Private Joke

A novelist once took up a creative writing post at a small but revered American college after sales of his second book did much more poorly than the first, though a handful of critics declared it to be a more accomplished work of art. Sometimes during class, he would single out one student, take up his or her story and read the first two paragraphs aloud, then stop abruptly and declare, “This may well be a work of genius, but I never trust myself. I’ll take it to my second reader and she what she thinks.” That night, at home, he would put the story before the face of his one-year-old daughter, who would look absently at the sheets of paper, perhaps even clutch them, then abandon them and get back to something more interesting, like pressing the buttons on the cordless telephone. The next day in class the author would announce that his second reader had rejected the story, and that because she knew more about this kind of writing than he did, he would defer to her opinion. A few months later, in an interview published online alongside the first few chapters of his new work in progress, the author related this little joke that he said served to expel “the myth of genius.” Some of his former students read the interview and complained to the dean, who then called the author into his office and dismissed him. As the dean later explained it, he knew full well that the author thought that the “teaching” of writing was impossible, and expected him to teach in a way that reflected that. But he found fault in the fact that the author chose to keep his joke private, and hence had not taught anything at all.