Death of Literature

It's amazing, really, that the Internet still has the power to shock me.

There I was, deep in the morass of my own troubles, and all of a sudden BOOM! My girlfriend directs me to another blog where a woman is lamenting her trials and tribulations in trying to get kids to pick up a book.

Now, why should this woman be having a problem? She's a teacher, she has kids under her control, she has to educate them...why should getting them to read be something considered a bad thing? Isn't reading the primal conduit to understanding?

According to our friends in the Bible Belt West, apparently not.


You see, parents only want their kids to read that which is "approved". by "approved", I mean that which has all the sex, violence, life and fun sucked out of it, that which has so much dust on the cover that said children will find no interest in it, that which no sane fucking teacher could EVER convince anyone under the age of fifty to find appealing.

And this teacher's particular crime? Allowing her students to pick their own books.

Oh, I can hear the snickers from here; let teenagers pick their own reading material? Where is the sense in THAT? They'll all just read Twilight and Harry Potter and other such tripe, right?

I doubt it.

*I* was allowed to pick my own reading material. And I can tell you; after reading that which was designed for my consumption, I quickly moved on to that which was NOT: First ADULT (gasp!) fiction, then Alexandre Dumas, Bram Stoker, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, William Shakespeare, and others. Why? Because this reading thing was fucking COOL, that's why, and I wanted to know what else was out there!

Literature, like any other hobby, requires some training wheels. It requires some simple material easily digested, so that the later works do not make the prospective explorer choke. Trying to start kids out on the "classics" is like trying to start a prospective skier out on the "Double Diamond" runs...no matter what the level of natural talent, the result is sure to be disastrous.

And that is why this wonderful woman's approach of allowing young readers to pick their own material is a genius approach. Sure, some will stop at the tripe, but some will not; and those that make it to the "good stuff" will actually APPRECIATE what they are reading, instead of chewing through it for the sake of a grade.

With this in mind, it's a pity she was almost fired for her efforts.

Literature is SUBJECTIVE; it's designed that way for a REASON. I'm about as well-read as any, and I DESPISE Salinger (he cannot structure a plot to save his ass) yet revere Hemingway and Shakespeare (those men KNEW how to inspire). And I also love Mercedes Lackey, Tom Clancy, Daniel Keys Moran and Anne Rice, for being the gateway to the wonderful world of literature and a great many other reasons.

Let the next generation find their own way to the classics; forcing them down their throat will only ensure that appreciation will never occur.

And the teacher I spoke of? Pure, unappreciated genius. English professors could do worse than to follow in her footsteps.