Exacting, Especially About Details
by
Andi Miller
Main Entry: fin·icky
Pronunciation: \_fi-ni-k_\
Function: adjective
1 : extremely or excessively particular, exacting, or meticulous in taste or standards
2 : requiring much care, precision, or attentive effort
<a finicky eater>
<fussy about clothes>
<particular about her books, both inside and out>
Or better yet, Princeton University’s “Wordnet” definition of finicky is even simpler, more streamlined, and strikes to the heart of my particular case of bibliophilism: “exacting, especially about details.” Though such has not always been the case.
I was raised on a steady diet of horror and paranormal romance. While other young bookworms were nose deep in the pages of Jane Eyre or The Call of the Wild—or so they say; I want the proof—I cozied up with R.L Stine, Christopher Pike, and my favorite of the bunch, L.J. Smith.
What is it with young adult horror writers and initials, anyway? Perhaps they were afraid of being embarrassed by their proclivities. While I’m shouting my habits to the world in confession, they’re hunkered down over fine cherry wood desks writing literary fiction under their real names. Maybe Jonathan Safran Foer was the real culprit behind the Fear Street saga, or that novel about the boyfriend who survived an autopsy. You don’t remember the title? Me neither.
From vampire love stories and horror for the pre-pubescent crowd, I moved on to forced feeding, that is, the novels and short stories I was required to read by a bevy of brilliant English teachers, the likes of which I would not come to appreciate until years later. While I can’t look back on my high school days as particularly charged with reading, the roots of a passion certainly began to take hold. The Great Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities, and Fahrenheit 451 are just a small cross-section of the novels that first made wonder if there was something to this literature thing. Works of short fiction such as Bradbury’s “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains,” Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” and O’Connor’s “Good Country People” showed me the magic in classic fiction and the possibility that the “good stuff” could be just as twisted as the grocery store paperbacks to which I was drawn.
As one might imagine, from these meager literary beginnings, a university education only intensified my yearning to experience a wide range of material as I got to sample from a staggering literary buffet with every passing semester. One day I might be enamored by theater of the absurd, another day by Modernism; one week explicating Stephen Crane’s “In Heaven,” and the next week muddling over an independent study of M. Night Shyamalan’s films and the culture of fear in literature.
Graduate school finally put me over the top into literary schizophrenia as I was able to make a living and build a good reputation in my department while studying children’s literature and graphic narrative. Picture books and comics, anyone? The proverbial red-headed stepchildren of English departments everywhere are my game, you see, and a game I love to the fullest.
Certainly it is my manic reading past that brings me to a career as a college English instructor and a part-time writer. While I was not of terribly literary beginnings, I knew what I liked and gulped books down accordingly. Now, years later, my opinions are strong, steadfast, and often hinge on the pleasing details or snag on the unpleasant ones, and what my education gave me was a lust for the particulars in a throng of genres. For the magic that pleases me as a reader is lodged between the details, both inside and outside the pages, and they are what make this reading life worth wallowing in.
Andi is a recovering university academic employed by the North Carolina community college system as an English instructor. While she decided to forego a Ph.D. and career as a professor, she fills in all the free time her current position affords her with editing literary publications, reviewing, freelancing, and blogging at Tripping Toward Lucidity: Estella’s Revenge . Her work can be found in the journal, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), and Altar magazine as well as online in various venues such as PopMatters.com. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), and writes fiction. Her turn-ons include new books and gelato, while her turn-offs are reality television and washing dishes. Contact Andi.
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