Nii Parkes Reflection

A few classes ago, we had author Nii Parkes come into our class to give a lecture/discussion on his book Tail of the Blue Bird. Before he came, we as a class had read and discussed his book over the period of a few weeks. I thought having the author come in to discuss a book we had studied during our class was an extremely informative and cool experience. It is an incredible thing to be able to hear from the actual author why he wrote what he wrote and his own interpretation of his work. I can't remember ever having an experience like the one with Mr. Parkes, and I hope I will be able to do it again in the future. While for obvious reasons most authors cannot come to discuss their books, I thought it was great to have. Details like his scientific background and his interpretation of Kayo's choice completely altered the way that I viewed the text. I found the experience similar to last year when I read Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. After reading the novel, we as a class read a long interview of Faulkner himself, part of which described his interpretation of the text. In the interview, he said that the novel was based on a singular mental image of three brothers looking at their sister's "muddy drawers" while she was up in a tree. From that image, he was able to construct the complicated, four part novel. Before reading the interview, I did not fully appreciate the importance of that scene. After, I was able to re-read the text with a greater level of understanding. Knowing why an author wrote something can be very useful.
     On another note, in relation to our discussion last class, I think that how Faulkner wrote The Sound and the Fury is how many authors write short stories. Before writing anything, the author gets a picture of a single event or scene in their mind, and the rest of the story is fleshing out that one image by providing background and possibly a conclusion. For example, A Conversation From the Third Floor is the image of a women with a baby talking to her husband in prison. The Coffee-Cart Girl is the image of a women selling coffee during a labor strike. Papa, Snake & I is the image of a boy watching a snake bite two dogs. I believe that most short stories are essentially responses to the prompt of a mental image. With the image of a boy watching the snake, one will ask who is the boy? Why doesn't he do anything? Who are the dogs? By answering these questions, the author fleshes out the story and the characters. As with the Papa, Snake & I the image can lead to a conclusion, or as with A Conversation From the Third Floor, the story can exist entirely within the image. This does not work for all short stories, but it is how I view most of them.