"I think I speak for everyone when I say that vegetarian pigs in a blanket are bullshit."
As far as high school English class goes, the only books I actually considered classics -- the only ones that were really worth being forced to read -- were To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
(My supercool senior-English teacher also had us read Maus and then ran a fake-ish side class with me called "Women and the Fantastic" where we read Virginia Woolf and Angela Carter, but stuff that we had to literally fight the school board / counselors / etc. for shouldn't count. I think he actually told us to keep the Art Spiegelman pages on the d/l. And if any of you were around when I was in high school, you know that my taking extra side classes and graduating early was not something they felt I should do. OH WELL, AM I RIGHT?!)
I guess I shouldn't discount Sandra Cisneros's A House on Mango Street either, as that was appropriate for English class in many ways, but as far as Great American Novel, Incredibly Amazing Literature Everyone Must Read stuff, I really think Lee and Ellison have it. I'm not really a Gatsby person and I hate Faulkner and Hemingway more than most people are willing to admit. Honestly, I didn't see a lot of value in most of that stuff. And I skimmed The Odyssey, too. I mean, like, why should I care? He's just some guy running around with other dumb guys stabbing people and talking to Cyclopses and being a total jerk to his wife. I do not see the deeper meaning. It did not, you know, touch or enlighten me on a deeper level. (Nor did Aeneas, and I read that in Latin, so you'd think that the translation fun would have added something, but in fact I was left with only translation fun and a vague image of Dido building a funeral pyre.)
The problem for me is mostly the white men. And OH MY GOD do not get me started on Ethan Frome. (I just thought, though: The Crucible is another one that maybe should count.) But does anybody else just not see why everyone goes nuts over Our Town? Or Death of a Salesman? Those I don't hate -- they aren't HORRENDOUS, like The Old Man and the Sea or The Sound and the Fury -- but I still don't see why we should force every kid in America to read them [and discuss them ad nauseam and take tests on what the main characters said on page 65]. They're not worth it, and there's better stuff out there. MUCH better stuff.
The amount of offended comments I am going to get on this post is probably in the millions by now. DEAR ALL MY FRIENDS WHO ARE ENGLISH MAJORS, I LOVE AND RESPECT YOUR ABILITY TO APPRECIATE LITERATURE THAT IS COMMONLY CONSIDERED CLASSIC. AND ALSO TO ANALYZE IT. I JUST DON'T HAVE ANY OF THOSE ABILITIES. HOW SAD FOR ME.
At any rate, I was just wondering what yours were. Were you like me and mostly thought that your English teachers were full of it, or did you actually think the stuff they made you read was classic? And what was that stuff?
(I'm on this thing where I'm examining every good piece of literature/art/music/film that I have ever loved and saying to myself, "WHAT MADE IT GREAT?!" Humor me.)
(My supercool senior-English teacher also had us read Maus and then ran a fake-ish side class with me called "Women and the Fantastic" where we read Virginia Woolf and Angela Carter, but stuff that we had to literally fight the school board / counselors / etc. for shouldn't count. I think he actually told us to keep the Art Spiegelman pages on the d/l. And if any of you were around when I was in high school, you know that my taking extra side classes and graduating early was not something they felt I should do. OH WELL, AM I RIGHT?!)
I guess I shouldn't discount Sandra Cisneros's A House on Mango Street either, as that was appropriate for English class in many ways, but as far as Great American Novel, Incredibly Amazing Literature Everyone Must Read stuff, I really think Lee and Ellison have it. I'm not really a Gatsby person and I hate Faulkner and Hemingway more than most people are willing to admit. Honestly, I didn't see a lot of value in most of that stuff. And I skimmed The Odyssey, too. I mean, like, why should I care? He's just some guy running around with other dumb guys stabbing people and talking to Cyclopses and being a total jerk to his wife. I do not see the deeper meaning. It did not, you know, touch or enlighten me on a deeper level. (Nor did Aeneas, and I read that in Latin, so you'd think that the translation fun would have added something, but in fact I was left with only translation fun and a vague image of Dido building a funeral pyre.)
The problem for me is mostly the white men. And OH MY GOD do not get me started on Ethan Frome. (I just thought, though: The Crucible is another one that maybe should count.) But does anybody else just not see why everyone goes nuts over Our Town? Or Death of a Salesman? Those I don't hate -- they aren't HORRENDOUS, like The Old Man and the Sea or The Sound and the Fury -- but I still don't see why we should force every kid in America to read them [and discuss them ad nauseam and take tests on what the main characters said on page 65]. They're not worth it, and there's better stuff out there. MUCH better stuff.
The amount of offended comments I am going to get on this post is probably in the millions by now. DEAR ALL MY FRIENDS WHO ARE ENGLISH MAJORS, I LOVE AND RESPECT YOUR ABILITY TO APPRECIATE LITERATURE THAT IS COMMONLY CONSIDERED CLASSIC. AND ALSO TO ANALYZE IT. I JUST DON'T HAVE ANY OF THOSE ABILITIES. HOW SAD FOR ME.
At any rate, I was just wondering what yours were. Were you like me and mostly thought that your English teachers were full of it, or did you actually think the stuff they made you read was classic? And what was that stuff?
(I'm on this thing where I'm examining every good piece of literature/art/music/film that I have ever loved and saying to myself, "WHAT MADE IT GREAT?!" Humor me.)