In particular, the one that I read today was written in my last semester. Titled "Tiger Cub Plays the Piano," this essay stands out in my memory today because I wrote it for my class with Professor Oscar Hijuelos.
English professors tend to be eccentric types, and Professor Hijuelos was no exception. I signed up for his class, partly because I knew he was a Pulitzer winning writer and I was curious about what I could learn about writing from him.
A friend of mine took a class of his that same semester about the art of fiction. She told me that when her class became squeamish about critiquing a classmate's piece which involved a sex scene, Professor Hijuelos became fed up and ordered everyone in the class to go home and write a sex scene to be critiqued next week. They returned the following week with everything ranging from metaphorical deflowerings to explicit anatomical descriptions.
Writers often debate whether or not it's necessary to take writing classes. I tend to be in the camp that writing classes may be helpful but not entirely necessary. There were two key things, however, that I got out of taking a class with Professor Hijuelos.
The first was his surgical precision with words. I had never come across anyone before who was so exacting about word choice. I'd always heard the adage along the lines of, "Every word is deliberate," but I'd never seen it executed so unrelentingly. When I talked to him for a final conference that semester, I mentioned how I really admired watching him critique in that manner during class, and he used a tennis analogy to explain it to me: "The difference between good players and great players are that the great players can hit winners on a regular basis. A great writer knows how to hit the winners regularly, instead of just once in a while."
The second was less about what wisdom he imparted on me, and more of a confidence issue. My writing ego is a pathetic, fragile thing that puffs up whenever it receives compliments. Writing is by nature fraught with self-doubt, and it is even more so for someone like me who has always felt as if she were putting it off on the backburner. I was not one of those classmates who took solely English classes and lived and breathed on writing. I was always worried that my skills were rusty or that my gifts were going to waste. And so, for a writer whom I admired to compliment my final essay, I was elated. I even saved the last e-mail he ever sent me:
"[Sophelia], I just wanted you to know that I really loved your final paper: I found it wonderfully written-- you have a real gift for words, and I was happy to see just how much you've honed your skills.
Or to put it differently, it was a pleasure to read. Ad did me proud.
Well, that's about it.
Hope you have a wonderful summer.
Oscar H"
Oscar Hijuelos passed away later that year, about five months after he sent me that e-mail. He'd been playing tennis when he suffered a heart attack.
I still haven't read his novels. It's been on my ever-growing TBR List for a year now. I found a signed copy of "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" at the William Faulkner bookstore in the French Quarter but couldn't bring myself to shell out 50 dollars for it. A part of me wishes I'd had the foresight to buy a copy for him to sign that spring. But I should be grateful for all of the other mementos I have from that semester in his class.
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