I hate my class.
Sometimes, I have really great ideas for class postings...and then things like this happen when I write them, and I wonder how things went so bad so fast.
I was really, really sad that so much of Barbour's essay was lost on me; I've never read any of the four works he cited, having substituted "Moby Dick" for "Billy Budd" in my english classes. I understood, I think, where he wanted to go...but I was't on the train with him any more when he got there.
I cued on the Booth's refference to "censorship" because when I read the question, that's what I saw. And as everone might suspect, I am a huge non-fan (or so not a fan, depending on when you ask me) of censorship. I don't think anyone should have the "right or duty" to tell me what is seditious, amoral, or just plain bad. And yet still....I practice it mself. I made reference in a reply to watching the Simpsons, and my dad's predillection for censoring (and being right) and this was proved yet again recently when a friend and I watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I was forbidden to see it as a child (so was my sister) because I was a coward and the 'rents knew it would give me nightmares. So we watched it, and I called my dad, and told him, hey! Good call! It blew! Or with my sister at Christmas, begging for the album by Maroon 5 - I told my parents not to get it, and I told ehr myself I wouldn't get it for her, because in listening to lyrics on the radio I found it to contain some rather graphic sexual references that I found inappropriate for her at 15 (and me at 24, I may add). Yeah, I so censored her. (I may have to vote conservative next time, buy a house and a dog and support the PTA. Man, I have GOT to control my sarcasm). And I refuse to watch anything that's reality tv, or sitcoms, or soaps, or really anything but reruns of quantum leap and the basic science channels.
Something I found interesting in Booth's article I could sum up as "Books aren't necessarily literature," and the arguments he made regarding the changes we undergo about books re read, reminded me of a talk with a friend a few years ago. He was psyched about the upcoming Lord of the Rings trilogy; it was his favorite books, he was sure the movie wouldn't be as good, and as far as he was concerned, Tolkein was a god. I'd never read any of the trilogy, but I had finally perservered throuhg The Hobbit and found it the most unrelenting pile of crap I'd had the misfortune to step in and not be able to scrape off. Well, with two exceptions; there was this novel "Neverness" which was way, way, WAY worse and ended my reading of sci-fi pretty much by itself for three or four years; and I read about five pages into a Terry Brooks Shanarrah book (I don't even know how to spell that) I'd bought at a garage sale before I deliberately lost it in the school library. And I just stared at my buddy. He spent about six months of his life convincing me first to read the books, and then to tell me that they were awesome. I made it through the first one barely, died in the middle of the second, and asked my mom to just tell me what happened in the third. But my buddy had read them as a thirteen year old boy; I was a nineteen year old girl. And you know what? That didn't have a point! I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time!
Back to what I wanted to say...well, I wanted to say all of that, but y'all probably wish I hadn't...I don't like people saying what I should read or should not read, and what I should and should not like. And yet...I'd rather the government take "The Big Book of Mischief" or "Hit Man" out of the hands of teenagers...I could've lived quite well without Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and another short story "The Veldt"...and for a long time I loved Arthur C. Clarke (2001 and the Odyssey books; Songs of Distant Earth, Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's end) before I realized that, with the possible exception of Childhood's End, he really wasn't all that good. People tried to tell me that, but did I listen? No. But I had to make the distinction - the coduction- as I got older and read "betteR" books. Better literature, perhaps I should say. And I don't want the school board to tell my figurative progeny that they can't read Harry Potter, or Charlotte's Web, or Watership Down...but I don't want that same fictional offspring to get hands on Bowling for Columbine or Farhenheit 9/11 before they're ready. And if we have to censor said uncreated persons from SpongeBob SquarePants, it will not be done under a cloak of homophobia; it will be done for the true reason I object to the show...and that is that it lowers your I.Q. ten points each minute you watch it (I worked in a day care for a while with high schoolers who always turned it on for the kids).
