Ken Korczak did a very informal, very unscientific survey, and found out that almost every teen he asked had no idea who Ernest Hemingway is.
On the one hand, that sucks, and the great American writers should be taught and celebrated. But on the other hand, I don't think I ever had Hemingway on a curriculum in high school, and I figured it out. And while I'm super awesome at figuring things out, I think we love to blame things on schools that maybe could be mentioned by parents. Like safe sex. But also Hemingway.
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I was about to get enraged until I realized that I don't think Hemingway was taught in my high school, either. And my parents didn't recommend it to me... so, how did I find out about him? I honestly cannot remember. Weird.
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I had to read Hemingway my junior year in high school. In a public school. What gives?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, how is this possible?
Hemingway wasn't taught in my high school. Of course, my literature professor was terrible, but all the same, I didn't have friends running around excited about Hemingway either.
ReplyDeleteMy love for literature was definitely instilled by my mother who was an English major in college. So I have to agree with you there--parents can spark an interest.
However, I agree with @Laurel. Why ISN'T Hemingway taught in school?!
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Who cares? This is just canon-pushing. 'Hey, little boy, wanna taste of something sweet?'
ReplyDeleteHemingway's okay, but he's no Gloria Naylor, and doesn't touch PG Wodehouse. If the shit is good enough, the kids will read it eventually. No reason to suck the joy outta stuff with required reading.
Just because something is required reading in school doesn't mean the kids will actually read it. I took advanced English courses through all of junior high and high school...and I think I only read ONE of what was considered "required reading." I was not a rebel (that came later in life). I was just very unmotivated. And since I was also smart, I knew how to pass a test without reading what the test was based on. Hehe.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I always had a book in my hand when I was growing up. Just not what I was supposed to be reading for school. If you attach the word "required" to ANYTHING, it suddenly becomes a chore. Especially to anyone under the age of 25.
Luckily, Hemingway was taught in my high school. My children most certainly know who he is, what he looks like, and have twice visited his home in Key West.
ReplyDeleteMost of the required reading I did in high school was brilliant stuff, and I'm glad I read it. Hemingway was part of that required reading. "Canon-pushing" is a good thing, because the canon is a good thing. Wodehouse is better than Hemingway? At what? I like Wodehouse, but seriously: wtf?
ReplyDeleteWodehouse is better than Hemingway at _writing_. I mean, that's just an empirical truth. They _measured_ that.
ReplyDeleteHemingway's pretty good, but also pretty strained and self-conscious. That's the problem with the canon. It's the literary version of bible banging; people start projecting all sorts of virtues on works accorded that much respect, deserved or not.
Huh. How do you think stuff gets into the canon in the first place? Hemingway was fucking brilliant. I will give you that Wodehouse had better penmanship.
ReplyDeleteGood press? Right place/right time?
ReplyDeleteC'mon, I bet you think that a good number of novels in 'the canon' are completely crap, no?
I read Hemmingway in HS, twice. Same book. Didn't understand then what made him so great. Now I do.
ReplyDeleteI read Hemingway in highschool. The Sun also rises was a required book in my AP English class. BUT, that said, i read a LOT more Hemingway once i was in college (seriously i had to read the same Hemingway book 5 times throughout my college career for different classes. It was enough to turn me off Hemingway for a while).
ReplyDeleteI think it all just depends on the school - my Highschool, though Public, provided a fantastic education and i found myself light years ahead of many of my peers once i hit college.
@bingol: "Good press? Right place/right time?" Huh. I don't think we read Shakespeare because of his popularity in 1601. I don't think books become classics because they're in the canon; it clearly goes the other way around. Hemingway is incredibly influential and important (Cormac McCarthy much?) and that's why his books are in the canon, not because he spent the 50s bribing English Lit professors or whatever.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are some "classic" books that I think are dreadful. Does an unhappy reader mean a book is therefore empirically crap? There was a time when I thought Melville was dull as dirt, and then I read "Bartleby the Scrivener." This summer I read "Moby Dick," which is an amazing book that I wish had been hundreds of pages longer, I miss it so much. Your personal taste (and mine) are not what determines the worth of any piece of literature; rather it is the historical acceptance of that literature, which takes place beyond any single person's experience. The history of art is bigger and more important than you or me.
No books are empirically crap. No books are empirically quality. It's all taste. Your personal taste, my personal taste, and the personal taste of legions of literary gatekeepers. Which translates into received wisdom, which we then tend to fiercely defend.
ReplyDeleteRe-reading, I'm not sure I can so fiercely defend _this_: "No books are empirically crap."
Is it possible that some books are empirically crap, but no books are empirically quality?
No, it's not just personal taste. There is a thing called informed opinion, which is what the "literary gatekeepers" tend to have. There is also a constant evaluative process going on in literary studies, and a historical process of reception and influence that takes place outside the control of "literary gatekeepers" (which is to say, it happens in the realm of readers and writers and not academia). The historical process and the study thereof can situate literary works within both the general history or literature and within the present day. The canon is not set in stone, and the evaluative historical process is what leads to changes in it, not so much personal taste.
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