Unsucking the Classics

[sartorias]

Which assigned stinkers and snores of days of yore have you reread that turned out to be pretty good?

Do you think kids should be exposed to the classics? And if so, how?

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Comments

[whswhs]

I've seen a lot of people complain bitterly about The Scarlet Letter, but you know, when I read it I thought it was pretty good, from the opening invocation of Anne Hutchinson to the passage at the end where Hester realizes that all her daughter wants is to be accepted as a normal kid and be part of society-really that was kind of sad but it seemed believable.

I didn't like The House of the Seven Gables so much, but the well in the back yard covered with huge snails and the strange chickens pecking at them gave me such a strong feeling of "So this is where H.P. Lovecraft was coming from!" that it stuck in my brain.

Going outside the domain of fiction, a couple of years ago I read Hume's Enquiry, and while I disagreed with most of what he said, I was impressed by the sheer elegance of the eighteenth-century prose-and also by his final statement about theology and metaphysics, which shows how radical an eighteenth-century writer could be: Commit it then to the flames. For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

[sartorias]

It took me a long time to appreciate enlightenment-era prose, but when it finally clicked, it has given me a great deal of pleasure ever since.

[whswhs]

You know, I think I'd add that The Scarlet Letter is probably a book that's better suited to readers older than high school students.

[sartorias]

I thoroughly agree.

[mme_n_b]

Of course kids should be exposed to classics. The easiest way, in my mind, is to just have them be those books on the mid-height shelves. That's one way it was done in my family. One other way was to give the book to the kid saying "look, this is about a girl who's got a doll just like yours!" (worst description of War and Peace ever). Another way (much better) is to isolate the kid (hospital or immigration or a long stay with weird semi-relatives work well) and make classics the only books available. Of course, the consequences may not be positive - for instance, I still like Twain, Tolstoy, and Hugo, but the summer I spent in Madison with nothing but Solzhenitsyn and Castaneda did not make me want to re-read either.

[sartorias]

This is quite true. Tastes does come in. (Like me and Of Mice and Men, which I am never, ever going to like, I think it is safe to say.)

But freedom of choice and curiosity have a lot going for them.

[mme_n_b]

Which brings up a question of whether one should try and get one's kids to read of Mice and Men if they, for instance, hated Grapes of Wrath?

I was very lucky in school - two English teachers allowed me to not read the book taught - one had me pick an alternate book, and the other talked to me about why I hated it (The Invisible Man - I hated it because I'd read it) and tolerated my Playboys for the next week.

[sartorias]

I think there is a lot to be said for offering choices and alternatives.

[pameladean]

I thought The Scarlet Letter was awesome. It was extremely clear to me that Pearl was a changeling. I even wrote a paper about that, which was given an A I think out of pure confusion plus a recognition that I had certainly read the book and was quoting passages from it and picking out recurring imagery, which I guess I mistook for an actual fantastical plot. I've been scared to reread it, actually, in case it didn't hold up.

I really loved The Catcher in the Rye. It seems very problematic nowadays, but I just liked the way Salinger went about telling a story. I like his other stories much better -- though they also have serious flaws -- but there was enough of it in Catcher to, well, catch me.

My main example of your actual question was in fact Jane Austen. I did like both Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, but I took them very seriously indeed. I was astonished to encounter them again in college, after less than ten years but a great deal of growing up, and find that, as you mention, they were very very funny.

P.

[sartorias]

That sounds like an interesting reading of Hawthorne! That's also interesting that you liked Salinger!

[pameladean]

I always feel I shouldn't like Salinger. But it's his narrative voice and the rhythms of his sentences. I didn't care if Holden was whiny. I was quite whiny myself the first time I read the book, and also his world and worldview were so wildly divergent from any experience of mine that it was a lot like reading science fiction about a whiny alien.

P.

[sartorias]

That makes sense. You are sensitive to words in a way that alas I am completely unable to grasp, being completely wired to image/aural. (That is, I don't hear rhythms of prose, I hear the dialogue in distinct voices. If I know the author, I hear the narrator in their voice, I don't hear word cadences. Wish I did--I'm sure it would improve my prose immensely.

Edited to add (it's so hot I forgot my point) anyway, when I first read it, Holden whined in the voice of a kid at school I really loathed, who was a whiny, mean bully; the narrative voice triggered the kid. I forget who I heard on the second read--I think it was Jerry Lewis.