get, see, understand symbolism. A veil was lifted. Books were never the same after that. I SAW symbols and dimensions where previously there were just words on a page.
I love when readers write to me and say they "get" what I was weaving into my books. Tom in THE ROOFER is my sacrificial lamb. The plants and tableaus in SPANISH DISCO mean something. INVISIBLE GIRL is full of religious and spiritual symbolism. You can enjoy the books without getting all the nuances. But if you do get them, and the veil is lifted, then you enjoy it on another level.
How about you? Do you "see" math? Do you enjoy a book more if you see little hints of things the author is trying to get across? Do you remember a specific book that really was all the more meaningful when a wonderful teacher or the time you read it in your life meant you got that much more out of it?
Then, a few years ago, I read one of my favorite nonfiction books EVER. I highly recommend MY BRAIN IS OPEN by Bruce Schecter. I don't know the author, this is just a plug for a phenomenal book that will change your mind about math. When I read it, my mind opened to amazing ways in which some people SEE math. My son is one such person--though he's only 10. He SEES math. He sees it in three dimensions; he sees it in ways that amaze me.
I see the world a little differently too. I see stories in the people I meet. I see demons and angels and good and evil and human pathos and all sorts of things in the stuff of ordinary life. Then I write about it.
For me, as awful as my seventh-grade math teacher was, my ninth-grade English teacher was the opposite. I remember reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. And for the first time, a teacher made me get, see, understand symbolism. A veil was lifted. Books were never the same after that. I SAW symbols and dimensions where previously there were just words on a page.
I love when readers write to me and say they "get" what I was weaving into my books. Tom in THE ROOFER is my sacrificial lamb. The plants and tableaus in SPANISH DISCO mean something. INVISIBLE GIRL is full of religious and spiritual symbolism. You can enjoy the books without getting all the nuances. But if you do get them, and the veil is lifted, then you enjoy it on another level.
How about you? Do you "see" math? Do you enjoy a book more if you see little hints of things the author is trying to get across? Do you remember a specific book that really was all the more meaningful when a wonderful teacher or the time you read it in your life meant you got that much more out of it?
posted by Erica Orloff at 7:16 PM
15 Comments:
Hi Erica,
Themes, symbols, metaphors, etc.-- all that stuff we learned to look for as English majors--occur organically for me, i.e. from somewhere in the subconscious. I think it's probably the same for many authors. Harper Lee, for example, probably didn't consciously set out to write a masterpiece full of symbolism, although it's all there for those of us who wish to seek it. I can go back and recognize certain themes in my own work but, honestly, I wasn't thinking about them as I wrote. Mostly, I leave the explication of themes and symbols for people much smarter than I am.
About math: I was good at math until I hit geometry in tenth grade. My brain is lacking in the spatial reasoning department. Plus, the teacher was from Iran and spoke with a heavy accent, making him difficult to understand. The fact that I smoked a lot of pot in tenth grade had nothing to do with it. :)
I never got maths when it all about the adding and dividing, but once I got onto alegbra, I loved it - I think it become more abstract so easier for me.
I can't remember the exact term for it, but I have dsylexia with numbers (dyspraxia?) so Maths was always torture for me, as was anything else involving formulas and figures. English, on the other hand, was a dream. Every aspect of the subject came to me effortlessly. I love looking for the symbolism and themes in poetry and literature. Like Jude, I often go back over my own writing and discover reoccuring motifs and symbols in there that I never consciously would have put in.
Hi Jude:
I agree. My editors, for some of my books, have me draft "book group questions." Invisible Girl, for instance, has a Reader's Ring logo (www.ReadersRing.com) with maybe 20 questions for book groups. It's often THEN that I see some of the metaphors. They were there all along, symbols and so on, but much of it is on a subconscious level. But then aren't most Jungian archetypes on that level?
True story . . . I was pushing my son in a baby carriage when he was maybe two (my older son), and the moon was out. I had never really pointed out the moon before . . . so I looked up and pointed to the moon and said, "Do you know what that is?" He siad, "Sure . . . it's GOD." Can't get a clearer example of how those archetypes are almost innate!
