The Transcript

By Tom Wolber
Associate Professor of MFL

Ohio Wesleyan students love fantasy novels. Many spend every free minute reading them. More than once I had to remind students at the beginning of the class that it was now time to put their books down. I can certainly relate to their passion.

When I was a teenager, I had a similar addiction to the adventure and fantasy novels by German author Karl May (1842-1912) to the extent that it worried my parents. Did they have a reason to be concerned? Yes and no, as I will explain.

Let’s explore the world of fantasy novels a bit. Obviously, this is a huge, albeit understudied, topic, and so I am focusing on but one popular author – Christopher Paolini and his now complete “Inheritance” series, consisting of the four novels “Eragon,” “Eldest,” “Brisingr” and “Inheritance.” In these books, the human spirit soars to the highest heights and the “divinity in man” (Thoreau) reveals itself in fullness. It would not be wrong, in my opinion, to call Eragon an avatar of Nietzsche’s “oversoul.”

Young Eragon (he is fifteen when we meet him) has grown up motherless and fatherless. He is poor and ignorant. He cannot read or write, although he has sharp eyes and is a good hunter.

And yet, at the end of the fourth book he has slain the evil king Galbatorix and risen to be the wisest and most powerful man in the empire, able to make peace and reconcile the warring races of humans, elves, dwarves, urgals and dragons. Once Galbatorix is dead, Eragon then lays the foundation to a new and better future in which the various races live in peace, harmony, mutual respect and admiration.

Catapulted into the chaos that rules the empire, the young protagonist has no choice but to learn quickly how to survive. Under the tutelage of experienced teachers and mentors, he studies swordfighting, the use of magic and several foreign languages.

A teacher myself, I love the books’ consistent emphasis on and appreciation of knowledge and wisdom. In fact, I am inclined to call the entire series an epistemological novel because the subject of knowledge acquisition is so prevalent. At one point, it is even stated that knowledge is sacred and must therefore be protected and preserved. Obviously, Paolini is a firm believer in the Enlightenment, its optimism, its humanistic values and its didactic methods. Eragon learns and learns and learns – everything from history and geography to mythology and philosophy.

From the Elves, he even learns about living sustainably and in harmony with nature. In the good old tradition of the German “Bildungsroman,” Eragon goes through the phases of apprentice and journeyman until he becomes a master himself. On his side is Saphira, his dragon, who similarly grows and matures into a wise and majestic being.

At no point are Eragon and Saphira seduced by the temptation and trappings of wealth or power. To be sure, there are numerous trials and tribulations for both of them, and there are discussions about the best tactics and strategy, but there is never any question about what is the right and the wrong path.

He and his dragon have no interest in self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. They only want to serve to the point of self-sacrifice, and in the end they retreat from political and military life altogether to teach the next generation of dragons and their riders.

I am not saying that Christopher Paolini is a great, original writer. But he is a memorable author with a strong message. Karl May, Tolkien, Rowling and Paolini are not merely entertainers; they explore and instill eternal values like human rights and social justice.

I am convinced that books of this nature can teach young, impressionable minds much about the difference between good and evil and the responsibilities of an individual to society, and humanity as a whole, whenever and wherever evil lurks.

Unfortunately, the world is full of Voldemorts and Galbatorixes and their political equivalents (Hitler and Stalin) who must be fought.

The struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, is one that never ends. This is, perhaps, the core value that Karl May instilled in me as a teenager.

His fantasy books provided a moral compass to me and millions of other readers that still guides me today, decades later. I would therefore disagree with Plato, who thought art, music and literature were nothing but big lies and useless dreams and that the state should therefore ban them. On the contrary, I would argue with German philosopher Ernst Bloch that fictional literature contains the seed for a more humane social order and can have a liberating, emancipating effect.

However, fantasy novels can, on occasion, also be a way to escape from the real world. They can become a form of “opium” (Marx). It is possible for readers to be so obsessed with literary characters that they begin to neglect their job or friends. If you are a fan of fantasy, do not allow that to happen. Do not ever skip class or work because you are unable to put your book down. You must be able to resist your craving, intoxication and dependency.

Consider self-imposing a daily limit to the time spent with your favorite novel. This way you will be able to extend the pleasure of keeping company with your imaginary friends even longer.

Not long ago, I had a student who knew and loved Christopher Paolini, but was unable to operate in the classroom and in the real world. Withdrawn into a dream world, he was essentially dysfunctional.

I tried to help him find or rebuild a meaningful connection between fact and fiction, the real world and his alternate world, but he had fallen into such a deep hole that I was unable to pull him back out.

A one-dimensional world uninformed by music, art and literature would be flawed and incomplete, but a mind without roots in reality would be equally lost and adrift.
The reciprocal relationship between the two must be maintained. As so often in life, there has to be a balance between the two.

That is what Paolini teaches us in his inspiring “Inheritance” series, among many other things. His books are a call for commitment and action, not for escapism and inaction.

You should read them some day, if you aren’t familiar with them already.

By Anonymous
Transcript Contributor

I knew I was going to go to Take Back the Night. I knew I was going to speak there.
I dreaded it all the same.

I’m not a survivor of sexual assault. But what I’ve known – and tried to forget – for years is that my mother is a survivor. I guess you could say it’s becoming something like an addiction for me, and that makes this editorial one of my own personal 12 steps.