I have a truly simple definition of art: if I can make it, it isn't art. What this means is that FOR ME, someone peeing on a crucifix, or on the American Flag, or painting in blood, or feces, or even just letting a cat or dog or legless toddler roll across a canvas slathered in butter isn't art. And yes, by definition, unles it is truly exquisite, I don't consider much of photography art. My theory is that art MUST do some thing, though I guess it has never mattered what, or else it is just a collection of pretties - or uglies - hanging on a wall. I think literature is much the same for me. It has to DO something. I might hate it. I've hated many a book that I love. But I am a decent writer (Though I sadly feel my posts don't do me justice sometimes) and a prolific reader, and I would rather be angry at an author when I finish than just set aside a book and race on to the next.
The truth is, we DO practice evaluative criticism all the time. And we do thereby keep out some things. Sometimes our motives are based in understanding of the nature of other people (Dad knew I would wet myself if I watched Nightmare Before Christmas when I was a kid, and would have nightmares for months; you should've seen me when I snuck into Jurassic Park without permission. That NEVER happened again), sometimes they are based on understanding someone else lacks (like me telling my bratty sister that she can't have that darned CD because it's raunchy), and sometimes they are grounded in a kind of Puritanical race for a "moral good" that cannot be separated from "moral evil" (as when my friend's mom forbid her - when we were ten - from seeing The Lion King because it was not christian in nature and that therefore her daughter might become convinced that it was okay to practice non-christian rituals). And yet it's ok on one level - my Dad should protect me from monsters; I should protect my sister from lewdness; Alena's mom should present their religion in it's importance. But to me, it is totally not ok when a larger body, reacting to fear, or "moral outrage", tells me I lack the perspective to decide for myself what is acceptable and tries to do it for me. I love banned books. I hope, as an author, that someday I write a banned book. Everyone will read it then.
Just some facts; you can quit reading. I think I said anything I was goign to say. My all-time favorite book? Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I've read it at least times. What does it do? It satirizes everything from the marriage mart to the meaning of familial obligation and enlightenment, and manages to some across as some bit of fluff suited only for highschoolers...while elevating one of the most intelligent and dashing female heroines to something approaching the level of feminist. My all-time least favorite book? Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, which is - to me - the most watered down version of Pride and Prejudice (it was written before; she was rather young) ever to hit the shelves and would be a sad legacy if it were all the author left us. Book I hated and got the most out of, simultaneously (and even grew to love)? Someone, four years ago, was unkind enough to introduce me to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins...more's the pity.
I was really, really sad that so much of Barbour's essay was lost on me; I've never read any of the four works he cited, having substituted "Moby Dick" for "Billy Budd" in my english classes. I understood, I think, where he wanted to go...but I was't on the train with him any more when he got there.
I cued on the Booth's refference to "censorship" because when I read the question, that's what I saw. And as everone might suspect, I am a huge non-fan (or so not a fan, depending on when you ask me) of censorship. I don't think anyone should have the "right or duty" to tell me what is seditious, amoral, or just plain bad. And yet still....I practice it mself. I made reference in a reply to watching the Simpsons, and my dad's predillection for censoring (and being right) and this was proved yet again recently when a friend and I watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I was forbidden to see it as a child (so was my sister) because I was a coward and the 'rents knew it would give me nightmares. So we watched it, and I called my dad, and told him, hey! Good call! It blew! Or with my sister at Christmas, begging for the album by Maroon 5 - I told my parents not to get it, and I told ehr myself I wouldn't get it for her, because in listening to lyrics on the radio I found it to contain some rather graphic sexual references that I found inappropriate for her at 15 (and me at 24, I may add). Yeah, I so censored her. (I may have to vote conservative next time, buy a house and a dog and support the PTA. Man, I have GOT to control my sarcasm). And I refuse to watch anything that's reality tv, or sitcoms, or soaps, or really anything but reruns of quantum leap and the basic science channels.
Something I found interesting in Booth's article I could sum up as "Books aren't necessarily literature," and the arguments he made regarding the changes we undergo about books re read, reminded me of a talk with a friend a few years ago. He was psyched about the upcoming Lord of the Rings trilogy; it was his favorite books, he was sure the movie wouldn't be as good, and as far as he was concerned, Tolkein was a god. I'd never read any of the trilogy, but I had finally perservered throuhg The Hobbit and found it the most unrelenting pile of crap I'd had the misfortune to step in and not be able to scrape off. Well, with two exceptions; there was this novel "Neverness" which was way, way, WAY worse and ended my reading of sci-fi pretty much by itself for three or four years; and I read about five pages into a Terry Brooks Shanarrah book (I don't even know how to spell that) I'd bought at a garage sale before I deliberately lost it in the school library. And I just stared at my buddy. He spent about six months of his life convincing me first to read the books, and then to tell me that they were awesome. I made it through the first one barely, died in the middle of the second, and asked my mom to just tell me what happened in the third. But my buddy had read them as a thirteen year old boy; I was a nineteen year old girl. And you know what? That didn't have a point! I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time!
