Overdue Podcast discussion
Books Getting Too Outdated
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The Lady Anna
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Feb 09, 2016 09:38AM
Between racism and a slow pace, it sounds like Robinson Crusoe (the latest episode) may not be standing up to the test of time. When I read Swiss Family Robinson I hated the violence toward animals and ridiculously improbable amount of supplies that just happened to be there. Even a recent rereading of Little Women made me a little sad at it's outdated-ness. Do you agree? Which books have fallen out of favor with you?
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On the other hand, it's still worthwhile to read these stories (1) to study the evolution of the form and (2) and have the discussions about the topics that they bring up. What's outdated and why? How are things better now? How *aren't* they better? But in any case I totally agree that it sucks to go back to something you used to like and find that you can't enjoy it as much because of how dated it is.
Sub-question, if you were to recommend some better, more modern Crusoe-esque adventure stories to young readers, what would they be?
I completely agree with you! And as for your sub question: I first thought of Island of the Blue Dolphins and My Side of the mountain. However, it's been over 10 years so I can't say for sure how they'd hold up today.
Jane Eyre is one I remember loving in school, but now find her to be more submissive and less empowered than I thought. If I remember correctly from a recent rereading, The Black Stallion by Walter Farley, while old-fashioned, still holds up without being offensive. I haven't read The Island of the Blue Dolphins since middle school but remember loving it!
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A more modern Crusoe-esque book for kids that comes to my mind is The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (it was actually written in the early 1980's but compared to Crusoe it's sorta modern, right?). It tells the story of a white settler boy who has to stay alone in the family cabin while his father goes to fetch the rest of the family. He ends up having one rifle stolen by a creepy drifter (is there any other kind?) and has to fight for survival. He befriends a native american boy named Attean and teaches him to read while Attean teaches him useful survival skills and by the end both boys have learned valuable life lessons about friendship and fighting bears! Another reason this story popped into my head: the settler kid (I keep calling him that because I don't remember his name anymore) only has one novel around and it's Robinson Crusoe. He uses it to teach Attean how to read, which backfires at one point because the settler kid reads the passage in which Friday swears loyalty to Crusoe and Attean gets very angry at the description of a native man declaring his subservience to a white man. Seeing Attean's reaction prompts the settler kid to see the racism inherent in the novel. It's a great book and it really stayed with me (as I've been composing this post it occurred to me that it has been almost 30 years since I read this book and OMG WHERE DID THE YEARS GO).
Also Hatchet.
I wish there was a like button on Goodreads! I can verify that the Black Stallion series is still good, since I've read all 21 and some of them reread many times haha
I reread Jane Eyre in December and loved it almost as much as the first time.
1930 is more modern than Crusoe I guess...so Swallows and Amazons would be a bit more of an appropriate book, especially to give to children, and is heavily influenced by Defoe.
Jane Eyre I find to be still quite good and fairly empowering.For me, I believe The Wizard of Oz is by far and away terrible, both in writing and in some of the themes it puts out. It's not very adventurous and the characters are miserably inane. Thankfully it's not a literary /necessity/ to read, unless you have an interest in the history of Children's Literature. It's a classic I think can be passed over.
As far as good children's adventure books, I think The Hobbit will be a solid choice for quite a few years into the future. Also The Phantom Tollbooth. And eeeeven if it's not really 'adventure', I like From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
ALTHOUGH those aren't like RC, I think Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins and Julie of the Wolves are all solid adventure alternatives in that vein.
I completely agree about Oz! I hated the book! I just read Treasure Island and except for one mention of "the blacks and indians", it mostly focused on Piratey goodness and adventures of a young boy. Thought it stood up to time pretty well considering others I've read that are compared to it. Interesting that it's British and not American. Wonder if there are more instances of racism in American Lit. would be an interesting study
Harriet the Spy most definitely for me. I only later realized how much the story is centered on the WASPy characterizations of the protagonist's parents and schoolmates, and how much this affected her worldview. The 90's Disney movie attempts to correct that by adding diversity but made it also more upbeat and chipped than I recalled Harriet's experience as a sullen 11-year old.
I definitely agree about The Phantom Tollbooth! I'm an adult, and I still live reading it.
I can't believe I forgot to add this one to my list - Ringworld. They did an Overdue episode on it, and even from my brief skim it was clear that time has moved past this story. Doesn't matter if it won a Nebula Award, some stories just aren't timeless.Dangit, I had to edit posts, but I just finished another Nebula award book, and I think it was past it's prime before it was even published: Darwin's Radio. It had it's good parts, but the bad parts really shone. Even though the main character (female) is a brilliant scientist in the middle of a world revolution involving mass murders and humanity's genetic code being rewritten, half the book is taken up with her angst about her suicidal husband, obsession about getting into a new guy's pants, how they're destined to have sex and start making a perfect next-gen baby within a month of meeting each other, and her neeeeeeeed to be pregnant. Note: this book was published in '99. I was not impressed.
It's an interesting question that has a lot of interesting side-quests of information to go through. My first thought was that part of what I think an education in English should include is context for these stories. Part of what makes them stand up to modern day, I think, is how grounded in their time they are. Reading them and expecting the same reaction through a different plot doesn't seem to be feasible, because our circumstances are so different from when the books were written. I get that a lot from reading things like Oliver Twist or To Kill a Mockingbird. So the context question is very important, in that, should we be reading these books in a vacuum (in a classroom where the teacher explains what to think), or does independent reading necessitate additional research and reading to fully understand some of these concepts and ideas? Sometimes, discussing books is far more interesting than the stories themselves. At the same time, there are other stories that do just fine and stand up to the test of time. Frankenstein is one of those that I think stands up really well, as does most of Jane Austen. Some of the language and way they go about solving their problems might be different but they still have similar thought processes, thoughts and fears that society still seems to give weight to. I don't know, I think it's interesting to get a snapshot of the world as it was at the time of its writing. I do remember reading an article at one point talking about how a rash of YA suddenly had the teenagers in the stories listening to 80s music because the writers had grown up in the 80s, but that the modern YA readers were much younger and confused about it. I think the snapshots might still exist, just not as deeply studied as the older classics that have survived.
