1 - I have read ULYSSES. Read every single word on every single page, but none of it stuck. That’s how MOBY DICK was for me also, but reading both of them was a point of pride in my youth. And it gave me something to focus on so I didn’t have to think about how I was too scared to talk to girls.

2 - Olivia - Dostoevsky all the way. NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND was my life-changing literary moment, and I didn’t read it in class, just sort of stumbled on it, then spent the rest of my post-adolescent crazy time devouring Russian literature, and BROTHERS KARAMAZOV totally did stick, as did Nabokov’s entire canon. I didn’t get much into Tolstoy earlier, though, so I’ll have to actually read ANNA KARENINA before we get into a pub brawl.

2a - side note - I did try to read WAR AND PEACE one summer when I was in junior high. Did about 150 pages, but when it was due back at the library I didn’t check it out again, cause there was a new Piers Anthony novel out.

3 - No, John, we shouldn’t just stay in Europe, and you shouldn’t stop reading classics and real literature just because you’re out of high school or you’re not an English major in college. Keep going, and let Murakami and Borges change your life, too.

4 - Oh, but going back to Europe - Kundera should be considered a classic author now also.

5 - Yes, everyone needs to see THE GOONIES. But don’t leave TAXI DRIVER out. Not just because it and all of the other movies from the auteur era of the 1970s are Important Literary Works on their own, but because it’s damned good and not at all boring like stupid ULYSSES. SCARFACE is good fun, but DOG DAY AFTERNOON destroys.

6 - I saw CLOCKWORK ORANGE at a junior high sleepover. It had boobies in it, as well as Ultra Violence, so it became a staple and got passed around my group of friends like a LOL Cat would make its way around Pants World.

Bottom Line - I don’t think there needs to be any cultural shame for anything that we haven’t read yet, but I know that I’m going to use this whole thought process as a wake up call to start tackling some major works again, because as fun as WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES is, I miss the days when LOLITA forever altered my perspective. So I’m going to stop by BookPeople this afternoon and pick up 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE and ANNA KARENINA. It’ll be fun to read literature AND talk to girls (and I promise not to talk like this, unless we’re at SpiderHouse, where I’ll totally go off about my opinions on Russian literature very loudly, just to fit in with the other wankers).

Then I’m going to burn a copy of TAXI DRIVER and mail it to all of you. It’s a perfect movie for election season, too.

In return, I’d welcome a list of other neo-classic authors that don’t get taught in school but we should still keep reading, cause I’m sure I’ll burn through ANNA K. in like a week. Right? Right?

I mean, as soon as I get caught up on GOSSIP GIRL and MAD MEN, it’s totally the next thing I’m tackling.

i think the main point from all of this is:

PEOPLE NEED TO SEE GOONIES. FOR THE LOVE OF FANCY MOSES.

The movies, on the other hand, is something I really should be ashamed of. I just never got around to watching any of those films. Maybe the singalong that interests me will be substituted with a viewing of citizen kane. hmm. . . maybe.

This blog also reminded me of an article in Entertainment Weekly (I know - not a prime resource for intellectual criticism) from a month or so ago about the “New Classics” of the last 25 years. It actually had some interesting lists.
Books
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076_20207387_20207349,00.html
Movies
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076_20207387_20207063,00.html

Maybe they can be fodder for an extension of this blog.

i think if i taught high school again, or if i go back, i might try the chapter idea and do some kind of comparison to modern literature or something… i dunno. i like that, thanks for sharing it. it’s an idea to toy with.

and i agree, a student’s encounter with literature SHOULDN’T be terrible, not at all. teaching reading & writing is a really delicate balance; sometimes a difficult book determines whether a kid will give up and drop out or stick around for the book.

I’m ashamed that I have never read any Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. I have also never read “Paradise Lost” or “Dante’s Inferno” which I feel, having a Masters degree in Poetry, I should have read.

I think it would be good if high school students could read more diverse literature and more poetry. Not your standard Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, which have their place, but something that would get kids to understand that poetry is not inaccessible or impossible to understand. My favorites would be Mary Oliver, Mark Doty, Naomi Shihab Nye, Adrienne Rich. Just my two cents.

Josh, you gave a very good description of why I also find Jane Austen unreadable.

Jessica, that is pretty interesting. When I went to High School in the Philippines, my second year was all Asian and African literature. It was pretty cool, and I applaud you for going the extra mile!

Those who have not seen the Goonies: I refuse to look down on you, but you need to see that movie. As soon as possible. The best thing about the Goonies is that it’s still awesome. When I watch it now, there’s nostalgia there, but it’s independent from the awesomeness.

