I have had a lot of time to read lately... I've been subbing quite a bit and there's not much to do when you sub in junior high and high school. It's just babysitting.
Anyway, I finished "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. It isn't great literature but it is certainly uplifting, considering what he is going through. I recommend it. I liked it much better than "The Five People You Meet in Heaven"...
I have also read some stinkers (I read 3 books while I was subbing yesterday alone, if that is any indication of how much I get read while I babysit). As I was reading, I had a young man (yeah... in high school) come up and ask me what I thought of the book I was reading (It was "Fairest" by Gail Levine Carson who also wrote "Ella Enchanted".) He talked about it for quite a while and referenced it to her other works. I was mildly amused that this kid had read so much "chick" young adult lit. He smiled and said it was because girl's like the romantic stuff and he wanted to know what they thought was romantic. Aha! There's a smart kid--I think!
Frank has been reading a lot since he got home. He's reading "All's Quiet on the Western Front" right now. He's read a bunch of other classics. I've been impressed at what he's been reading throughout the semesters away at college, too. He's really into the classics lately. He's one I didn't think would ever love reading again after poor experiences in junior high and high school English classes.
Anyway, the whole conversation with the kid and thinking about Frank Zigmunt got me thinking about literature and then my delightfully well read and intelligent English degreed, Master Program accepted niece wrote this in her blog the other day...
"...Stephanie Meyer just released a new book. I had to read the first chapter of Eclipse for a YA fiction class last week. I hated it. Drivel. You cannot dissuade me from this violent opinion. I hate those books - I detest the sight of them, the sleek black and red covers with minimized text, the style of their Buffy-the-vampire-slayer rhetoric, the gothic-romance names that seem to have creeped right out of a Bronte novel. Plus I think the narrator's voice is stupid. I have come to realize that story and plot isn't enough for me. Give me a form I delight in - words which please and interest me. Don't just throw violent melodrama into a paperback and call it legitimate fiction. I am surprised that 'my-boyfriend-is-a-vampire-life-is-so-hard' drama has caught on so well - to me it's almost voyeuristic in its repulsiveness. This is the kind of drivel I think Brigham Young was referring to when he said this: "In our part of the land many of our young women just hope and pray, if they ever thought of prayer, ‘I do wish some villain would come along and break open my room and steal me and carry me off; I want to be stolen, I want to be carried away; I want to be lost with the Indians, I want to be shipwrecked and to go through some terrible scene, so that I can experience what this beloved lady has experienced whom I have been reading about.’” (23 July 1873) Perhaps society has stooped to re-inventing the gothic novel and calling it literature. Go read some Dostoyevsky. It'll be good for you. It'll clean out your system - teach you what you should learn to stomach instead of this animalistic garbage. If Dostoyevsky is asking too much, opt for Austen, Twain or Hawthorne. For heavens' sakes go read Hemingway if big words scare you. You'd have more fun reading Faulkner, CS Lewis, or Dickens. Even Poe has some literary gums to smack - and he'll give you that little gothic twinkle in your eye if that's what you're really after. (But, in my opinion, if you want truly haunting, go read Cormac McCarthy. That'll send your little vampire boyfriend screaming into the bathroom to change the tighty-whities he's just soiled)."
I LOVE the Brigham Young quote. I read it to my girls and they agreed... that is exactly what they want. I think they missed the point. How ironic...
I have felt these same things for quite some time. I don't want to offend anyone but I have to get this off my chest... My literary disgust extends to many modern authors, among them Mary Higgins Clark and even Gerald Lund's classics, "The Work and the Glory". I think they are tripe. I am forever irritated at the dumbing down of the reading masses by writers who take shortcuts. Austin would never build to a climax at the end of every chapter just to rehash it in the opening pages of the next chapter (what--in case I forgot what I just read? Or maybe I didn't get it the first time?) And can you imagine Twain letting his voice be heard over the narrator's voice? Shudder... What happened to irony and innuendo? Why must we be hit over the head with the plot only to have the author reiterate it, as if to say, "Did you get that? Did you see that? I don't want you to miss that because it is important later..." Suffice it to say, yeah, I got it.
Stepping down off my soap box now...
Anyway, I finished "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. It isn't great literature but it is certainly uplifting, considering what he is going through. I recommend it. I liked it much better than "The Five People You Meet in Heaven"...
I have also read some stinkers (I read 3 books while I was subbing yesterday alone, if that is any indication of how much I get read while I babysit). As I was reading, I had a young man (yeah... in high school) come up and ask me what I thought of the book I was reading (It was "Fairest" by Gail Levine Carson who also wrote "Ella Enchanted".) He talked about it for quite a while and referenced it to her other works. I was mildly amused that this kid had read so much "chick" young adult lit. He smiled and said it was because girl's like the romantic stuff and he wanted to know what they thought was romantic. Aha! There's a smart kid--I think!
Frank has been reading a lot since he got home. He's reading "All's Quiet on the Western Front" right now. He's read a bunch of other classics. I've been impressed at what he's been reading throughout the semesters away at college, too. He's really into the classics lately. He's one I didn't think would ever love reading again after poor experiences in junior high and high school English classes.
Anyway, the whole conversation with the kid and thinking about Frank Zigmunt got me thinking about literature and then my delightfully well read and intelligent English degreed, Master Program accepted niece wrote this in her blog the other day...
