Karlheinz Stierle’s “Baudelaire and the Tradition of the Tableau de Paris,” a short chapter in the 11th volume, second edition, of the New Literary History journal, has changed my life forever. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
We need some further context for this story, though. I have always been a reader. My parents were both great readers and they passed the tradition down to me. As they wanted my English to improve from an early age, all of us being second-language English speakers in a non-English speaking country, they also passed on books in English for me to enjoy. I fondly remember receiving a copy of “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” while at the beach for Christmas break, reading as chimes softly rang and sea breeze tinged the air. Just as I had been advised to watch all of my cartoons in the original English dub (and learned to work my way around the finicky settings menu to find such a broadcast), untranslated versions of young adult classics found their way onto my lap as a similar exercise in learning.
I quickly became a great student, perhaps too great of a student. To this day my mother reminds me I really should read more in Spanish, advice that began to appear when, at around 8 years old, I began to routinely borrow and devour several books from the library a week — all in English, of course.
My library-borrowing tendencies even led me into a small spot of trouble once when we were moving countries for the second time, and I forgot to put the library book I was reading at home in my backpack before my second-to-last day of school, as I had yet to finish it. When I returned home that day, I found that all my books and toys had been packed up into several boxes, including Scott Peterson’s “Phineas and Ferb’s Guide to Life,” a title very much due the very next day. My mom, understandably exasperated, compromised at only opening three of the several boxes occupying my room. After that, she would — as we now say, “take the L” — pay the small fee for a lost book. Thankfully, we found it atop the third box. I moved with a thankfully unbesmirched library record and a diploma for most books read in my second-grade class.
It would be a few years until my first minor epiphany struck. I consider it more of a discovery than an epiphany, but a discovery in the sense of finding something already well-known to others. More of an enlightenment than a grand epiphany — it did not feel like a seismic shift in perspective, but more like the easy sway of slotting into place.
It was the first few weeks of sixth grade, which meant I had moved from my school’s primary school location to its middle and high school version, roughly on the other side of the city and much closer to my house. A (physically) new school meant new friends, classes, locations and, most importantly, new books. Having read the tippy-top of recommended reading for advanced learners, I was ready to dive into big-boy books — genuine literary artifacts. This should have proven hard given that I didn’t know the word “literary” nor understood what “literature” actually was. That was, of course, until one of my first visits to this brand-new library that amazed me so. It had two floors, polished wooden desks for study and a monitor for one to look up a book’s reference number independently, without the librarian’s help. It was quite the sight. Walking along the shoulder-height shelves of the middle school section, my eye was caught by a book on a small stand directly at eye height, showcasing one of the popular titles the librarians had picked out as part of their monthly suggestions. Before me, in all its cartoony glory, stood a copy of Rainbow Rowell’s “Fangirl.”
By this point in my life, I was already an avid fan-fiction reader. It would be about two more years until I actually made a Tumblr account for myself, but I had been looking at reposts on Pinterest and had been a frequent visitor of FF.net for a while now, so I did identify with the book’s title. Within the first introductory sentences for its lead, Rowell casually mentioned that she was an English and creative writing major. My decision to also become one was almost instantaneous. I was hesitant on the “creative writing” part — I was actively adding to Wattpad’s wide catalog at this point but I didn’t see much fruit in such labor. The English part though … I hadn’t realized you could study a language past just its words, but instead study its work. As Rowell had just taught me, literature was also a source of great study.
I informed my parents of my newfound decision soon after. It was met with enthusiasm at my dedication to humanities and a reminder that mechanical engineering or business are also very viable career paths. My father bought me Benjamin Dreyer’s style guide and I proceeded to implement all its tips and tricks without question. I had made my bed and was now snuggling in it quite comfortably. Reaching the latter years of high school, I chose to take the International Baccalaureate’s English Higher Level classes in hopes of readying myself for college.
They were very helpful, to be sure, requiring analysis of Robert Frost’s works, classic fables and even Bob Dylan’s discography. I learned a lot that I still apply in college to this day, but my greatest epiphany came from a slightly different source.
For the final essay of our IB course — our highly dreaded internal assessment paper — we were required to take a set of readings from class to compare and contrast. I, being charmed by his lyricism and also the fact that his works were short, chose some of Charles Baudelaire’s poems. Though we were not to use scholarly sources in the actual paper, our teacher told us we could go on JSTOR if we felt so inclined, noting that a lot of the readings might need some contextualization to help elucidate their meaning.
Having a particularly boring night in (courtesy of the global pandemic which prevented me from attending in-person classes for both my junior and senior years), I decided to take him up on the suggestion. It was that evening, as the dark gray sky clouded my room, I found Stierle’s journal article.
To say I was enraptured would be an understatement. For all its content, we rarely ever had scholarly sources in my English class, reading from summaries that accompanied text or listening to our teacher explain a historical link with a reading was the extent of depth we usually reached. Here, though, as I basked in the blue light that washed over my body, I took in everything. Every single detail. The Parisian streets from almost two centuries prior splayed before me amidst never-before-seen terms. Baudelaire’s contemporaries’ names danced around me, creating false images of what they must have looked like. I learned of the two warring poetry scenes, the back-and-forth discourse the literary journals took on in both verse and prose.
For those unacquainted with Parisian scenes and the characters found within, one of Baudelaire’s favorites was that of the flaneur, literally translating to “idler” but here gaining the connotation of a literal voyeur, he who sees all, piercing through the social charade to call out the vile and beautiful (“spleen and ideal”). A watcher who sees the society’s clockwork but is powerless to interrupt its cogs. The judge of the jury without executing powers.
At that moment, I became the flaneur. I became the ever-present seer, the one with the power to understand the context, the scenes and the players of the literary movement. The poems I had read clicked into place and wheels whirred in my brain as the academic source supplemented my solely lyrical ones. I felt the rush of knowledge and understanding fill me up, a rush that gave me the elation to read and to read and to read.
Ten pages into the work, I had to tear myself from the screen and make a desperate grab at pen and paper. I filled five pages, front and back, with messy writings; inspired by the wealth that now engulfed me, I wanted to expel it all back onto the page. I wrote a short fictional account of a dinner wherein faceless, oozing beings full of eyes feasted upon the world, grand and hungry flaneurs eating off the Parisians below, filling their bellies with the knowledge of how the people on the rues lived. As I wrote, I recognized the feeling that had just overwhelmed me as that of satiated hunger, the first drop after a drought, that I too was a great beast who had been fed for the first time in eons.
That was my epiphany: My study of books wasn’t just for the enjoyment of language but for a much more basic fulfillment. I immediately longed for university, for the assigned readings seemed like delicious meals hand-picked by instructors, my body rumbling for their sustenance. I saw myself as I truly was: a flaneur for the world. I wanted to devour all the information it has to offer.
These days I keep myself well-fed. As an English major, most of my classes require many pages consumed before we meet to discuss. Sometimes I feel overstuffed or the food seems to be more gruel-like than usual, but I eat it all the same. I still feel the draw of the seer, the observing eye threatening to suck everything up til it ceases to exist. But these days I usually allow myself to be content with just discussing literature in class. Much more ethical that way, I find.
Digital Culture Beat Editor Cecilia Ledezma can be reached at cledezma@umich.edu.