Weinstein's Recovering Your Story Escorts Readers Through Contemporary Classics

by Deborah Goldstein

Arnold Weinstein clearly remembers the first time he read James Joyce's acclaimed novel, Ulysses. He hated it.

"I thought it was gibberish," the professor of comparative literature recalled. "I read 100 pages and put it down. It was unthinkable that anyone could possibly make sense of it."

That was in 1959, when Weinstein (left) was a sophomore at Princeton University. He, of course, eventually finished reading Ulysses and has been teaching the "masterpiece" in the classroom for nearly thirty-seven years now. But that first "dismal" experience with Joyce is, in part, what led Weinstein to author his latest book, Recovering Your Story: Proust, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, Morrison.

"These are authors that everyone admires, but many people are terrified to read," said Weinstein. So, Recovering Your Story serves as a guidebook of sorts, in which Weinstein decodes seven often-considered-daunting novels to help ease readers through the words. The novels included are: Remembrance of Things Past, Ulysses, Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and Beloved.

"As forbidding as they appear, these novels are ultimately a form of self-portrait for readers, illuminating things that are in the depths of our minds," Weinstein argues. Things, he says, such as "life and death and love and memory."

Throughout the book, he both analyzes and seeks to "open up" each novel by showing what is "personal" about their depictions of consciousness, as well as how they helped illuminate his own "story."

For instance, To the Lighthouse conjures up teenage memories of Weinstein holding on to his southern identity when he left Tennessee and headed north to college. Virginia Woolf's character, Mrs. Ramsey, evokes thoughts of Weinstein's late mother and helps him explore ways to honor her memory. And in The Sound and the Fury, he relates to Benjy, Quentin, and Caddy's feelings of vulnerability. He assures readers that they, too, can negotiate these novels and recognize their own stories within them. Instead of seeing these books as esoteric, Weinstein views their complexity as a version of one's own inner complexity, as a mirror of how the mind works.

Having recorded some 250 lectures for The Teaching Company, Weinstein sees a real hunger among the general public to continue learning and rediscover classic works of literature.

I realized there are a lot of smart people out there who want to go back and read what they read too quickly or didn't understand in college."

And, he expects their perspectives on the novels will have changed and will continue to change with each rereading - just like his did.

 "When I got older, I realized I was so wrong about Joyce," he said. "I saw things I didn't see as a younger student, such as the truces you make with life. I think you get to a certain point in life where you realize there are things you're not going to do. Joyce helped me realize that's both comic and tragic."

He predicts even his current feelings about these novels will probably change yet again. But when they do, he won't be writing about it. Weinstein refers to Recovering Your Story as a valedictory book and his "final statement" about what he's learned from these writers over the years.

"I've been thinking about this book all my life. I don't think I'll stop thinking about these writers, but now, I've had my say."