As for math . . . check out that book. It will chnage your mind about it. Most of all, you will see how boring we make the subject vs. how vibrant it could be.
Hi, just came across your blog and site. Very nice. Is this where I enter the contest?
Hope everyone is having a great summer.
kathryn and naomi . . .
I was the same. If allotted an hour to write an essay, I could do it in a fraction of the time it took my classmates and never sweat it. I always knew if I had an essay test, I would ace it because once I had the opportunity to explain what I knew about the test subject, I'd be OK--as long as I could write it out.
Hmm . . . I also never thought about how algebra is abstract. I don't know if I did any better at algebra. I know I will still often have nightmares--in them, I will arrive at the last day of the semester at college and realize I cut ALL my math classes and never did ANY of the math homework. In fact, I won't even recognize the teacher. And now I have to pass some really tough final. I look down at the paper and can't even figure out if it's trig or calculus. LOL!
E
Hi Pat:
Send a "CONTEST" subject line with your name and address to CONACT ME. I literally just realized my webmaster didn't put in the contest link on page 1. I'll get that added in today . . . but until then, just send me an email at the contact link. SORRY! :-)
E
Hi Erica,
I also have a son who 'sees' math. To an almost freakish degree. We've joked that he was born with a calculator implanted. From the time he was 5-6 he could walk through a store and calculate a weeks groceries, taxables and all to within a dime. Doesn't get it from me. I avoided the subject as much as possible. Now I have to add that I keep the books for our business :0 go figure. Keeping the right/left brain balance, I suppose. The black/white balance works for me, geometry algebra etc. doesn't. The reverse is true in English. In all books I've enjoyed, I see a theme that speaks to me. Having said that, I always hated it in school when you had teachers who insisted something was to be read a certain way. Can't think of an example off hand, but I know there were a few occasions where I came away with a different interpretation than others.
When I read Stephen Kings On Writing, it was an epiphany for me. I hadn't deliberately written themes in, but when I went back over my stuff I'd subconsciously added them. Recognizing them and inserting cues and symbols has made my 'stuff' stronger. (I think;0) But like Jude said, I don't agonize over it. If people come away with something that 'speaks' to them, terrific. I'll leave the dissecting to the brainiacs.
Elaine
Elaine:
I am always amused or intrigued, I guess, is a better word, when I get an enthusiastic fan email from someone who got something TOTALLY different from what I intended in one of my books. Yet, I never try to disuade the reader--they took something different from it likely because they BROUGHT something different (different worldview or experiences) to the book. I agree with you--I dislike when a teacher says you "must" get x or y from a book.
E
Thanks, Erica. I'll check out that book. My son is very good at math (he was awarded a Presidential Academic Achievement Award for eighth grade last school year, one of thirty in a school of a thousand students), but he says he hates it. Maybe that book will help him enjoy it more too.
Jude:
Just so you knw, Paul Erdos (the genius in the book) believed in using hallucinogens. MAYBE you might not want to give it to your child. ;-)
E
Ah. Math on acid. No wonder he saw it in three dimensions. :)
Now I really feel like a (pardon the term) muggle.
I've no story about myself or anyone in my family with abilities or talents like you are talking about.
I've had to work for all of it all my life. I'm not saying that anyone else has not had to work, just that I have no particular extra talent. Reading and writing were easier than math because I liked them more. I have no more skill at one or the other.
Digging out symbolism and themes was a hard-won skill. It truly had to be beaten into me... and I'm still not to good at it.
I can remember as an adolescent dreaming about having special powers or talents.
What I missed then was what I know now: my talent is perseverance.
Ewoh:
And any writer will tell you THAT talent is probably right up there as the most important of all.
E
My IQ scores tend to veer right to the verbal end of the spectrum (On the Wechsler-something like that test, I scored something like 180), but...
I'm a straight A maths student, but had a B average for English.
Go figure. That said, I live in Singapore, and we have some pretty darn good textbooks.
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