My personal approach to literature

I read every author purely on one-on-one terms. Doesn't matter who. He or she either has something to say to me or doesn't.

I read every author as though I were a member of his or her contemporary audience; not as a student in a classroom accepting greatness as a given and swallowing spoon-fed thematic insights from the swooping-airplane of an instructor's hand.

I read every author with one simple condition in place: Entertain me, inform me, challenge me, inspire me, shake, rattle, or roll my soul. Be ye literary giant or novice novelist, do one or some or all of these things—or suffer utter rejection by me. Bitch.

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Help me Rhonda

Rhonda, I'm having a heap of trouble deciphering what a Pulitzer-Prize winning author was trying to express in these two sentences from one of her early short stories (emphases mine):

1. She has spent her life trying to escape from the parlor-like jaws of self-consciousness.

2. Her late marriage has set in upon her nerves like a retriever nosing and puffing through old dead leaves out in the woods.

Parlor-like jaws, Rhonda? As in doily-draped jaws, or jaws protruding from a yellowing linen lampshade bedecked with dingy tufted fringe? How can "jaws" be "parlor-like," Rhonda? Feel me?

While you're chewing on that one, let's move on to the retriever.

There's something amiss here. The author doesn't say how near or how far those specific woods might be vis-a-vis the nerves being set in upon by the retriever's allegedly objectionable nosing and puffing.

What if the woods lies waaaaay down the road from the cozy, parlor-like parlor in which the aforesaid nerves sip herbal tea while snugly wrapped in a fleece throw; a calico cat perhaps comfortably curled up and purring in their (the nerves') lap? Under those circumstances, a retriever, acting in the capacity of a metaphoric proxy for marriage, couldn't do much "setting in upon" anything, I wouldn't think.

And what's the big deal about a retriever snorting around in dead leaves anyway, Rhonda? That's a totally idyllic image as far as I'm concerned. Consider this not implausible scenario:

It's a brisk fall afternoon. Twilight's setting in upon my by now ginormously soothed nerves as I stroll homeward through the idyllic autumnal woods, anticipating with mounting relish the mug of piping hot cocoa—all tricked up with midget marshmallows—awaiting me at the kitchen table, thanks to the infallible thoughtfulness of my good wife. And notice how ol' Big Feller, my loyal and hale retriever, fuels my equanimity even further as he trots hither and yon, a-nosin' and a-puffin' through the lush carpet of old dead leaves. "What'cha lookin' for, Big Feller, huh? What'cha lookin' for, boy? Heh-heh."

I believe I've made my point.

So. What's the deal? Is it that the leaves crackle inordinately? Is that it, Rhonda? Or is it that the sonofabitch retriever is so goddamn single-mindedly persistent?

If that's the case, the author's meaning might more lucidly have been expressed with a few deft revisions (in bold):

Her late marriage has set in upon her nerves like some crazy-ass relentless bloodhound nosing and puffing for the waning scent of a fleeing thief's stinking B.O. through old dead leaves ... etc.

Or something.

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