Literacy Rant: Closing Thoughts

By on May 13, 2011 ·
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So the task was simple. Pick five and only five books that would do two things: stand as a crash course in literature and encourage the reader to continue that education on his own. I’m pleased with the list and stand behind it, but there are a few random thoughts that occur to me.

I’m not a misogynist. But I may be a chauvinist. There aren’t any women authors on the list. The books are by and large ‘boy stories’. Women could, and certainly do, enjoy them but they all have male heroes and are generally male viewpoints. In part this is because the list was made by an older dude (me) for a younger dude (an illiterate moron I work with). The only real candidate I could come up with to fit the criteria was To Kill a Mockingbird. This is probably, and hopefully, just a hole in my own reading preferences, but if I were making a list for a young lady who didn’t want to read about wolves and murderers…well I’d be pretty much screwed.

I’m not a snob. I have a problem with people who look down their noses at popular fiction just because it’s popular. The books on the list are generally considered classics, but they’re also good stories. I think they’re all powerful as Literature with that stupid capital ‘l’, but if you don’t enjoy reading something what’s the goddamned point? Take away that snobbish capital ‘l’ and you might have better luck getting somebody hooked on reading with Harry Potter. Those books are easy to make fun of if your reading nose is in the air. I read every one of ’em and thought they were pretty flippin great.

I’m a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Fahrenheit 451 made my list because it was more accessible than 1984 but I really wanted 1984 on the list. I don’t know if people are truly getting dumber, although it certainly feels that way. It’s easy (and apparently human nature) to think kids are more stupid than you are. But it’s not a case of raw intelligence so much as a framework to express that intelligence. A book like 1984 can give you the syntax to express what you think of things with names like red light cameras, full body scans at airports, the patriot act, or tracking chips in your phone.  As far as I know, 1984 is no longer widely taught. I’m not sure that’s an accident.

I have no idea if this will work. The young guy I made this list for transferred to another department and I no longer see him. If he had read the list, I don’t know if it would be the magical transformation I hoped for. To tell you the truth I don’t think he would have even tried to read them. I can’t force him. Well, I suppose I could, but that would be me infringing on his right to be aggressively ignorant and I am a strong believer in individual rights. I’ll keep trying though. His replacement is another young kid. If I throw enough books out there maybe one will stick.

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Crash Course in Literacy: Part 3

By on January 19, 2011 ·
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My previous book to brainwash convince my young illiterate that reading was fun was Call of The Wild.  Call of The Wild is about a dog.  Everybody loves dogs and so even someone who’s new to reading should be able to get into the story.  Who doesn’t like stories about animals?

Watership Down is about a bunch of rabbits.  The first time I heard about the book was when I was reading The Stand.  Stu Redman of Texas is not much of a reader but buys Watership Down as a gift, for a niece if memory serves.  Stu supposed from the title the book was about some kind of shipwreck but he reads the first page and finds out it’s about a bunch of rabbits.  He can’t put it down and reads the whole thing in about two days. 

It was years later when I saw a copy laying around my house (still don’t know how it got there but I don’t question the book faeries) and had a similar experience to ol’ Stu’s.  I remembered Stephen King’s brief description and there was a rabbit on the cover so I wasn’t quite as surprised; but I was captivated.  By the middle of the first page I was totally in the world of these rabbits and the more I read the more immersive that world became.  Unlike Buck, these rabbits talk.  They in fact have their own language, myths and legends, and the world we see is wholly theirs. 

Some people label it allegory but that misses the mark.  Certainly there are political themes; each warren runs on a recognizable ‘political’ system.  Fiver and his small band’s search for freedom and sovereignty while respecting the individual should appeal to any red blooded American despite the quite English flavor of the book.  But these aren’t representations of people.  The characters are rabbits and this is an heroic tale about rabbits. 

Because the characters are bunnies (though not all of them are cute) the book is often considered children’s lit.  It is children’s lit and Adams started by telling the stories to his daughters.  But they made him write it down and we owe them because it’s damn good children’s lit.  The kind of book that if you read it when you’re nine you can read it over and over again and love it more each time. 

