Interpreting Our Lives

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live. . . We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images. . . .” Joan Didion, The White Album

The selections chosen for this Composition II section center around the epigram by Joan Didion and its idea that narrative (in all its forms), born out of the human desire to make sense of our experiences, defines the essence of literature. Literature is, nonetheless, its own reward even without such quests and we will examine both the pleasure we get from the written word and the satisfaction, puzzlement, and wonder we draw from the subject matter of the literary text.