Back to what I wanted to say...well, I wanted to say all of that, but y'all probably wish I hadn't...I don't like people saying what I should read or should not read, and what I should and should not like. And yet...I'd rather the government take "The Big Book of Mischief" or "Hit Man" out of the hands of teenagers...I could've lived quite well without Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and another short story "The Veldt"...and for a long time I loved Arthur C. Clarke (2001 and the Odyssey books; Songs of Distant Earth, Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's end) before I realized that, with the possible exception of Childhood's End, he really wasn't all that good. People tried to tell me that, but did I listen? No. But I had to make the distinction - the coduction- as I got older and read "betteR" books. Better literature, perhaps I should say. And I don't want the school board to tell my figurative progeny that they can't read Harry Potter, or Charlotte's Web, or Watership Down...but I don't want that same fictional offspring to get hands on Bowling for Columbine or Farhenheit 9/11 before they're ready. And if we have to censor said uncreated persons from SpongeBob SquarePants, it will not be done under a cloak of homophobia; it will be done for the true reason I object to the show...and that is that it lowers your I.Q. ten points each minute you watch it (I worked in a day care for a while with high schoolers who always turned it on for the kids).
I have a truly simple definition of art: if I can make it, it isn't art. What this means is that FOR ME, someone peeing on a crucifix, or on the American Flag, or painting in blood, or feces, or even just letting a cat or dog or legless toddler roll across a canvas slathered in butter isn't art. And yes, by definition, unles it is truly exquisite, I don't consider much of photography art. My theory is that art MUST do some thing, though I guess it has never mattered what, or else it is just a collection of pretties - or uglies - hanging on a wall. I think literature is much the same for me. It has to DO something. I might hate it. I've hated many a book that I love. But I am a decent writer (Though I sadly feel my posts don't do me justice sometimes) and a prolific reader, and I would rather be angry at an author when I finish than just set aside a book and race on to the next.
The truth is, we DO practice evaluative criticism all the time. And we do thereby keep out some things. Sometimes our motives are based in understanding of the nature of other people (Dad knew I would wet myself if I watched Nightmare Before Christmas when I was a kid, and would have nightmares for months; you should've seen me when I snuck into Jurassic Park without permission. That NEVER happened again), sometimes they are based on understanding someone else lacks (like me telling my bratty sister that she can't have that darned CD because it's raunchy), and sometimes they are grounded in a kind of Puritanical race for a "moral good" that cannot be separated from "moral evil" (as when my friend's mom forbid her - when we were ten - from seeing The Lion King because it was not christian in nature and that therefore her daughter might become convinced that it was okay to practice non-christian rituals). And yet it's ok on one level - my Dad should protect me from monsters; I should protect my sister from lewdness; Alena's mom should present their religion in it's importance. But to me, it is totally not ok when a larger body, reacting to fear, or "moral outrage", tells me I lack the perspective to decide for myself what is acceptable and tries to do it for me. I love banned books. I hope, as an author, that someday I write a banned book. Everyone will read it then.
Just some facts; you can quit reading. I think I said anything I was goign to say. My all-time favorite book? Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I've read it at least times. What does it do? It satirizes everything from the marriage mart to the meaning of familial obligation and enlightenment, and manages to some across as some bit of fluff suited only for highschoolers...while elevating one of the most intelligent and dashing female heroines to something approaching the level of feminist. My all-time least favorite book? Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, which is - to me - the most watered down version of Pride and Prejudice (it was written before; she was rather young) ever to hit the shelves and would be a sad legacy if it were all the author left us. Book I hated and got the most out of, simultaneously (and even grew to love)? Someone, four years ago, was unkind enough to introduce me to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins...more's the pity.