"...Stephanie Meyer just released a new book. I had to read the first chapter of Eclipse for a YA fiction class last week. I hated it. Drivel. You cannot dissuade me from this violent opinion. I hate those books - I detest the sight of them, the sleek black and red covers with minimized text, the style of their Buffy-the-vampire-slayer rhetoric, the gothic-romance names that seem to have creeped right out of a Bronte novel. Plus I think the narrator's voice is stupid. I have come to realize that story and plot isn't enough for me. Give me a form I delight in - words which please and interest me. Don't just throw violent melodrama into a paperback and call it legitimate fiction. I am surprised that 'my-boyfriend-is-a-vampire-life-is-so-hard' drama has caught on so well - to me it's almost voyeuristic in its repulsiveness. This is the kind of drivel I think Brigham Young was referring to when he said this: "In our part of the land many of our young women just hope and pray, if they ever thought of prayer, ‘I do wish some villain would come along and break open my room and steal me and carry me off; I want to be stolen, I want to be carried away; I want to be lost with the Indians, I want to be shipwrecked and to go through some terrible scene, so that I can experience what this beloved lady has experienced whom I have been reading about.’” (23 July 1873) Perhaps society has stooped to re-inventing the gothic novel and calling it literature. Go read some Dostoyevsky. It'll be good for you. It'll clean out your system - teach you what you should learn to stomach instead of this animalistic garbage. If Dostoyevsky is asking too much, opt for Austen, Twain or Hawthorne. For heavens' sakes go read Hemingway if big words scare you. You'd have more fun reading Faulkner, CS Lewis, or Dickens. Even Poe has some literary gums to smack - and he'll give you that little gothic twinkle in your eye if that's what you're really after. (But, in my opinion, if you want truly haunting, go read Cormac McCarthy. That'll send your little vampire boyfriend screaming into the bathroom to change the tighty-whities he's just soiled)."
I LOVE the Brigham Young quote. I read it to my girls and they agreed... that is exactly what they want. I think they missed the point. How ironic...
I have felt these same things for quite some time. I don't want to offend anyone but I have to get this off my chest... My literary disgust extends to many modern authors, among them Mary Higgins Clark and even Gerald Lund's classics, "The Work and the Glory". I think they are tripe. I am forever irritated at the dumbing down of the reading masses by writers who take shortcuts. Austin would never build to a climax at the end of every chapter just to rehash it in the opening pages of the next chapter (what--in case I forgot what I just read? Or maybe I didn't get it the first time?) And can you imagine Twain letting his voice be heard over the narrator's voice? Shudder... What happened to irony and innuendo? Why must we be hit over the head with the plot only to have the author reiterate it, as if to say, "Did you get that? Did you see that? I don't want you to miss that because it is important later..." Suffice it to say, yeah, I got it.
Stepping down off my soap box now...
8 comments:
SHEESH did your feet get all sudsy and slippery up there :)
Actaully for the record I don't think you are wrong. A lot of writing is fluffy or worse drivel. I have a taste for it, much like I enjoy a stop at Sonic. I also like good lit, and a night of fine dining. And I still love Edward!
I agree that there is a place for "those" types of books... by the pool, on the beach, on an airplane, etc... But as one must not continually eat fast food and call it a healthy diet, one must not only read fluff and call themselves well-read.
And for the record, Twilight is a compelling book. There is something about Edward but Bella is a dork. I keep asking what it is that made Twilight so immediately engaging, despite it's weak characters, dragging side characters and implausible plots.
ok just keeping you from getting too soapy but you know I agree--- I do not even love those--- but I read them all I also must like occasional FF my trouble is till someone discusses it w/ me i do not even realize good or bad??
Waahaaaahaaaahaaa, ho ho ho ho ho, snort,ha, ha, ha, snort.
Love the soap box. It's nice to know I'm not alone in decrying the pitiful state of modern "literature".
Stephanie Meyer can be irritating, but I do love Edward. In this (rare) instance, I will put up with the drivel because I find the story compelling. I am curious to see where the author is going to go with this.
Wish I could read as fast as you....
As another university student earning her degree so she can work in a coffee shop (as teaching is not my thing), I have to agree that a lot of what is available these days is garbage. I feel like literature these days has a TV quality - thinking not required. For days where my brain is mush from thinking too hard, "those" types of books are a welcome relief! On days where I want character depth or a realistic plot, I turn to my trusty Austen.
Here's the annoying thing about Bella: she is the epitome of a damsel in distress who cannot function without a strong, heroic man at her side. Definitely not the woman I'd want my daughters to become. But isn't that what every little girl wants? A strong, handsome man to save her from everything that is bad in her world? That's just my two-cents!
Stepping back on the proverbial soapbox...
I hope you know your degree is more than so you can work in a coffee shop. It is more than just so you can work at all... It is for your personal growth and for your sons and daughters. There can be no greater example of how important an education is to your children than to show them by obtaining one yourself. But I'm sure you know that! For me it was more a matter of finishing something since I hadn't finished high school and needed a diploma of some sort. But now I am eternally grateful I finished it!
Stepping down again, but reserving the right to scale it again...
you know when you write a good post it evokes Strong reactions and even days later
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