I have two words for anybody who says there’s no such thing as a book that’s too long: James Michener. Actually, it’s not even so much that Michener’s books are really long, more that they cover so many generations (at least Chesapeake, the one I had to read) and pull in so many main characters that by the time you’ve reached the last story, you’ve plum forgot everything else that happened and long since ceased to care. Forget about it not being suitable for kids with short attention spans–I don’t think Job himself would be patient enough to appreciate it.
In the class where I was condemned (we drew the titles of books out of a bowl for our book report section–I obviously got the paper with the black spot) to read Chesapeake, our previous text had been Julius Caesar. Talk about from the penthouse to the outhouse.
Man with the Golden Gun – you sure seem to have started a thread that touches the nerves of so many. If I were teaching English, I’d use this as an excuse to flush one or two items from the year’s reading list.
High School: Great Expectations was a painful read, but I did finish it. That class was my one and only B in high school, and I blame it all on Charley.
College: The Magus by John Fowles is the only English book ever assigned to me that I could not finish. Fortunately, my intense dislike for this book was shared by a majority of the class, and we successfully petitioned the professor for an alternate.
That being said, the older I get, the more I agree with the Roman who first said de gustibus non est disputandum.
This is very true. As it happens, I loved The Great Gatsby when it was assigned in high school, and it remains one of my favorite books. And when I did finally get around to enjoying Dickens, I came to the conclusion that I liked Great Expectations better than his others. And while I found Catcher in the Rye to be offputting–the main character was so self-involved and unpleasant, for one thing–I know lots of others who would list this as one of their favorite books, and they’re people whose intelligence I respect.
I really do think some things are a matter of either taste, or not being ready for–and you really have to adjust your expectations of pace and style, to enjoy Dickens or Eliot or Austen, because writing and storytelling styles have changed a lot, and that can be hard to do. But honestly now, someone, please tell me if there is any sane human being on the planet who likes A Separate Peace? I have yet to meet anyone who said to me, “But, Bren, I love that book!” or “But, Bren, you have to understand such and such about it–then it all makes sense.” So why the heck does it keep getting assigned?
I would like to apologize for my exceedingly bad attitude back in this thread. Not that I’ve reread the book and experienced a sudden change of opinion, but I guess I was having a bad couple of days or something and seized on this thread to take my frustration out on.
To irritate a few people anyway, I liked The Giver, though it was actually my brother who was assigned this one, and I read it anyway.
I read really really fast and have a VERY hard time slowing down to get through some writers’ prose – Tolkien, for one. As much as I WANT to love those books, I’ve only gotten through them once.
I agree that EarlyOut’s explanation and defense of Heart of Darkness is very good indeed. I think it’s an excellent story. (For some lighter-weight Conrad, try Youth.)
But I can sympathize with whiterabbit. I’m among those that think you can do a serious disservice to younger readers by making them read certain books they aren’t ready for. I rebelled against Tom Jones in high school - it seemed painfully long and digressive. I read it 10 years later and loved it - have re-read it since.
Early in this thread, Fifth Business was mentioned - one of my favorite books. But this is a book I’d have said you’d need to be 40+ to fully appreciate. It’s not a book for high school.
Of Human Bondage was mentioned - grim and dull. The Razor’s Edge, also by Maugham, simply sparkles.
This English teacher’s problem is that he only has one or two titles on his “reading list” to begin with. In this game you don’t flush until you have a new piece of shit in your clammy little fist [to mix metaphors] to replace the old one with. And nobody’s offering to fill my closet with anything new. Heart of Darkness? Send them my way. Old Man and the Sea? I’ll take as many copies as you’ll give me. Hell, I’d even take a swing at Right now I teach Tom Sawyer because it’s on the curriculum. As I’ve stated in another thread, I love the book but the kids don’t; so, in an attempt to honor the overwhelming popular vote, I am scouting around for something to replace it with…and hitting the wall.
It’s easy to say such and such would be a cool book to teach, but really hard to get the stuff into the classroom. Stumbling blocks include curriculum committees, curriculum coordinators, parents, other English teachers who want to teach Young Adult pabulum, principals, and money of course, to name only a few.
I actually wish I had access to some of the above-mentioned titles. At least I’d like to try teaching The Great Gatsby, or Red Badge. Hey, the worst that could happen is that they hate it as much as they hate Tom Sawyer. I teach Shakespeare every year, and the kids come into the unit hating him since they’ve never read him, and exit the unit pestering me for the rest of the year to do more Shakespeare, but really, stuff like that doesn’t grow on trees.
Suggestions?
And Early Out–it wasn’t just the kittens…but they were the deciding factor.
To kill a mocking bird is undoubted the worst book I have ever read. There is very little I hate more than reading about stupid kids do stupid stuff while at school, where stupid kids do stupid stuff in live action.
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Wow - I think it is possibly the best book I’ve ever read. While I think it verges on child abuse to force-feed a lot of the dreary Victorian stuff down schoolkids’ throats (not to mention Shakespeare), TKAMB is terrific. It has just been voted 6th best book of all time in a BBC poll. It was the overall winner in a series of programmes called “Battle of the Books”.
Actually, I liked his book “White Noise”, but I totally agree with you about his “own cleverness that he can’t be bothered to tell a coherent story”. It’s like, “Look at my snooty messed up characters. I am exposing how society really is! Aren’t I clever? Ooh, look at me! I’m a writer!”
Wuthering Heights - Such complete and utter bilge to prescribe to a bunch of 15 year old Catholic schoolgirls, taught by a nun in a girls only school in rural Ireland.
If ever a heroine badly needed a slap it was that whingy article Cathy.
As for Huck Finn - All but incomprehensible to these same bunch of schoolgirls in rural Ireland.
Some random thoughts as I catch up with the thread.
I enjoyed Flannery Oconner’s stories but I was in college for the second time around when they were assigned.
The Great Gatsby struck me as a bunch of empty gossip. I wouldn’t have minded so much if the class discussion centered around how the 20’s was a decade consumed by glitz, appearance and vacuousness but instead we discussed the yellow car and the glasses on the billboard.
I read my copies of Little Women and Little Men so many times as a young girl that I wore the poor spines out. I have some nice new copies waiting in the bookshelf for when my own little girl is looking for a story. Not sure what she will think of it but it will be there for her anyway.
I read the Sound and The Fury and I read it again and again and I still didn’t get it.
To expose the kids to something different and not have to kill your educational budget Mailman can’t you assign book reports? Does the whole class have to read the same book? Take the class to the school library and give them a list of suggested titles and if they have a book they think is good and you think isn’t too bad let them read that.
I majored in English for 3 years until I discovered that is not a major for someone who enjoys reading but for those who see reading as pennance. What cracked me up though was I had one short story class that slogged up all the stuff I had read in high school, Lottery, Incident at Owl Creek Bridge, Goodman Brown, Harrison Bergeron… and the kids in the class acted like they had never seen this stuff before. What saddened me was reading some of my classmates papers and trying to explain to them about sentence construction.
In my experience with it, it appears that someone ordered two million or so copies of it in the 1970’s, and, because school systems never like throwing out books, they’ve been using them ever since.
At least, it seems that all the copies I’ve seen of it are from the 1970’s.