MARISSA BURR
Opinion Editor
Whenever someone is going to an English or writing field, they get hundreds of comments hearing about how “oh I could never get through those books in high school blah blah blah.” The truth is, I get it.
I loved reading growing up, even the classics. I read Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in sixth grade. But some of the novels I was forced to read scared me away from any English program for years.
I thought if I pursued that path in college, the classics would only get more difficult. I trudged through Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and Bill Bryson’s “A Walk In The Woods” in high school and it made me question if I actually loved reading.
The truth was that I did, I just didn’t know that you don’t have to love all of the classic literary novels to be an avid reader. In fact, there are some that even now as a writing major I would tell people to avoid altogether. They can kill your passion, like they almost did to me.
As I know everyone has their preferences, I asked an old friend of mine, Mia Barone, to give her perspective as well. We went to Fredonia High School together but were in two different sections of English classes, and now she is a senior English major and social media intern for the English department.
One book that neither of us were fans of was “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens. I read this book as a freshman in high school and it was a bear to get through. I knew about nine percent of what was actually happening and had to reference online cliff notes just to hold my own in a class discussion. I will never pick up this book again because even though I know the story now, it is just not worth it.
Barone read this novel in two different classes at SUNY Fredonia and said, “Sure, the novel taught me about class differences in society and the importance of loyalty and affection rather than wealth and power. However, I am unsure why the English curriculum always includes this novel. The themes were important, but I just wasn’t a huge fan!”
Even though we read the piece at two different points in our lives, I have a feeling that this is one of those books that even if I had been older when I had first been exposed to it like Barone had, I still wouldn’t have been more willing to reread it after.
She discusses the fact that the themes were important, but the book itself wasn’t her favorite, and I feel the same way about “The Grapes of Wrath.” Again, I read this in high school — this one in my junior year — and while it was less tortuous to get through than “Great Expectations,” I still hated reading it. Once again I was forced to go to online adaptations to understand everything that was happening. The ending itself also wasn’t satisfying and made me feel as though I wasted my time reading.
What was surprising though was that while I hated Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” I loved his novel “Of Mice and Men” that I read that same year. It was much quicker-paced and felt more like he was telling a story and not just putting as many words on a page as possible.
That is where these classic novels get to me. When the author’s purpose is to tell a story and ensure that the reader gathers what lesson they were supposed to learn, the book is enjoyable. But getting paid by the word and taking full advantage of that (cough Dickens cough) or going into pages worth of detail about landscape takes the reader out of the setting and makes them unwilling to dive back in.
Just because pieces are considered classic or timeless doesn’t mean they should be forced on readers who will not get the purpose of reading them.
On the other hand, there are novels that can keep readers engaged and should be taught more if an instructor’s goal is to retain passionate students.
I would highly recommend “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver, “Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead and “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.
Barone recommends “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott and “On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong.
One novel that is highly coveted by both of us is Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.” This can be a triggering book because of its content, but is an important story to be told.
Barone expressed that, “I think ‘The Bell Jar’ is a wonderful choice for college students because the main character struggles with the choice of what to do with her precious life… It teaches people about the value of treating others with respect and also warns that we should not repeat certain parts of history.”
We both read this in our college careers, and I agree that this is a piece that should stay in that age level if not higher. Because of its serious content, Plath’s works are often banned, which isn’t right. Mental health is something that needs to come up more in the literature that students are exposed to because it is a prominent factor in their lives. They should read about it past the brief mentions of Bertha Mason in “Jane Eyre” being imprisoned in Mr. Rochester’s attic for being insane. Mind you, Plath’s stories don’t have a happy ending either, but it is more realistic than the 1800s depiction of mental illness.
On the topic, Barone commented, “Book-banning frankly makes no sense to me. By taking certain works of literature away because they contain ‘inappropriate’ themes, we are silencing voices and important lessons for students to learn. There is a reason that several college professors have strayed away from teaching only works from dead white men. Literature provides a voice for people who have historically not had much of one; there is room for every human being to be able to express their personal experiences regardless of sexuality, race or class.”
The world we’re living in is not sugar-coated or watered down like these people trying to ban books want it to be. By not exposing young people to the highs and lows in literature, they will create a complex that their life is somehow worse than anything they’ve ever read — they’re on an island all alone.
They aren’t.
Just as we related to Disney princesses or Toy Story characters as children, we can see ourselves in Esther Greenwood and George Milton. People just need to be given the opportunity to read that.