Articulāte Volume 3 Article 4 1998 The Reality Blowing In Hillary Campbell Denison University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.denison.edu/articulate Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Campbell, Hillary (1998) "The Reality Blowing In," Articulāte: Vol. 3 , Article 4. Available at: http://digitalcommons.denison.edu/articulate/vol3/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articulāte by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. The Reality Blowing In 21 "What the hell is he talking about?" Temple's Temple rolls her eyes. "That that novel I read voice screeches. She runs her fingers through her was good because of the way it talked? No one /know THE REALITY BLOWING IN hair, and the way her tense body lays makes the bean­ speaks that way. " I I bag seem like it's made of stone. "But what you said before-that 'it's human to BY HILLARY CAMPBELL '00 Dowell is nodding at Bernard. "That was 'the tell stories' . .. that's exactly it," Bernard says. "That saddest story I have ever heard' (Ford II). That was novel bothered you like it did because it connected NOTE: This essay was written as a response to James Faulkner's Sanctuary, Virginia Woolf's The quite remarkable. That was just the sort of thing to some part of your heart-some corner, and shat­ waves, and Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier-it is a conversation between myself and three Edward would have liked to quarrel with you about. tered it like glass. It was pink, and it was hard, and it characters from the novels: Sanctuary's Temple, waves' Bernard, and Soldier's Dowell. Though I Or Leonora. Or even poor Florence. Yes, yes~uite was familiar, and you realized that you had inhaled realize this essay is not written in any typical analytical or "academic" form, I ~everthel~ss chose to remarkable." life. Putting together pieces of our own realities for write it this way in order to illustrate both the main point of the essay (the realtty of ficnon! , as well "You sound like that book they made us read the submission of others-that's how we deal with as to mirror the brilliantly convincing style/technique/realism found in 'Waves. After readmg these last semester. I read the whole thing but I still have the shaky ground and the unearthing of sponges and three novels, I wanted to express the inherent modern nature of them all, in addition to eac~ author's no clue what the thing was about," Temple says, glar­ 'arrows of sensation' (Woolf239)." haunting ability to draw strings between the characters in the novels an~ the reade~s reading about ing at Bernard. "To break the uncertainty, we create universes them. This essay was meant-atypical though it may be-to voice my mterpretanons of the three "It was interpretive," I say, opening my eyes of our own," I say. novels in a way just as imaginative as that found in the novels, and in a way highly worthy of the texts toward her in an effort to seem friendly and accept­ "We create the interpretive in order to turn jello I have come to ado:.:r::e·~--------------:----:::----:--:-:- ing. But they tell you to never look an animal in the into concrete. To give meaning to the meaningless." "There's an excitement, a blooming, an elec­ about to dawn. But it helps. eye. I should have remembered that. Bernard is whispering. I've told them that these walls "Well my life isn't worth talking about. 'My tricity-almost like a living, breathing current run­ "It was b.s., is what it was. Ambiguity out the are thin. father's a judge' (Faulkner 54) and I had a cat," Temple ning through the brown grass and bricks and flesh. wazoo and all these words making no sense and point­ "But what ifyou already had meaning? I mean, Every seat is filled and the day is sunny, as though a says. less stories in a bigger pointless story and-" what if the meaningless was your meaning and, by Everyone laughs, but she hadn't meant to be spotlight burning coldly down on leafless trees and '"I could make a dozen stories of what he said, 'lifting the curtain' as it were-by hearing the stories funny. The feeling that what you'd planned isn't go­ breathless workers, abounding with words. You can of what she said-1 can see a dozen pictures. But of others, you're turning your own world into noth­ ing to go quite right is not the best feeling in the feel the words, the effort, the ambition to make black­ what are stories? Toys I twist-'" ing?" Dowell asks. .. ... and-white what is colorful and imaginary and false­ world. Sometimes I feel that if everyone were ex­ "Oh God ... " Temple mutters. "Poor Florence?" I say. true. You can feel the narrative rising," Bernard says. actly like me, things would run a hell of a lot more "'-bubbles I blow, one ring passing through "Indeed poor Florence. Or poor Edward. Or smoothly. Trying to impress and be different just "What narrative?" Temple asks. another. And sometimes I doubt if there are stories. poor any of them. If we'd only keep to our own "This," I say. doesn't cut it sometimes. What is my story? What is Rhoda's? What is worlds, there would be no hurt or pain or revelation! "And you just plan to sit there while we talk?" "Look at the way your lights wind up around Neville's?' (Woolf144)?" Bernard leans back on the One can learn of life, but what if that is too much?!" the windows," Bernard says. "Do you keep them on Dowell says. bed with his arms behind his head, and stares. He's becoming terribly excited. Temple shushes him all the time? Your face is throbbing. Constancy runs "That's the plan." "I believe I read the novel you're speaking of, or carelessly. "I found it was false, 'and yet I swear by through the meadows out there, where no one waits "What's 'this?'" Temple asks. at least the sort of novel you're speaking of," Dowell the sacred name of my creator that it was true. If for A throbbing in my right cheek. A tiny heart­ to find it, he once said to me. If you want to find it, says eagerly. "I kept telling myself as I read it that I nine years I have possessed a goodly apple that is rot­ though, you will. Wanting is acknowledging self, ac­ beat pocketed in my mouth. Hope. That this will had lifo there in my hands-on paper! For once; I ten at the core and discover its rottenness only in knowledging need and desire and you, I, me, because all fall into place, and points will be made. Before knew exactly how things were because I was hearing nine years and six months less four days, isn't it true none of us knows a 'right' definition of ourselves. It the sun sets. "I want you to tell me if life can be everyone's side of it, and nothing could surprise me to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple? is all make-believe and taking photos like those up written down." later on that would make me change it all later. I So it may well be with Edward Ashburnham, with on the wall there. Why? A glossy You is not the real "Say what? Whose life?" repeated to myself, I said: 'I console myself with Leonora his wife and with poor dear Florence' You, and yet you paste and stick because you want to "Your life. All of you. I want to know about thinking that this is a real story and that, after all, (Ford14). What if, by accepting the arbitrariness of be associated with that happy, smiling You. A faux reality, and about existence, and about lifo. And I real stories are probably told best in the way a person life, we are dooming ourselves to hell?" reality. A proposal of the delighted girl by the beach want to write something about being a person, and telling a story would tell them. They will then seem Outside, the light is actually beginning to fade, in California, with hair that is longer now. And yet about putting things how they 'are' directly onto pa­ most real' (Ford167)." and inside, my watch feels constricting. The tension you claim that that is who you were and are and want per. So, if you would, just talk to me about-" If I'm not able to take all this down, I'll have to in the room is palpable-! like that word, "pal­ , kn " "All of this," Dowell says. He sweeps his arm to be. But you d on t ow. remember it. But even then, how will I know what pable"-and I become aware of the dried saliva caked about the room as if the light of understanding were "That's in Florida," I say. order to put it all in, or if it will even make sense? on my lips. Secretly, I try to wipe it away. "So what-it's human to tell stories? Is that And then Lisa instantly comes home. And with Hillary Campbell is a sophomore from Upper Arlington, O~io, :rzajoring in.English (U:riting), an~ minoring.