This is a repost from a comment I made on a friend's Facebook status. It started as a discussion of summer reading choices for high school students, but I found myself considering the choices and asking (again--as I did with The Giver) why assigned reading in middle and high school so clearly focuses on specific social and political topics:
I find that in middle school and high school, often the idea is to introduce the students to "issues" that someone or other feels that the students need to or will need to consider in their lives. So the works are front-loaded with sexuality, race, gender, abortion--you name it. That tends to bug me pedagogically and as a parent. And when I was in high school and college, I resented it as a cheap way of getting me to talk about politics! ;) The funny thing is that I don't dislike books about social concerns, but so often the "message" or "issue" dominates. It's like teaching from an anthology that divides the literary works into sections like "coming of age," "love & relationships," "death & dying," etc. The book announces too plainly what you're supposed to be considering while reading it, and for me, that eliminates the interest because there's nothing to engage me.
In another post, I considered how authors engage readers with matters of spirituality, and without rereading what I wrote then, I will assert that open-ended questioning, even if it tends toward one reading or another (as in Clarke's "The Star") is more effective than something like Lewis's allegorical treatment of Christianity in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example, which answers the questions for the reader rather than encouraging further consideration of the relevant questions. This is something that Lewis improved upon as he developed as a writer.
In the case of The Power and the Glory, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or "The Star," it is clear enough what the author wants the reader to be considering. In a book that dramatizes a woman's consideration of abortion, it is equally clear. Or is it more so? Initially, considering just why those big social issues bothered me, I wrote the above, that the books are limiting my ability to interpret what the narrative is "about," if you will, and also the following:
I like books that give me enough complexity that I can insert myself into the dilemma, and enough flexibility that if I'm not particularly interested in thinking about one question, I can engage with something else.
I'm not sure this statement applies to why I'm drawn to The Power and the Glory, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and "The Star," or even Fahrenheit 451. It is pretty clear that the former deal with questions of spirituality and the truth of religious belief, and the latter deals pretty explicitly with questions of literacy. But they don't make me feel constrained to think in a certain way. The difference could be in the level of analysis in the novel--how closely the reader experiences the dilemma, or how closely the character experiences the dilemma--the complexity/theoretical nature of the issue--why this is important, whether its importance is situational, and how broadly applicable the questions are--and perhaps how mundane the issue is--is it a daily life issue, or is it something that applies to Life? This last question flies in the face of feminist theory, among others, which sees the particular as having the importance ("the personal is political," after all. . .) and while I wouldn't argue, I would ask what importance one finds in the particulars that are presented, and whether it is possible to broaden out that importance to connect other particulars. When I read about someone's relationship foibles, what exactly am I supposed to get from that? When I read D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf, those relationship foibles are supposed to tell me quite a lot about power structures, personal interactions, and the possibility of closeness. The particulars broaden out. When I read about someone's decision whether or not to have an abortion, what am I supposed to do with that? If I already know my own conviction on the subject, is dramatizing someone else's dilemma going to tell me anything beyond the reasons why someone considers this particular action? Am I supposed to reexamine my conviction? From the novelist's point, likely. From the teacher's perspective, why else tech it but to introduce and hash through the topic/"issue"? But I'm not sure that this is what makes a truly engaging literary text. Is this what readers want to get from a text? Some readers, sometimes, sure. But this is not, perhaps, the most sophisticated use of literature. Do Uncle Tom's Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird cause us to consider the bases on which we judge other human beings? Most likely. But other abolitionist novels might only lead us to consider whether slavery should be legal, or if we should own the slaves that we have. These questions are no longer relevant, and so the novels' temporary importance is now historical evidence.
To be continued. . .
1 comment:
Interesting thoughts.
My gut feeling is that books which are chosen because of the issues they deal with tend to be of poorer literary quality as well. Not really good stories, good writing. When other criteria become more important then quality suffers.
I think any art which is agenda-driven tends to suffer in artistic quality. The message becomes more important than the story or the characters of any other consideration and it somehow warps everything out of shape. What could have been a good art in becomes propaganda.
This is true in Christian art as well. I think Lewis rises above it, though, in that his delight in Narnia itself takes over and the message is not all that drives the novels. Lewis is too much of a story teller to let the message get in the way of a good yarn.
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