Today’s post is written by Shanyn Fiske, one of our Books@Work partners and an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University (Camden) with a specialization in Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Classical Reception Studies. 

The interrogative is a dying form – not only of grammatical expression but of life. At a time when efficiency and productivity seem the driving forces of culture, it makes sense that emphasis should lie on the generation of answers rather than the formulation of questions. Answers, after all, mean closure – answers grant one permission to put one thing to rest and move on to the next, and that seems the very definition of progress. Questions, on the other hand, are messy, imprecise things that tend toward the propagation of their own kind, leading ad-infinitum to heaven knows where.

One of the greatest challenges in leading a successful Books@Work session is how to get a group of strangers – many of whom do not consider themselves “readers” and for whom being in a room with an English professor evokes unpleasant classroom memories – to embrace their vulnerabilities and enter into an interrogative mindset. Because the goal of these sessions, as I see them, is not to offer answers on the text at hand but to create an environment where participants feel comfortable enough to pose their own questions – not just about the text but about their own perspectives and assumptions. Being able to create such an environment requires a certain understanding of the stakes involved for the participants, and for many in a workplace setting, in the company of colleagues, what is at stake is often nothing less than the integrity of their professional identities.

Christian Krohg, Sick Girl, 1880/1881, National Gallery, Norway, [Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

The last group of the day consisted almost exclusively of shop employees, none of whom had heard about Books@Work and all of whom made it clear from the get-go that they had better things to do than talk with me about a story they found boring and pointless. Several of them sat with their arms folded tightly across their chests, their copies of the story conspicuously absent or pointedly discarded on the ground at their feet. The wariness with which they regarded me beautifully and ironically replicated the central dilemma of the story, which is about the distrust of a poor family toward the doctor they have called in to examine their sick child.

Someone chimed in. “They’re trying to hide that from the doctor from the start,” referring to the mother’s embarrassment about the conditions of the house when the doctor first arrives. “He probably thinks they’re the ones that started the sickness,” referring to the fact that other children in the school also have a similar bacterial infection.

Another man said, “They don’t want some doctor coming in there, passing judgment on their lives, talking shit they don’t understand, and telling them what to do.”

I let that settle on all of us for a minute. Sometimes the honesty of a statement can resonate more loudly than anyone had expected or intended, and I think all of us in the group lost our footing for a moment.

“That must feel a lot like an invasion,” I said after a bit. “A violation.”

Which is, of course, what the doctor in the story does in a visceral way, forcing his instrument down the child’s throat, despite her violent protests and finally securing the diagnosis he had suspected. But instead of giving him satisfaction and closure, the affirmation of his knowledge leaves the doctor questioning his actions and motives, transforming what should have been a clear-cut case of diagnostic protocol into a story about the complexities of power and authority. As much as anything, the story is about the inadequacy of answers.

Difficult sessions like this reinforce my conviction in the power of literature to allow us to enter those vulnerable spaces without sacrificing the illusory but entirely necessary shell of our identities; to ask of ourselves and of each other the tough questions while at the same time offering the safety of a graceful closure. When the session is over, we close our books and leave each other’s company. But the best of the stories remain with us and within us; their questions linger, continuing to pry open the edges of our existence, insisting on the suspension of closure.

Copyright © 2017 by Shanyn Fiske. This piece is condensed from its original version “Embracing the Interrogative” and printed here with permission. Author’s photo by Daniel Fugaciu.

Saul Steinberg, Untitled (Question Marks), 1961, [Fair Use] via WikiArt.org

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