Reading Response 1. The Scarlatti Tilt by Richard Brautigan.

After reading the Scarlatti Tilt for the first time I was a little bit stuck for any ideas of what happened before or after the reading. Usually I enjoy knowing what I am reading about as well as having a little bit of background knowledge of inspirations or events which led up to the creation of the reading. Intertextuality led me directly to CSI Miami series or the likes of NCIS where they have a murder on their hands but apart from that the text really didn’t explain a great deal apart from establishing an initial scene with very little detail, which seemed strange to say the least. All I knew was that it took place in a studio apartment in San Jose; there was a man, a woman, a violin and an empty revolver with a police presence. The almost lack of text nearly discouraged me to take an interest in the reading. It seems simple doesn’t it? The plot was that a lady killed a man because he was playing the violin in a very small and confined space and she obviously didn’t appreciate the sound. As far as I was concerned that was all there was to the story, It wasn’t until my peers started reading further into the Scarlatti Tilt and gaining different interpretations of what happened in the studio apartment of San Jose that my interest of the reading grew somewhat.

With all the interest in the reading I started to think to myself. What exactly has happened here? “Hang on, San Jose doesn’t sound like the safest place in the world. I’m assuming that there would be more than one murder every year and chances are that they are caused from bigger issues than just a silly little violin”. I’m thinking university housemates, work colleagues or probably more likely partners even, had a bit of an argument and things got out of control. Boom. Someone has died, the police come over and the guys killer handed herself in. Think about it. I love to watch those CSI shows and Criminal minds and you are always led to believe the obvious. Generally the killer is never anyone who you would have expected, so surely its not that simple. Who says that anyone even actually died on that day? It’s not for certain. It isn’t written down that this man died and somebody killed him because he was playing a violin. Maybe the police raided their house because of a potential drug ring going on and they found an empty revolver and the woman’s excuse was she has to threaten her partner to stop playing the violin by using her gun? Maybe the violin had nothing to do with it and in fact a detective handed the revolver to police who just assumed that the violin music was to blame. Who knows? We all ended up interpreting the reading differently according to our own person beliefs, After all it is San Jose, anything is possible.

I think I was definitely persuaded to believe what the writer intended the readers to believe, the narrative as you see it, well as I see it. The plot of no questions asked - a murder has occurred and someone did it with a revolver. I believe the straightforward reading mainly because I am by no means usually a resistant reader. I trust what is being portrayed or told to me so it is challenging to try and create another story or even read between the lines or fill in the gaps. I also recognize that social class my get in the way interpretation, after all I recognize places like San Jose to be a dangerous area so essentially I see that murder and violence as a normal part of their working or lower class day. But after thinking about it there are literally endless possibilities of events that could have occurred and we all react differently to the reading based on cultural aspects of our own life that we draw upon when reminded through the likes of readings.

The Scarlatti Tilt reading could even be classed as a humorous text considering the lack of detail given and the frivolous use of a violin however I see the text as being a serious one mainly due to the fact of my beliefs of crime and my love of television crime series which have influenced me greatly. The Scarlatti Tilt is a great text example of how culture, gender, intertextuality and even our own imaginations can shape our beliefs and create different interpretations of one very small reading.