If there is one thing we’ve learned from this discussion, it’s that everyone should see The Goonies.

But see: other novels by female authoros that were much more interesting; while hitting on these gender roles, also were more modern and varied in plot and points made. Like, Age of Innocence made me want to have my eyeballs removed, but Wharton also wrote Ethan Frome, a romeo and juliet type story with a tragic sledride. Who wouldn’t love that? The Bell Jar is a great psychological study. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening fits with a lot of the victorian themes, but ends totally enigmatically.

In short, there are great female novelists. But I’ll never look at another Austen/Bronte novel, ever again.

I know, I know. I am geeky and not in a cool way. And yeah I will see E.T. at some point; maybe even before I see Wall-E or whatever that movie is.

The thing is, I actually really like films, but I just got into the whole pop culture game late, so I’m always catching up! It’s not my fault! I usually found out about anything cool going on on TV from the American Family Association newsletter, which told you about all illicit love scenes in all TV shows every month so you could boycott the advertisers… or in my case, just read about it and get excited thinking about kissing at age 8.

It’s not an excuse but it was entertaining, right?

I’m a bit ashamed I haven’t read Ulysses, and Brothers K. Actually here, I’ll ‘fess up (and I know I’m ashamed of this because I didn’t want to admit it): I also haven’t read Anna Karenina, really–not all of it–despite having taken a course on Tolstoy. But actually I really hate Tolstoy so I don’t feel regretful so much as embarrassed. I have gotten into many drunken arguments on the Dostoevsky v Tolstoy question, but honestly Sarah: I wouldn’t do Anna K. I’d do another one; we can discuss this at another point.

I am mostly embarrassed about having not read Ulysses because my brother, a smarty-pants who is much more dedicated and hard-working than I and AN ENGINEER/lawyer(!), has read this book, so I feel dumb I haven’t. Sibling rivalry is a good shame generator.

With movies, I’m ashamed I haven’t seen E.T. but proud I haven’t really seen Star Wars or Harry Potter. I know, sorry, but it’s true.

On to your general point about those classics: I would say that okay, they’re good markers for “important” books, but they aren’t the whole picture. I recently read this book by Zamyatin called We, which 1984 is kind of based on, and I would say it’s at least (maybe more) important than 1984, but it’s not got the same cache in the literary canon. That doesn’t actually make it a worse book, right? So those lists are good to point you in a direction if you’re looking for something to read, but a lot of those books are things I don’t consider “good.” Or at least books I didn’t find appealing when I read them.

On teaching classics, I agree with Jessica on the lack of diversity in the reading lists in schools, and I agree with Sarah there should be more YA books to get people interested in literature. But sometimes something that’s good that you wouldn’t find elsewhere can change everything for you; for me, that was T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which almost made me cry when our teacher read it aloud in 11th grade. I suddenly loved poetry and that soul-stirring from good words that evoke this whole feeling. I was hooked, and that had never happened before; I’d always liked English, but I didn’t “get” it, really, until that moment. I think, when you’re young (and always, really), you should be reading things that will inspire you and knock you out of your chair/normal way of thinking, and there’s a much wider variety of things that will do that than the classics, but some of the classics aren’t a bad place to start.

I found my senior English teacher’s approach really good. We were supposed to read books that we likely wouldn’t like–most notably, Moby Dick. But she was realistic that we may not actually read it, so our assignment for a paper on that book was to write a paper on one chapter. That was awesome because we could still do well without torturing ourselves–how hard is it to read one chapter? And I’ve since gone back and picked up Moby Dick and liked it a lot more as a grown-up, which is likely true for most classics (especially Great Gatsby, which is a book you should definitely read as an adult, even if you already read it before. It’s different than you remember; I can almost guarantee that).

My point is: You should be forced to have a literary encounter with the classics in school, but even having those books assigned could mean an “encounter” and not a forced-feeding session. Our teachers gave us lists and we could pick one book off the list to read, so we felt we were choosing. Or this one-chapter paper idea. Or we could write papers comparing a book we read that year to literally anything else (one student senior year did one comparing something to Eminem). Students’ encounter with literature doesn’t have boring, tedious or terrible.

OMG this is v long. I’m finishing now. Sorry.

I don’t think I actually have anything that I am ashamed of not reading or seeing…

One of the classics that I would say my middle schoolers enjoy the most (I can’t say for certain as I am not their ELA teacher) is the Outsiders, other than that and the Diary of Anne Frank, I don’t recognize most of the books they read for class.