Let us now read about depressed white males with no lives!

[rj_anderson]

Shannon Hale has just written the most insightful and accurate description of what high school and college reading lists do to many passionate young readers that I've ever read. Her experience mirrors my own in many ways, on the high school side at least:

How Reader Girl Got Her Groove BackBut how about you lot on my f-list? Do you find that the

Comments

[yahtzee63]

I kind of don't agree with this article. Yes, you get handed the classics in school -- because it's school, and part of the point is getting introduced to things that a difficult/different/old, the stuff you wouldn't try on your own when you're 16. Do some people get turned off? Undoubtedly, but IMHO, anybody who gets really, seriously turned off by this probably wasn't an avid reader to begin with and might well never have become one under any circumstances. And sometimes people are introduced to the books that they'd never have attempted on their own but turn out to love. (War and Peace is one of my favorite books ever, and I put off reading that for decades because it gets held up as this Huge Undertaking. Had I taken a Russian Lit course, I might have found one of my favorite novels a lot earlier

[rj_anderson]

I didn't at all get the impression she was blaming the classics (that would be a bit hypocritical, seeing as she's an avowed Austen fan!), but rather criticizing the mindset that insists that only books of a certain narrow type are suitable reading for intelligent people -- and that truly "grown-up" reading is all about analysis and not about pleasure.

My understanding of the article was that she was blaming herself for buying into a snobbish mindset and denying herself reading as a pleasure for so long, not that she was arguing against introducing young people to classic literature at all. I think that like anything else, it's got to be a matter of balance.

Personally I adore Crime and Punishment, even though it is by no means an easy read in any sense. But I read it independently, of my own free choice, in my early twenties. Would I have been able to appreciate it if I'd had it forced upon me in high school at the age of fifteen or sixteen? I'm quite sure the answer would have been no.

[dichroic]

I'm vey glad I didn't get forced to read Austen in high school; I wasn't ready for her. I have no idea why; it certainly wasn't the language that was too difficult, or the plots. Maybe I just wasn't up to her delicate irony? All I know is that I tried P&P at 18, couldn't get anywhere with it, tried it again at about 23 or 24 and fell in love

[kalquessa]

I'm vey glad I didn't get forced to read Austen in high school; I wasn't ready for her.

Ditto to that. I tried very hard to read S&S as a teen and could. Not. Do it. I could read Shakespeare with ease, a knack that I seem to have lost since then, but I can read Austen with enthusiasm, now, so I guess it was an even trade.

[kerravonsen]

That's interesting... I read Austen in Grade 9 ("Pride and Prejudice") and loved it -- but then I think that particular English teacher was one of the few who didn't boringify things. It was a school where we had really tiny class sizes, and everyone was required to participate in the discussion.

[kalquessa]

Yeah, I think everybody's ready for different books at different times. I just recently finished To Kill a Mockingbird (as you probably know, since I could not shut up about it *grin*) and while I absolutely adored it, I'm not sure I would have been able to appreciate its awesomeness as a highschooler. But then Mr. Bill's highschool-age cousins just read it, as well, and they loved it and spoke to me eloquently of its virtues. So who knows.

[drmm]

I'm vey glad I didn't get forced to read Austen in high school; I wasn't ready for her.

See, I was the opposite. I read P&P in high school and fell utterly and completely in love. I promptly bought and read every single Austen book and even now I consider P&P my favorite book ever.

On the other hand, I read Jane Eyre the following year and utterly despised it. When I read it again several years later for a college class, I certainly liked it a whole lot better (although I still am not a fan of the melodramatic style of the Bronte sisters and I have no real desire to read it again).

(That experience, along with discussions with classmates, led me to my Austen vs. Bronte theory that says most Austen fans will not be huge fans of Bronte and vice versa, given the difference in style -- melodrama vs. subtle sarcasm).

[kerravonsen]

Well, I loved Jane Eyre too... but I haven't even been tempted to read the other Bronte sisters' work. No, not even Wuthering Heights!

[drmm]

I tried reading Wuthering Heights. It was one of the few books I've started and never finished. I felt like chucking it out the window. I know I started reading another Bronte sister book that I didn't finish as well.

Jane Eyre is at least tolerable, although I am still not a fan of the melodrama (madwoman in the attic and all that).

[yahtzee63]

What who knows what you might have appreciated? You only know what you did. No, I didn't care for The Mayor of Casterbridge in 11th grade, but I remember lapping up Julius Caesar like it was made of custard. Some others here have said they wouldn't have liked Austen in high school; I loved it. Maybe there are kids who adored The Mayor of Casterbridge. Like you say -- balance is all. We have to understand that reading is fun, but we also have to learn that reading can be challenging, and that the challenge can be rewarding.

While I agree that a snobbish mindset does nobody any good, I felt like there was way too much backlash against "literature" voiced in the article. Probably it's a matter of emphasis/inference more than anything else.

[kerravonsen]

IMHO it isn't so much "blaming the classics" but blaming the exclusion of everything else that isn't Classic.