Upon my first reading of Cane, the thing that stuck out to me the most was the way that Toomer played with form and style, completely deviating from the format of a typical novel or book of poetry. The way he compiled Cane felt like a literary magazine given the mix of poetry and prose. This is reflective of the interdisciplinarity within the book itself. While some may consider English as a whole to be its own discipline, there are many conventions within the study that go far beyond simply reading and writing.
On page 63 of Interdisciplinarity there is a quote that nicely illustrates this idea. “…the value of literary forms such as the novel is that, unlike the established disciplines, they foreground their narrativity and are open to all kinds of undisciplined material, becoming ‘the zoo of everyday practices since the establishment of modern science.’” Alluding to an idea mentioned throughout the novel, the study of English often finds itself in the crosshairs of critics because it supposedly lacks structure or a fixed amount of information that everyone must learn to master the subject.
Toomer not only acknowledges, but embraces this in his writing. He doesn’t mind that his unique perspective on form might confuse some while frustrating others. He’s aware of the challenges that he’s creating for the reader and personally, I’m happy to confront a text that will take a bit longer to decipher. A good deal of our time as college students is spent skimming and searching only for the absolutely necessary information needed to pass a quiz, write an essay, etc. Cane requires us to slow down and let the text sink in, because (at least in my opinion) meaning doesn’t just jump out at the reader. Toomer has crafted a piece of writing that requires deliberate decoding and patience.