Ten years ago I heard one of Stephen Booth's lectures in an introductory literature course for undergraduates.
The lecture had already started when I came in. The students were not looking at Booth but at their personal copies of the text, Go, Dog. Go!, a picture book by P.D. Eastman.
At the front of the lecture hall, Booth stooped over a microphone, speaking quietly, patiently, as he described each page of the book in numerical order.
At the turn of each page, he remarked a new set of facts, relationships, patterns, and effects, and he tried to describe them in simple language.
The caption tells the dogs to go. Most of them are going but this one is stopping.
The dog's fur has the same color as one of the cars.
The dog keeps asking, "Do you like my hat?", always using the same words to ask her question.
The implication was that we could do what he was doing. We didn't know. The students in the class were maybe eighteen years old and they didn't know, and I was maybe twice their age and I didn't know.
To see what was in front of us was not impossible. The work we had undertaken was possible and beautiful and difficult. A worthy ambition. That was what Booth was trying to teach us.
One of the most profound, humbling experiences of my reading life.
-Aaron Kunin
