I am going to take a break from the political wars to discuss somethings that never get discussed at all. We are going to discuss books and society. This will be a different sort of post than the predictable types. Part of me is hoping the Editrix drops in and hits me with a Thunderbolt or two.
1) What books do you remember as assigned school work reading that you remember vividly and fondly?
Lord of the Flies, 1984, Animal Farm, The Hairy Ape of Mice and Men.
2) Are there any classics that you wished was assigned, but did not get in a classroom setting
Moby Dick, Last of the Mohicans and the Tempest
3) Can a book be too long
Yes, I gave up on Les Mis after an eighty page rambling description of the convent.
4) Should certain books be removed from the curriculum because they are considered by some to be offensive?
No, I actually learned the Canterbury Tales and some Shakespeare in a Yeshiva setting. The notion of a complete education without those works would have been incomplete. The bigotry was more or less a product of its era.
5) Should certain books be restructured or edited to take out offensive passages.
No, but taking out the quips about Jews in Shakespeare except in the Merchants of Venice would not alter the substance. I prefer to leave the books unaltered and leave it to the readers.
6) Should the emphasis in education be geared towards a more enjoyable experience for the reader?
I think the love of a good book is something that is lost by lit snobs. The reading of certain books is just a chore in college. Perhaps, the reason I enjoyed the Hairy Ape so much was the heated
discussions in class.
Still, I think that educators should be more flexible with their readings. Let the students chose what section they want by listing what books will be assigned rather than standardization. Those that like certain books can seek out an intro class that will offer Eugene O'Neil vs another that will focus on the Greek Classics.
7) Does the movie ever live up to the book?
Not in my experience
8) Has a movie ever inspired you to read the book?
Not yet.
9) What are your thoughts about Broadway plays on Film?
When it is done well it is a way to preserve the masters who created the role like Yul Brenner in
The King and I. Fidler on the Roof was shot with Topol. The film should have had loudmouth political moron Zero Mostell. It would have captured the essence of the play better.
I do know that some of Neil Simon's work did very well on the silver screen. I saw Lost in Yonkers on Broadway and had no desire to see it on film.
10) Do we spend too much time reading news articles and not enough with great books?
I think more of us need to hit the news stand more. I do like googles News feature that allows me to scan the news quickly. I spend far more time with periodicals than great books.
Lets see your responses. The first loon that proposes banning Moby Dick for whaling gets the honorary Mr B Daisy Cutter award for stupidity.
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1) What books do you remember as assigned school work reading that you remember vividly and fondly?
House of the Seven Gables, David Copperfield, The Octopus, Moby Dick,
Lord of the Flies, The Tale of Genji, Paradise Lost, Brave New World, The Odyssey (why was he the only one who took so long to find home?), Huckleberry Finn, The Return of the Native (still have a thing for Eustacia).
2) Are there any classics that you wished was assigned, but did not get in a classroom setting
No, I went after them on my own
3) Can a book be too long
Yes if it becomes repetitive or empty. Some 100 page books are too long. Ulysses is too short.
4) Should certain books be removed from the curriculum because they are considered by some to be offensive?
Offense is subjective. No.
In a High School environment I might allow alternate assignments.
5) Should certain books be restructured or edited to take out offensive passages.
I oppose all censorship.
6) Should the emphasis in education be geared towards a more enjoyable experience for the reader?
No, students need to develop an attention span and concentration.
7) Does the movie ever live up to the book?
There have been instances Dickens translates well to film - David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations. All well done.
The film version of Lord of the Flies is absolutely outstanding.
Lighter stuff like detective novels often come across well although the French do it best.
8) Has a movie ever inspired you to read the book?
9) What are your thoughts about Broadway plays on Film?
Film is not the stage. I don't think it works to often. Exception: Guys and Dolls.
10) Do we spend too much time reading news articles and not enough with great books?
Most Americans have never read more than a handful of books. It's distressing.
I think more can read but as its done in a commute mode then longer works do not lend themselves to reading. Thus a series of articles is more appropriate than a long book for a two hour commute.
Perhaps the answer is in creating modern spacing and pacing or sub chapters. Reading Kenneth Roberts while commuting wasn't easy. You get to a key spot and you get off the bus and lose the drama.
Maybe some Entrepreneur will make a commuter version of some of the classics.
No thunderbolts from me, Beak. I'll try to answer your questions but please take into consideration that we have a different concept of what the "classics" are (mainly Goethe and Schiller) and that I attended a Steiner School. Keep in mind the age gap, too.
1) What books do you remember as assigned school work reading that you remember vividly and fondly?
Not a single one. I remember fondly some poetry and music.
2) Are there any classics that you wished was assigned, but did not get in a classroom setting
The "classics" are almost exclusively defined as Goethe and Schiller. I wish they's concede one day that they wrote rubbish too. In English classes we read some of Shakespeare's plays, which I loved, and almost eveything by Hemingway, which I found crappy.
3) Can a book be too long
Definitely.
4) Should certain books be removed from the curriculum because they are considered by some to be offensive?
No.
5) Should certain books be restructured or edited to take out offensive passages.
Even more "No".
6) Should the emphasis in education be geared towards a more enjoyable experience for the reader?
Education is not supposedto be enjoyable, but fruitful
7) Does the movie ever live up to the book?
I agree with you.
8) Has a movie ever inspired you to read the book?
Again, I agree.
9) What are your thoughts about Broadway plays on Film?
