Comments on: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder http://blog.janehaddam.com/2009/04/25/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/ Jane Haddam’s WordPress weblog Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:18:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.4 By: robert_piepenbrink http://blog.janehaddam.com/2009/04/25/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/comment-page-1/#comment-755 robert_piepenbrink Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:42:39 +0000 http://blog.janehaddam.com/?p=489#comment-755 Sadly, it's not possible to set the wayback machine for 1964-70, and let you judge for yourself. (I wouldn't go back myself under any circumstances.) I can only say I know exactly how harsh it sounds, that I considered that I might have been too harsh, and decided on balance that it was a pretty good summary of English over that period, excepting 8th and 9th Grades. (Mr. Rothaar, if you're reading this, I didn't mean you.) The only one of my contemporary friends who doesn't describe English classes in roughly similar terms went on to teach English. So now I'm a victim of rubophobia. Well, it's rightly said that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you. Perhaps being a rubophobe doesn't mean your aren't really being contemptuous of your taste in literature. And I've NEVER suspected my teachers of being smarter or more sophisticated than I was--well, not prior to the Post-Graduate Intelligence Program, when some of them probably were. I quite agree that if a student sees his parents read around the home and has himself learned to read well prior to school or in the earliest grades, the most the program can do is instill a deep distrust of anything recommended by the English Lit establishment. Telling me a book has been shortlisted for the Nobel, Pulitzer or Booker Prizes, or is now on many required reading lists is a good way of ensuring that said title will not be accompanying me home from Books a Million any time soon. But if the love of reading is effectively hereditary, since we already know educated people have on average fewer children, that's a death spiral. Seems to me I remember something about sales of 2,000 copies in hard covers being a BAD thing. If we want more readers, some of them will have to be the children of people who don't read much--or at all. I don't think it's impossible: religions and political causes do it all the time, none of us had great-grandparents who watched television, and all of us are, ultimately descended from illiterates. I would suggest to English teachers what I say to politicians, businessmen and military officers: if you don't like the results you're getting, change your procedures. Incidentally, between writing Jane this morning and reading her this evening, I began work on Joseph Pearce's TOLKIEN MAN AND MYTH and read the critical reaction to THE LORD OF THE RINGS being voted the greatest book of the century in polls conducted by Waterstone's and by the DAILY TELEGRAPH, and as favorite book of any age by members of the Folio Society. I suggest anyone thinking "contempt" too strong a word read Pearce's quoted responses from the literary establishment. Sadly, it’s not possible to set the wayback machine for 1964-70, and let you judge for yourself. (I wouldn’t go back myself under any circumstances.) I can only say I know exactly how harsh it sounds, that I considered that I might have been too harsh, and decided on balance that it was a pretty good summary of English over that period, excepting 8th and 9th Grades. (Mr. Rothaar, if you’re reading this, I didn’t mean you.) The only one of my contemporary friends who doesn’t describe English classes in roughly similar terms went on to teach English.

So now I’m a victim of rubophobia. Well, it’s rightly said that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t really out to get you. Perhaps being a rubophobe doesn’t mean your aren’t really being contemptuous of your taste in literature. And I’ve NEVER suspected my teachers of being smarter or more sophisticated than I was–well, not prior to the Post-Graduate Intelligence Program, when some of them probably were.

I quite agree that if a student sees his parents read around the home and has himself learned to read well prior to school or in the earliest grades, the most the program can do is instill a deep distrust of anything recommended by the English Lit establishment. Telling me a book has been shortlisted for the Nobel, Pulitzer or Booker Prizes, or is now on many required reading lists is a good way of ensuring that said title will not be accompanying me home from Books a Million any time soon.

But if the love of reading is effectively hereditary, since we already know educated people have on average fewer children, that’s a death spiral. Seems to me I remember something about sales of 2,000 copies in hard covers being a BAD thing. If we want more readers, some of them will have to be the children of people who don’t read much–or at all. I don’t think it’s impossible: religions and political causes do it all the time, none of us had great-grandparents who watched television, and all of us are, ultimately descended from illiterates.

I would suggest to English teachers what I say to politicians, businessmen and military officers: if you don’t like the results you’re getting, change your procedures.

Incidentally, between writing Jane this morning and reading her this evening, I began work on Joseph Pearce’s TOLKIEN MAN AND MYTH and read the critical reaction to THE LORD OF THE RINGS being voted the greatest book of the century in polls conducted by Waterstone’s and by the DAILY TELEGRAPH, and as favorite book of any age by members of the Folio Society. I suggest anyone thinking “contempt” too strong a word read Pearce’s quoted responses from the literary establishment.

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