The Forbidden Bookshelf

These are some of the books I am to have committed to memory enough to handle an exam on them by the end of next week or so. I'm not allowed to refer to them during my exam, of course. Hence-- the "forbidden bookshelf." It also sounds so... daunting. There are others, of course, but they're in the library. I can't buy everything I'm supposed to read. I'd be totally broke.

After a 20 minute meeting or so this week, my committee and I have decided that I will be examined for my Masters in passing April 25. What this means in practical terms is that I have to have the written answers to my exam questions in to the committee members 10-14 days earlier. Which means I will be receiving those questions either next week, during spring break, or immediately after it. This makes me very, very nervous. There are an awful lot of books on my list, and I'm expected to know them all.

Here's how the process works: I have three areas of knowledge on which I'm to be examined-- in my case it's Southern U.S. Literature, The Caribbean and Aesthetics. On a determined day at a determined time, the committee chair will email me the first question. I will not know in advance which of the three areas it is to cover. I have three hours to answer and email it back (thus giving it a time-stamp within three hours). Then the next day I receive question two, and the same gig follows. Ten-15 days later, I am examined on my answers to the written questions, and then on the third field which the questions didn't cover.

Whew. I'm trying to arrange the subjects thematically, so that whatever I'm asked, I'll be able to respond. I have a sort of continuum going with Cesaire-Glissant-Walcott-Ferrer-Harris-Chestnutt-Morrison-Faulkner-Marquez-Cable-Kant-Schiller-Hegel. I think that with a few themes I'm not going to set out here, I may have found a way to field most questions. Did I mention that I'm not allowed to consult books or notes during the exam? That I have to know this material well enough to call it up on command?

At least it will be done April 25, at which point I plan a long drinking binge.