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I often think about the English lessons for classics we read in high school. Reading Shakespeare's Macbeth and carefully noting down the roles women played and how they might parallel their roles in society of that time. Maybe the ages of Romeo and Juliet and the implication that love and life started earlier since people died earlier. Maybe relating the book burning in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 to conservative censorship in schools. They were, for a lack of a better term, lessons that I was railroaded into. Not to say they weren't worthwhile, but I am most definitely sure I would not have come to those same conclusions as a teenager.

I haven't actively read much more than manga or news articles with the occasional political essay or academic paper for the past 5 years. Ever since I started to write songs to sing, I've become very aware of meanings, as well as reading more. It's hard, I was so resistant to analysis at first. I refused to engage with works that had lyrics unless they were singable and I refused to look up translations for non-english songs. Maybe they were ignored because it felt like I was inadequate at comprehension. School did me no good in that regard, until my final year oh high school where my teacher, Ms. Colacchio, being confused, asked me why I never took a more difficult English class. Nowadays, I've been enjoying imagining what words mean.

I suppose I should say "what they mean to me." Reading classics outside of school is sort of a strange occurrence to me. Interpretations in academic settings were often guided by some scholar's reading of the work—you just had to fill in the blanks. Reading a classic on your own has you filling in the meaning in accordance with your worldview. The depth of the work depends on the depth of the reader.

My interpretation of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye was most certainly colored by plot description I looked up on Wikipedia after reading it. I had felt Holden Caulfield was upset at himself and taking it out on the world, not knowing how to cope with the failures. Wanting to throw it all away, he goes on a several day bender, playing pretend and getting burned by it. By the end he realizes that it isn't the end of the world and he still has a place to go back to. Even now, I'm not sure if this is my own summary. Reading a summary and a few criticisms afterwards made me go "Oh, I totally see it!"as if I had found the subject in an illusory painting. In Elisa Gabbert's The Word Pretty, she makes a point (to which she also shows where she got it from) that once something is known, it makes it impossible to decide whether you wanted to know or not. Or at least it was something along those lines.

Wikipedia scholars quote other scholars to say it might be a way the author represented his time in WWII. To this, I can imagine the murder scene with the blood on the pavement, as well as the careless survival in the cold wintry night, to represent that. I don't think I could've made that connection in absence to the historical context of the author. I also don't exactly understand the hate for him being such a shitty kid and acting out. I think that interpretation might be shallow, but it's the most common one I hear from those who read it, in high school at least. I don't think his actions are right, but how are you supposed to act when your life is falling apart at the seams?

The book to me, at least, reminded me of experiencing tragedy and wanting to fall victim too. I suppose it's easier to wallow in sorrow than to try. Despite that, the people here now are worth enough to stay. It's not really a profound thought, but it gave me relief and comfort knowing that I could relate. I know there is more to glean from it, depending on the angle you tackle it from, but for someone who isn't a good literary analyst, it all seems a bit far for me without it being uneducated conjecture.

Maybe coming back to it in the future could be good for me. Even if a piece of work is simply meant to entertain, a part of the creator's soul is imparted, and maybe you can grab a portion of their insight of the world. Songs to me, devoid of context feel like pure entertainment. It is only when you understand something past that, that it finally becomes memorable. It's not just the words on the page. Even in jazz, knowing the artist's struggles, interpretations, and technical facility, all add to a meaning greater than the sum of their parts. Maybe I don't understand Coltrane's A Love Supreme on a (musically) theoretical level, but I sure do feel its spirituality. I hope to impart a level of meaning that can be hinted at with my writing, as much as my compositions display with its sonority. A listener doesn't need to know me or know why I wrote it, it just has to mean something to them. Wordz r hard