Geography Matters

     Just as the chapter title suggests, it is interesting in literature the way that geography matters. Foster defines this geography as being both the landscape that surrounds people and the people themselves. In certain books this is very obvious, and to explore Foster's chapter further I will be using one of these books, The Secret History by Donna Tartt.


     This novel fits particularly well with Foster's statement, “we feel that those novels and stories couldn't be set anywhere but where they are” (p.164). In The Secret History the enclosed campus life and even more enclosed classes lead to the intricate bond between the Ancient Greek students. The mountains allow for the manner of Bunny's death to appear an accident, and the climate allows for the snow which covers Bunny and leads to the investigation. It is the strict guarding of land in the area that leads to the murder of the farmer and ensuing events. None of this would have been possible for Richard in the flat dusty lands of California. That geography simply would not have been compatible for the events of The Secret History.


    Another interesting statement of Foster's is that “Geography can also define or even develop a character (p.167) and his examples of Taylor Greer fleeing the mountains in order to discover life, and Milkman Dead running to the mountains in order to find roots. I would argue that Richard feels he has found his freedom in the mountains and trees of Vermont and in the exclusive class of Julian. But these dual examples of Foster show that the geography of a novel is not a a scientific equation. We can't simply look at the landscape of a novel and claim to understand what the novel is all 'about' and why the characters react the way they do.


     Geography is also not stagnant. It changes as the character's perception of it changes. What once was the enclosed freedom of campus life changes for Richard at the holidays, and also after Bunny's death. As a prime example of this changing perception, Foster talks of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love and the fact that, “at first the alpine environment seems clean and uncluttered, but as time goes on (...) we- begin to realise that its also inhuman.” (p.174) This fits beautifully with Richard's experience of the Ancient Greek class, and we can only watch as the geography of that situation results in his being exactly like them.


    I think that Foster's chapter has many extremely valid points, but we have to be careful to remind ourselves that he is not offering us a tool to garner the 'correct' reading from a text. Rather, he offers another angle in which it is interesting to appreciate a text. It is far too easy to look at geography or seasons and say, he is surrounded by mountains therefore he feels enclosed. This may in fact be true, but I think Foster's chapter encourages us to look beyond what may seem obvious in the landscape. To interrogate that view with the reactions and perceptions of the characters. To consider where they have come from and how they have been affected by multiple geographies.




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Tartt, Donna The Secret History, London: Penguin Books, 1992.

Foster, Thomas C. Excerpts from How to Read Literature Like a Professor, New York: Quill, 2003.

Against Readings

       My presentation this week was on Mark Edmundson's "Against Readings" and there were just a few points that I wanted to pull out and question. Although being very easy to read, the chapter is clearly for a very specific type of audience; namely the intellectuals who would endeavour to read critically, but Edmundson is so keen to recognise every single viewpoint that in some cases it feels like he's trying to defeat his own argument. Naturally it’s important to recognise social gaps in theories, but Edmundson does this to the point that I began to wonder whether he really believed his own argument or whether it was simply a utopian ideal.

       In relation to viewpoints, as I said above this article is clearly for literary intellectuals, but I did feel that Edmundson’s argument of literature being good because it offers a second chance to be extremely faulty. This I felt because of the nature of literature versus oral and physical culture. Undoubtedly literature can have extreme physical and social responses to it, such as in the cases of religion, but most challenging of social ideals comes through oral and physical challenges, hearing and seeing people doing things that are different to our preconceived notions.

       Carrying on from preconceived notions, certainly my biggest problem with this article was Edmundson's admonition that we should treat and present the text as the author would have wished it (Edmundson, "Against Readings" 2009 pg. 62). This idea has so many inherent problems that I don't have space to deal with them in justice, so I shall move on.

       My second greatest problem with the article was Edmundson's recommendation that if we don't like the text we should lay it aside to gather dust (Edmundson, 2009 pg. 63). This I find problematic because: often I find that I only truly love the text after I have studied it (not just read it), and because often what we don't like is good for us. For example, I hated maths in school but if I had never been forced to study maths then I wouldn't have certain skills that I have now. To simply ignore a book on the grounds that we don't like it, is to me, a dangerous dissolution of academic study. If we only read what we enjoy, or what we think we will enjoy, then we take the risk of never opening our minds to other genres and authors who, despite their difficulty, can advance our minds and theories.

       So, despite Edmundson having some very valid concerns, such as forcing one text upon another, I was left vaguely bemused by his insistence that I love and befriend the text and author, and that I take care not to offend either of them lest I kill the text. It feels slightly like I should be walking on eggshells.

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Edmundson, Mark "Against Readings" from Profession 2009. 56-65.