It is not part of my culture, but I enjoyed those I saw.
10) Do we spend too much time reading news articles and not enough with great books?
Yes.
The first loon that proposes banning Moby Dick for whaling gets the honorary Mr B Daisy Cutter award for stupidity.
It sounds like a good joke, but I think we are almost there.
Oh, good! A survey!
1) What books do you remember as assigned school work reading that you remember vividly and fondly?
Too many to list, but here are a few: Animal Farm, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Macbeth, Henry VIII, King Lear, The Turn of the Screw, Billy Budd, Unamuno's Niebla, and El Cid -- those last two in Spanish.
2) Are there any classics that you wished was assigned, but did not get in a classroom setting
One stands out for me: The Haunting of Hill House. One more: The Grapes of Wrath.
Two more: (1) Gone with the Wind. Everybody around here read it when the movie was re-released, but a class discussion would have helped to debunk that slanted point of view. (2) Of Mice and Men
3) Can a book be too long
Oh, yes! Moby Dick and David Copperfield.
4) Should certain books be removed from the curriculum because they are considered by some to be offensive?
No. But certain books should be read only by upperclassmen. And I believe that parents should have some say-so up until 11th grade.
5) Should certain books be restructured or edited to take out offensive passages.
No.
6) Should the emphasis in education be geared towards a more enjoyable experience for the reader?
To a certain extent so as to facilitate the motivation to broaden one's reading. MJB hated reading -- until I showed him Stephen Kind's Different Seasons. We went on from there to the classics.
7) Does the movie ever live up to the book?
Very rarely. Jaws as a film was better than the book, which had romantic filler in the middle section. What a snow job that was!
8) Has a movie ever inspired you to read the book?
Yes. Gone with the Wind, The Haunting of Hill House, and certain nonfiction. For example, this summer, I did a lot of reading about Adam Walsh because I saw the TV movie. Plus, there was a new book out about Adam Walsh.
9) What are your thoughts about Broadway plays on Film?
Some work on film, and some don't.
10) Do we spend too much time reading news articles and not enough with great books?
I certainly do since 9/11.
Duck,
Ulysses is too short.
Ye, gods! I hated that one.
Duck,
6) Should the emphasis in education be geared towards a more enjoyable experience for the reader?
No, students need to develop an attention span and concentration.
I agree about developing attention span and concentration. But I've found that most students nowadays need to be motivated to get there. Back in the dinosaur days when I was in school, we had fewer distractions and developed attention span and concentration earlier, IMO.
Editrix
Someday, I think Moby Dick will be banned for killing Whales. I can see it thirty years from now.
AOW
I grasp that students need to endure a bad one or two as in life many will need to pour over boring reports. Yet the love of the printed word seems to be lost in the class. Maybe we need to get some Michner into the class.
1) What books do you remember as assigned school work reading that you remember vividly and fondly?
Interestingly, my list is not too far off from Ducks' - House of the Seven Gables, Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, Huckleberry Finn and Death of a Salesman. I developed some empathy for Willie Lohman.
2) Are there any classics that you wished was assigned, but did not get in a classroom setting
James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. I went after them on my own.
3) Can a book be too long
Dr. Zhivago. Its really more a matter of what tickles your fancy that makes it too long. Cooper is a hard read, but I could endure it because the subject matter appealed to me.
4) Should certain books be removed from the curriculum because they are considered by some to be offensive?
No don't ban them outright. That usually has domino effect and goes places it doesn't need to. AOW is right: Limit some to upperclassmen, allow the parental input up to 11th grade.
5) Should certain books be restructured or edited to take out offensive passages.
No. I abhor the "sanitized" versions of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Twain was making some commentary on life in 1850s Missouri, but some people miss the whole point of what is going in in the time period because they are ratcheted up certain pejoratives that were commonly used at that time.
Next, someone will want to sanitize Johnny Got His Gun or All Quiet on the Western Front. After all war is ugly, upsetting and therefore very offensive. Or let's clean up Grapes of Wrath because we don't want to offend Okies. Oops! Californians might take offense that they're perceived as persecuting Okies.
The world is filled with the good, the bad and the ugly. Censorship merely strips you of the opportunity to process and sort it out for yourself.
6) Should the emphasis in education be geared towards a more enjoyable experience for the reader?
I'm torn - yes, students need to develop an attention span and concentration but they need some kind of motivation or its dead effort. It's partly the manner in how materials are presented in classrooms.
7) Does the movie ever live up to the book?
I agree with Duck, the Dickens books have made the transition well. I'm a bit of SciFi fan, but I can't think of anything that has translated well. I thought Dune was a disaster. Movies usually seem to bastardize the books.
8) Has a movie ever inspired you to read the book?
Believe it or not, Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
9) What are your thoughts about Broadway plays on Film?
What's Broadway? Just kidding. I've never been into Broadway plays so I can't objectively comment. I guess I'm a barbarian.
10) Do we spend too much time reading news articles and not enough with great books?
I don't think most Americans even really read news articles - they listen to sound bytes. That said, I absolutely agree with what Duck said and it is distressing. Sad to say, I probably don't read nearly as much as I used to.
This is great Beak. I've been getting a little burned out on the political rhetoric lately.
Beak,
Some of my students do read Michener for book reports.
Someday, I think Moby Dick will be banned for killing Whales. I can see it thirty years from now.
Beak, two or three years more likely. First, they will start to seriously bellyache about Moby Dick and in less than 10 years it will become accepted law.
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