Some Things Have Changed, But Can't You Tell?

[rionaleonhart]

Here's a scientific experiment I'd like to see: give a group of literature students at university a novel to study. Have the tutor tell them it's generally considered a great work of literature and hand out pretentious critical essays on it. Ask the students what they think of its style, its themes, the book as a whole and so on. Tell them only

Comments

[apiphile]

I get that with mondegreens a lot. There's a line in Going Underground that I misheard and preferred.

[rionaleonhart]

Ooh, what was the line?

(I'm sure there are many song lines that broke my heart by turning out not to be the line I thought they were. I'm cursing myself for not keeping a record of my mishearings anywhere.)

[apiphile]

"Braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream!"

For some reason I thought it was "until we turn to the TV screen, at this point shout, at this point scream" - a comment on the cynically manufactured faux rebellion. But no. Just being a stroppy teenager.

[rionaleonhart]

Well, I personally prefer the actual line, but only because I initially misinterpreted it as referring to actual sheep. I GET SO ANGRY ABOUT ALL THE TELEVISED SHEEP WHO THINK THEY ARE DONKEYS. SO ANGRY.

[rionaleonhart]

Your Sun Hill belief is making me giggle a lot. I have never watched The Bill, but in my head it is now a police drama set in Silent Hill. This is probably equally inaccurate.

You have a good point about Mills & Boon perhaps being a bit too transparent. Hmmm. (...I'm thinking about this as if I'm actually planning to carry it out, but I don't think that's going to happen.)

[wolfy_writing]

You would be an incredibly interesting teacher. Not necessarily a good one, but a fascinating one.

I'm fairly sure that one of these days I will write the Sherlock/Silent Hill crossover of doom, and it will be all your fault. (Also, it's really hard. I'm up to two things that actually bother Sherlock - boredom, and John being hurt, but that's not something you can base an entire town around, and for it to be a proper interesting Silent Hill, it has to be psychologically unique. John has more obvious stuff, but it's all too obvious, and I want something a bit more profound than "He was in a war, and then he came back and got kidnapped a lot."

[rionaleonhart]

I look forward to this day and will happily accept the blame! (Have you read thebaconfat's wonderful Silent Hill crossover with the original Holmes and Watson, by the way? It's over here if you haven't.)

[wolfy_writing]

Well, if you're going to accept the blame, you have to help me by answering this question!

Would it work for the two of them to be in Silent Hill together, and the town to veer between being really nasty to Watson and really fascinating for Sherlock (who meant to be keeping an eye on John, really he did, but there were so many clues) until finally John was both in rather nasty peril and not mentally together enough to handle himself, and Sherlock who'd been chasing clues was too far away and suddenly realized it, and it was this "You dragged your friend into danger, and spent the whole time trying to entertain yourself with a mystery instead of keeping a decent eye on him, and now he's going to die because of you!" guilt-moment that the town had been orchestrating the whole time?

Or has someone already done that? I'm going to read thebaconfat's fic, and it's going to turn out to have that exact plot, isn't it?

[rionaleonhart]

That sounds brilliant and I would read such a fic until it somehow fell apart despite being digital.

[dracothelizard]

They've done a very similar thing with wines and wine-tasters!

a blog describing the experiments.

Basically, wine experts were offered a glass of white wine and red wine, and were asked to describe it, EXCEPT that both glasses were the same white wine, but one glass had food colouring added. The second experiment involved pouring the same decent wine into two different bottles, one looking cheap and one looking fancy, and then asking the experts for their opinion. The results are hilarious.

[rionaleonhart]

Ooh, yes, I'd forgotten about that! I think I read about it in Boese's Elephants on Acid, which I purchased on your recommendation (and very much enjoyed, so thanks!).

[dracothelizard]

:D

It is an AMAZING read, I loved it and kept spouting the ridiculous factoids to friends. I still love the turkey mating experiment bit that was interspersed with 'oh, by the way, this young man in the 17th century was sentenced for shagging a turkey'.

But I expect that your idea would probably have a similar result, in that people go 'oh yes, interesting themes bla bla bla pretentious literary criticism' over a book that they've been told is prestigious and go 'pff, it was shite' over one they've been told isn't proper literature.

[yumiboo]

asdfghjkl, i love that experiment idea! Though the ethics form that i would need to fill in for it would kill me ;~~;

[rionaleonhart]

I was wondering about the ethical obstacles; it's very tricky to perform experiments without informing participants beforehand that they'll be taking part in an experiment, and obviously that might make them suspicious. Oh, dear.

[yumiboo]

Well, there's that, the deception factor, and the fact that it could disrupt a student's education - that'd be a large factor in this, so if you were going to do this, you'd have to make sure that there were no ramifications on important grades :/ *le sob*

[dracothelizard]

Do it on alumni instead? That way, you don't get in the way of their education, at least.

You could always introduce the thing by saying that you're merely studying the way alumni of English Lit respond to literature versus alumni of other areas, with a lot of 'bla bla we want to know how much knowing about English literature beforehand influences the response', something like that.