That makes it a perfect book to get someone like my poorly read protege to love reading.  So perfect that I debated putting this one before Fahrenheit 451.  If you haven’t read it, I insist you do so as soon as possible.  If it’s been a few years, like it has for me, then I suggest you give it another read.  In fact I think I’m gonna put that in my new Kindle right now.   

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Crash Course in Literacy: Part 2

By on January 3, 2011 ·

I’m not sure why but when I made my five book reading list for my barely literate young man, I had a specific order in mind for the books.  Fahrenheit 451 was first because it’s fairly short and straightforward making for an accessible and enjoyable read with the ‘big ideas’ right there to grasp.  The next book is Call of The Wild by Jack London.  It’s longer yet still a pretty straightforward adventure story but has some more subtle things going for it.  It also has some fond personal memories so maybe I’ll go at it from that angle.

I don’t know about these days but there was a time when this novel was considered a classic ‘boy’s book’ like Old Yeller or The Yearling.  Perhaps it’s the adventure aspect which gets it cast as juvenile literature but it’s actually pretty dark and melancholy with some pretty intense scenes of violence and survival.  I couldn’t have been more than ten when I read it which, in retrospect, might have been a little young.  Not because a boy can’t handle the dark tone but because the underlying theme of Buck finding his way back to his wild and wolfish roots and the artful way London lays it out, might be lost on a young boy.

Buck, if you haven’t read it, is a dog.  A big and content domesticated dog in a respectable and comfortable California house.  The gardener of the household steals Buck and sells him and the dog is sent to Alaska.  The story takes place during the Klondike Gold Rush so sled dogs and their importance is a big deal.  Buck is taken on by a pair of French Canadians who train him for that kind of work.  Eventually he learns the ways of the pack well enough to challenge the lead dog.  Buck wins that fight and the loser is killed by the rest of the pack.

It was this fight and the aftermath where I started to get the idea that there was more going on here.  Even though Buck is the protagonist it’s not from his point of view.  We don’t hear his thoughts in English or anything like that.  We simply see what he does and the reactions of the humans around him and the reader has to determine what that really means.  In the case of the fight, the sledders are less concerned with the loss of one dog and instead admire Buck and his refusal to pull until he’s given his rightful place at the head of the pack.  He’s now a competent and valuable sled dog and he’s sold again to a family of greenhorns who are woefully ill prepared for life in the Klondike.  It was at this point that the book takes a big place in my personal memories.

My dad saw I was reading it and started to ask me what I thought.  My dad read a lot but usually military histories of the twentieth century and non-fiction books about the Old West.  Over the years though he would occasionally surprise me with some more ‘bookish’ literary knowledge.  This was the first of those times.  He had read it when he was a boy and now we shared that as father and son.  He never lectured me, just asked me where I was in the story and what I thought about what was happening.

In this manner I was able to realize that London wanted me to be disgusted with the greenhorns’ incompetence.  Buck eventually takes up with Thornton, a man who is much more in tune with Buck’s indomitable spirit.  Buck isn’t Thornton’s property but rather his companion and when Buck starts to hear that Call, Thornton doesn’t stop him.  Again, if you haven’t read it I won’t spoil the exact manner of the ending.  But Buck finally heeds the call and runs off into the Wild.  It was a deeply affecting book for a young boy made personal by sharing it with my father.  Since my young friend hasn’t read it I hope the same effect would make him hungry for more books with the same power.

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Crash Course in Literacy

By on December 27, 2010 ·
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My last post, Read a Book You Idiot, got some great responses so thank you all for reading.  As promised I came up with a five book list for my young friend.  It was actually a little easier than I expected since I had a specific person in mind and a specific goal for the books.  I jotted down eight off the top of my head and picked the five I thought best suited to the purpose.  First the list and I’ll talk about each in turn.  And keep the comments coming especially your own book lists.  I’m always interested in what others feel are must-reads and why.  Besides, Santa just got me a Kindle and it’s a good way to get new book suggestions.

