There is no surer way to guarantee that someone will hate a piece of literature than to make them read it in a high school English class. I have remarked before that I find it ludicrous that students today are still reading the same books my parents read as teenagers – not because there is anything wrong with the “classics,” but because sticking to the same early-20th century syllabus holds the dangerous implication that nothing worth reading has been written in sixty years. That combination of perceived “outdatedness” and being forced to analyze and scrutinize every theme, metaphor, and motif means that most books on a high school reading list don’t stand a chance. The way they are taught works against them, and leads to even the most avid, literary students to dread or even despise these books.
I was certainly no exception. I took to Shakespeare from an early age, but beyond that I can count on very few fingers the number of books I was forced to read in high school which I remember with any fondness. In fact, I harbour a deeper resentment for them than nearly anything else in my life – hating these books is an inherent part of me.
However.
Equally essential to me is a belief in two things: personal growth, and second chances. Nearly every “classic” novel that I have read on my own terms, based on my own interest, has been rewarding and enjoyable. And so I set out this year to reread the four books I hated most in high school, to see whether it was the books I hated, or simply the circumstance in which I read them. No spoilers, but I may owe my English teachers (some of whom read this blog) an apology. I still think some of these books are out of date, and would love to see more contemporary fiction studied in high school. But they may not be all bad.
Anyway. Here we go.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Why did I hate it in high school? Shortly before I read Lord of the Flies, I had also just read Gone With the Wind and A Tale of Two Cities for the first time, and loved them. The classics I read for pleasure and enjoyed were these monolithic tomes with intricate plots and huge casts of characters and endless pages of flowery language. In contrast, I remember feeling like Golding’s sparse, simple language and overt, universal themes were lazy, even beneath me.
Was I wrong? Absolutely. I was wrong. While I disagree with the Times review on the back of the copy I picked up at a thrift store, that “Mr Golding knows exactly what boys are like,” I will certainly concede that the author knows exactly what people are like. His sparse language is the language of children at play. Rereading this book at this exact moment in history felt almost too on-the-nose. This book about the beast at the heart of humanity, the liberation of hate granted by a mask and a crowd, and the feeling that somewhere along the line, we were playing a game that has become far too real; this book could just as easily have been written today as 1954. A more mature me, a little more broken by the world, wept with Ralph for the end of innocence.
Words I’ll remember:
“They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to communicate.”
“If faces were different when lit from above or below – what was a face? What was anything?”
“…what makes things break up like they do?”
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Why did I hate it in high school? At 15, I think I was too young to appreciate the importance of this book within the context of its time. Growing up in an overwhelmingly white, conservative, rural town in Canada, the realities of the Civil Rights Movement were simply not part of my upbringing. Canada’s own checkered racial history is, or at least was at the time, largely not covered in elementary and high school history class; US history, even less so. Being a well-read and knowledgeable adolescent, I was aware of the key figures and themes of that time; but I would say my awareness of the history of racial tension in America was seen more through the lens of Forrest Gump than Ken Burns. All this is to say, without the ability to truly appreciate the climate that this book was published into, its slow pace and ultimate ambiguity about justice, good, and evil bored me to tears.
Was I wrong? …No. I was right, in that I disliked the book then and still dislike it now, though my reasons are different. I get the book now. I understand why it belongs to that prestigious club who claim the title of “The Great American Novel”. I get how important and brave it must have felt to tell stories of a white man in Alabama standing up and supporting and defending and believing a black man. I can appreciate that. However, other things have surfaced with a second, adult reading that still hold me to my opinion of the book. First, the thing about The Great American Novel is, I truly believe it will never mean as much to someone who isn’t American. So much of the perceived gravity of this book is bound to its capital-G Greatness and capital-A American-ness, and as an outsider to the greatness of America, particularly today, that ignites no fire in me. And second, there are so many wonderful stories about blackness in America that have been told by black voices, and that do not feature an infinitely fair and just white man as the saviour of the black folk. While it is undoubtedly a product of its time, there is part of me that cannot help but feel that it belongs in its time, and that we have moved past the need to hear white people tell stories of white people confronting racism. It is beyond time to retire To Kill A Mockingbird, and replace it with more diverse stories of racial justice.