I know Craig & Andrew have done a podcast episode on Pygmalion, but I haven't had a chance to go back yet and listen to it, so I don't know how they felt about it. I remember ABSOLUTELY LOVING it the first time I read it. I like to consider myself an amateur linguist, and all of the book's details about the intersections and dynamics between language and social circumstances are SO INTERESTING. However, upon re-reading it a few years later, I could not even finish it because I was so shocked at all of Henry Higgins's (and others') misogynistic and classist CRAP. And it was extra upsetting because of how much I had previously loved it.
Jordan wrote: "I know Craig & Andrew have done a podcast episode on Pygmalion, but I haven't had a chance to go back yet and listen to it, so I don't know how they felt about it. I remember ABSOLUTELY LOVING it t..."I remember feeling that way after reading C.S. Lewis years later. I had loved it as a kid, blind to the Christian under (and over)tones of the books in his Narnia series. I had a similar experience with Orson Scott Card, who I read before I found out about his homophobic feelings, and also before I realized just how sort of...mentally masturbatory so many of his books end up being, and how his women are basically robots. I think that's part of the beauty of books, though. You never read the same story twice because you aren't the same anymore. It's sad but also beautiful in a fragile sort of way.
I've encountered this feeling of disappointment and upset upon rereading a book I loved as kid as an adult. It not only sours the book but colors the memories I have of the book and the period of my life in which I read it. It inevitably changes the way I see myself and question the part of myself that loved a misogynistic, racist, etc book. It's why I often don't give in to the urge of rereading so I can preserve that memory.
I was listening to some backlogs of the classic tales podcast, listening through the (very bizarre) Return of Tarzan. It had some doozies so bad I can't even relate the underlying gist because they are way too much. If you want to hear some crazily offensive things spoken in a soothing cheerful voice, I can recommend it. Otherwise, just... don't.
I feel this way about Anne McCaffrey's dragon books. I loved them when I was 10 or 12. There are dragons! And girl protagonists! And the society is weirdly medieval and survivalist! But as an adult, the society is also completely, oppressively patriarchal, and most of the sex is either forced or occurs as a part of an out of body dragon-hypnosis thing. Not. Cool.
I agree with the CS Lewis, sadly. I just re-read the third Narnia book, A Horse in His Boy after the recent Lion-Witch-Wardrobe ep, and it was...not...good. It was my favorite Narnia book as a kid, but upon re-reading it's pretty racist. The whole book takes place in a neighboring country to Narnia that is definitely supposed to be a generic Middle Eastern country--which happens to be full of evil dudes who wanna invade Narnia and the only white kid is The Hero (who happens to actually be from Narnia, surprise!). Also Narnia is great because All Creatures are Free, unlike in Arabia-land, where horses can't talk and have to Work. There's some maybe not-so-subtle digs on Islam? Also, it's just a really really boring read. I question 10-year-old-me's tastes heavily after re-reading this.
I think reading old books that don't necessarily hold up can be valuable if you're interested in the context surrounding them. The time period, the evolution of the form, etc. My main gripe is that it's forced down your throat if you take english lit. Yes, knowing the history of english literature is important. No, we shouldn't just keep teaching the same old white men and nothing else. Cut the fat, keep the most important stuff that represents important time periods or major turning points in the form, and add more contemporary material. Nobody needs to read BOTH Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. Nobody needs to read BOTH Pilgrim's Progress and Paradise Lost. Spare me.Also, in regards to C.S. Lewis, I came to him first in my late teens and didn't mind the religious aspects as much as I expected to. I feel like people overplay it. If you just look at Christianity as any other world myth to draw on, it's not so different than Neil Gaiman constantly inserting Norse mythology into everything. If you didn't know Jesus was a thing you'd just think Aslan was really cool, which he totally is. It's a good story, as most religions are, that's why they endure so long. I felt Lewis used it to great effect for the most part and focused on story over preaching, with the exception of The Last Battle, which is terrible and where he jumped the shark big time. He's even said as much himself in interviews. The allegories are incredibly mixed, if you pay close attention and are familiar with the finer details of Christianity, and that's because most of it wasn't intentional. Here's an excerpt from an interview:
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I’d write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.And here's another tidbit:
Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory and the author of The Allegory of Love, maintained that the Chronicles were not allegory on the basis that there is no one-to-one correspondence between characters and events in the books, and figures and events in Christian doctrine. He preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". This indicates Lewis' view of Narnia as a fictional parallel universe.Interestingly, Lewis has often been criticized for the pagan elements of the books by Christians, as there's nearly as much roman and greek myth in the books as christian, and Lewis has openly defended paganism as a natural and purely positive precursor to Christianity. The dude was far more nuanced than people give him credit for these days.
And yes, The Horse and His Boy is incredibly racist, but it's still story-wise one of the best Narnia books, imo. It was nice to get a break from the main kids, it was nice to see from the perspective of a native of Narnia, and it was nice to see a different environment. I will still defend that book. Perhaps I'm weird, but I can acknowledge a book is racist/sexist and still enjoy it just fine, especially if the racism is unintentional/a product of the time period and ignorance rather than outright maliciousness, which seems to be the case with Lewis. It disappoints me intellectually but it doesn't upset me emotionally like it seems to do to a lot of people. It's just a story after all, and Lewis is long dead anyway, it's not like he's running around in 2018 rallying against Muslim rights.