My List:

  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Call of the Wild
  • Watership Down
  • Lord of the Flies
  • No Country for Old Men

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I went back and forth between this one and Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Both are  typically cast as Sci-Fi and both are dystopian futures.  Both were cautionary tales that turned out to be eerily prophetic but I went with Bradbury for a few reasons.

It’s a tad more accessible for one.  1984 is a good book but it’s dense.  451 has a tight pace with a lot more of an ‘action movie’ flair complete with killer robot chase scenes.  Montag is also more of an active protagonist than Winston Smith and easier to get behind and really root for.

The big reason though is that Fahrenheit 451 has an great element of discovery for a new reader.  Most people who haven’t read the book have at least heard of it and think it’s about censorship in the early stages of the Cold War.  That’s pretty much what I thought until I read it.  By the time I did read it most of the things that Bradbury was making up were in full swing.  Constant and mind numbing entertainment, overmedication, obsession with television shows and participating in them, personal communication that kept people ‘plugged in’ to the network while they ignored the person right next to them.  It’s pretty recognizable as our society right now.

The big idea and discovery though is that it’s not really about censorship which is simply some government or authority trying to control what you read (and think).  The Firemen are acting for the government of course but it’s the society’s and the individual’s willing complicity that’s the point.  These people have chosen to be mindless consumers simply because it’s easier than thinking.  A bit on the nose perhaps if you’re trying to get a young fella to read a book instead of texting his idiot friends.  Still, it’s a good book and a quick read and a decidedly more hopeful ending than 1984.

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Read a Book You Idiot

By on December 20, 2010 ·
Banned Books #4
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I work with a kid who just turned twenty-one and he’s an idiot. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a sweet kid, just an idiot.  I’m a long way out from twenty-one and I understand that old guys are always going to think young guys are stupid. This is the way of things.  But this kid claims he’s never read anything by Shakespeare. I’m not a literary snob who thinks you should only read the classics, but how can you get to twenty-one without reading anything by Shakespeare? I thought everybody who had a high school diploma would have to at least read Romeo and Juliet.

I made a joke about Doublespeak and he had no idea what I was talking about. Not only had he not been taught any Shakespeare but he hadn’t been taught 1984. Had never even heard of it or George Orwell for that matter. Again, I don’t think everything you read has to be ‘important’, but in my opinion 1984 is a top contender for most important novel of the twentieth century. Plus it’s just a good book.

If this kid is to be believed, he hasn’t been taught any books of any kind in school. That’s hard to buy, but even if true it’s not the real issue for me. That’s a failure of the public school system but it’s not a failure you have to live with. Just read a damn book.  I don’t get how people can’t grasp the concept of reading on your own and this kid is not the only person I’ve met with this problem. I won’t take any excuses on the matter. I don’t care if you weren’t taught any books in school. I don’t care if you had a teacher who hated you or who was criminally boring or who made you read a book you hated. Now’s the time to read what you want.

You should definitely be reading for pleasure, maybe even guilty pleasure. You should also be reading books that move you and deal with important issues. You should occassionally read books that are challenging or above your head. Just because someone is smarter than you doesn’t make you stupid. Stupider than the author maybe but drop your ego and you might learn something. Reading books that fulfill more than one of these functions is one of life’s true joys.

I talked about this with a friend of mine who teaches English (and contributes to this blog)  and he said he started giving students booklists. But which books?  What books would you put on a list for a person who claims he’s never read anything? They would have to be books that have some of the big ideas going on. Literature in other words but it would also have to be an engaging read. It would need to be a good story that you can’t put down and may feel the need to read more than once. It would help if the book was infectious. One of those books you make excuses to quote or talk about and feel like you have to pass along.

And how long a list? My friends are all readers and I’m sure each of us could come up with a list of fifty ‘must reads’ without trying hard. That number may be too daunting for a novice reader though. In fact I think a top ten list is too many. I think five is a good number and I think I’m gonna make a five book reading list. I’ll ponder it for a bit and make that my next post. I am of course open to suggestions in the comments.

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