Didn’t stop me tearing up, though, just a little at, “Thank you for my children, Arthur.”
Words I’ll remember:
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
“Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.”
“Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
Why did I hate it in high school? The concept of the Great Canadian Novel is note nearly as prevalent as its counterpart to the south, but it still exists. Almost any list of the Great Canadian Novel will include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz alongside The Handmaid’s Tale and Anne of Green Gables. I went into this book with that expectation – that Richler would have something to say here about Canada and Canadianness that only a very few books have ever captured. In high school, I just didn’t find that to be the case. The limitations were my own, of course – an adolescent self-absorption and lack of empathy were the reason I couldn’t place myself in this story of Jewish youth in Montreal, not any fault in the writing. But as with many Great Novels, Canadian or otherwise, not very much happens; and so if you have a hard time identifying with anything in the story, it can seem to drag on to eternity. Even watching the Richard Dreyfuss film after we finished did nothing to redeem this one for me.
Was I wrong? Meh. I would say my second reading of Duddy was unremarkable. I didn’t hate it, and like To Kill A Mockingbird, I can understand much better now why it is held in such esteem. Perhaps it is once again a matter of expectations not matching up to reality. Of all the books I reread for this project, this is the one I most expected to like as an adult. Mordecai Richler is a notoriously good satirist. Duddy is billed most places as one of the greatest comedic works in Canadian literature. There is just the one nagging problem that, even through the generous lens of black comedy and satire, this book just isn’t funny. It is, in fact, wholly depressing. Well written? Definitely. More Canadian than I gave it credit for? Sure. Chock-full of morals and lessons? Irritatingly so. But funny? No, I dare say it is not.
Words I’ll remember:
Shades of Simon Gray by Joyce McDonald
Why did I hate it in high school? More than anything else, I just found this book dull. It seemed to me like a quintessential “book report book.” It was a book that tried to be deeper and more meaningful than it really was, and in which nothing of much substance actually happened. The copies we read (and the copy I read now, years later) have built-in study guides and reader-response questions in the back – a huge red flag for students. By the time I read Shades of Simon Gray, I had been rereading Lord of the Rings every year for a few years. I had read Gone With the Wind. I think I had even read Stephen King’s It. I was never naive enough to hope that books like the ones I was reading for fun would be on a syllabus, but I remember feeling like this one in particular was simply juvenile.
Was I wrong? I must admit I was. In retrospect, this is probably the first modern YA novel I read (besides Harry Potter I suppose). Before I discovered John Green and Patrick Ness and Maureen Johnson, I was made to read this book in my Grade 9 English class. Reading it now, it has hallmarks of so many of the things I later came to love about YA fiction – a good mystery, layered characters, complicated morality. To be clear, it is far from amazing. The writing is mostly uninspired, the ending a little too “easy.” But it has merit for a reader at 14 that 14-year-old me would not give it. It navigates deftly between genres, finding a balance between contemporary realism, historical fiction, and light fantasy. Because of this, it probably appeals broadly enough to different students to be a fairly sophisticated choice for study. It was a nice bit of escapism; the whole thing took me about 3 hours to get through, and it was time I was happy to spend. I don’t regret revisiting it a bit.
Words I’ll remember:
“People, he realized, were a lot like drops of water caught up in the spring runoff, shuttled into fast-moving streams that collided into rivers and rushed to join the ocean. If you got caught in the current there was no turning back.”
“The branches, Simon, she whispered. Grab the branches.”
*****
What books did you have in high school? Have you ever reread a book and discovered you felt differently about it than before? If not, I encourage you to give it a try!
An Awfully Big Adventure 