When I left the stage at the end of Take Back the Night last week, I was in the same place I was last year when I shared my mother’s story for the first time.

At last year’s event, I told the audience what I knew had happened to my mother and then I buried that pain so deep I forgot it still boiled, acid in my heart.

That worked – for a while at least. But then The Vagina Monologues reminded me. A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer reminded me. Deep down I knew the pain was still there, though I didn’t feel it. That’s why I went there – I knew it would force me to let the pain out, to admit the truth – not to the audience, but to myself.

This time, I had resolved, I’m not going to bury it again and try to forget. If I do that, I’ll be in the same place a year from now as I was a year ago. And while that place is a lot more comfortable, it’s not the right place for me to be. Last Thursday I spoke out about my pain, now, this Thursday, I want to speak out about my recovery.

Those who were at Take Back the Night can probably tell who I am based off what I’ve written, but I’d appreciate it if you extend the confidentiality shared at the event to this piece.

The first step that pushed me forward wasn’t mine. It was those around me – friends, people I knew of but hadn’t met, people I still can’t name – who supported me afterwards; several were survivors themselves. To all of you, thank you so much – without you pushing me to stay strong that night, I’d have fallen into the same place I was last year.

Sorry if I’ve been distant since then – it’s hard to share something like that and then act like it didn’t happen; even harder to act like it did.

It hasn’t been an easy week.

Friday morning was tough. I didn’t sleep much that night; for a while I just let the tears go as I remembered the night before. I grieved for my mother’s story, and for all the other stories I’d heard.

There was so much pain poured out in that room last Thursday night, but there was so much healing shared afterward, both just from being able to tell your story – or, in my case, my mother’s story – and from all the embraces of the many survivors present.

But throughout that weekend, as I tried to focus on something that night that wasn’t about my story, I remembered those embraces, and I felt guilty for getting them. At the speak-out, after I sat down and regained my composure, I’d begun to question whether I should’ve spoken out in the first place.

This is an event for survivors, I told myself. I’m not one of them.

It wasn’t until another student came up and shared a story similar to mine, saying I’d inspired him to speak, that I realized the event was meant for secondhand stories like mine, too.

But when survivors came to thank me for speaking and hugged me in support, inwardly I struggled again. Why was I the one being supported? I wondered. They’re the survivors, not me.

It felt wrong, like the roles were mixed up; they were the ones who suffered, not me; they were the ones helping me through it.

At the time, all the support made me feel guilty for getting it, for being treated (as I saw it then) like I was some kind of hero for telling a story that wasn’t mine, or like I was a survivor myself.

Eventually, even as this was all still spinning around my head, I went to HamWill and walked into the Counseling Services office to make an appointment.

I’m now on a waitlist, and should meet with one of the counselors within two weeks. They told me not to focus on this too much, but I feared that not thinking about it at all would lead me back to forgetting.

So I talked to my father, and realized that it wasn’t the first time I’d done so; I had a hazy memory of considering how I’d like to discuss it with him but I never actually did it, or so I thought.

What actually happened, several years ago, was that I did talk to him, and then after he’d confirmed that my mother had survived a sexual assault I wiped that memory from my mind, so I could still cling to the miniscule false hope that I was wrong, that it had not happened.

But it did.

Reflecting on my experience that night now, I’ve realized some things about myself and why I felt so guilty afterward from all the support. I told myself that my experience and pain sharing my mother’s story was nothing compared to the others, the stories of real survivors, because I wanted to believe that, to avoid accepting the last bit of truth there was.

The story I shared, of learning that my mother was sexually assaulted, is not just her story.

It is my story too.

It was a lie I told myself: that I was not a survivor; that the story belonged to my mother, not to me as well.

Even though I was not alive when it happened, I am surviving it now, and the pain I feel is similar to that to that I’d feel if I had been the one assaulted. It’s not equal, but it is comparable, and I didn’t want to acknowledge that.

It makes me want to sob, to scream, to find a brick wall and punch it to pieces with my fists, to tear the pieces to bits with my fingernails until there’s nothing left, until the pain’s gone – not that it ever will be, not completely.

It makes me want to stand atop the wall of patriarchy and shout for any man who’s ever thought of raping to listen to my story, to think of what it means to know that the woman who brought you into this world, who you love, to have survived such an assault.

Most of all, it makes me want to forget.

The moment last week that hit me the most wasn’t at Take Back the Night, or during The Vagina Monologues. No, that moment came during the Tuesday performance of A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, during the reading of Mark Matousek’s piece “Rescue” when I heard the line “I was shocked myself, not because the information was new, but because I’d never said it out loud, which meant it only half-existed.”

It was that line that struck me the most, especially given that it was delivered after the narrator has suddenly come to the realization that his mother and three sisters all survived rapes.

Last week was the second time, not the first, that I’d spoken out what happened to my mother, but I spent most of the year between the two declarations trying to forget that it existed.

I have no sisters, but I have friends here I love and care for who are survivors, too. Like the narrator of “Rescue,” I am a man with a broken heart, and like him I’ve spent much of my life hiding the truth from myself.

I don’t know where I’ll go from here, but I know two things: that the road I’m on will be painful, and that I am not alone on that road.

That’s the most important thing Take Back the Night gave me: the support of so many of my peers on campus.

We have each other’s backs and will support each other on this road to recovery.

We will survive.