More than just words on a page. Look again.

The recent article in The New York Times about students choosing their own books for English classes has been quite a topic for debate. When I read it, I immediately posted it on my Facebook so that others can see the appalling level teachers must stoop to in order to teach this spoiled and decadent generation. No matter the end results of the study, which were actually favorable to this new method of teaching, I still stand by assigned reading of literature classics. 


But then, I do love books, and have always loved reading and writing. My mother has shown me pictures of me sitting at my desk, hunched and scribbling away in a journal when I was but five years old; I remember lugging 800-page novels around in sixth grade and reading an Agatha Christie book every day for an entire summer. It's nothing to brag about, really, just an illustration of my passion for reading. I'm well aware that not everyone has the same feelings, or the same desire to read what has been deemed to be appropriate literature.


So is my opinion influenced by my own interests? Am I just an old man who believes classics pave the way for a more erudite generation? People I talk to about books don't seem as keen on catching up on the classics I've missed when I was studying for the SATs and applying incessantly to colleges and internships. It's a shame to think how I could not read for leisure during school for fear of distractions. Video and computer games were never an issue for me.


I think back to my days of reading Heart of Darkness and Great Expectations - oh, how agonizing it was sometimes to keep reading a book I was never interested in! I had to pore over Shakespearean texts for hours to understand the underlying madness of everyone's eloquent soliloquies (though I do love my Shakespeare!), and endure the stupidity of Tess D'Urberville for a good few hundred pages. However, I also remember the glorious wrap-up discussions of each book. All the analyses and slow progress were worthwhile when we pieced together the beautifully woven masterpieces. It was always an adventure to go through great writing and fiction in an English class, and I wonder how no one else feels the same. It's so stimulating! Contemporary fiction and trashy bestsellers cannot brew such rich and fascinating discussion in a high school or university classroom. Of course, plenty of good writing comes out all the time today, but there is something so precious about classics that I feel a good deal of sadness at seeing them rejected among younger students now.


I would like to think that letting students choose their books at the beginning would allow them to appreciate reading so they can get into the classics. I would not necessarily support letting them choose their own reading through the entire course, but if their own choices would open their eyes to see that reading might take some more effort and time than a film or television show, hey, I'm all for it. That doesn't seem to be so plausible, though, as some teachers have noted in their experiment. I highly doubt that they'll be happy about having their ability to choose taken away after they've enjoyed a nonsense book such as Twilight (absolute rubbish!).


Books are windows into human nature, the blunderings of fallen man, the resonating cries of the soul's desires. If you can't see a reflection of some part of yourself, you see one of the mad killer in the news or the ruthless dictator in history. They can torment you with the internal battles of those laden with sin and save you with the heart-wrenching redemption of the wretched. In that it challenges all your perceptions of grace, luck, blessings, wisdom, intellect, honor, society and love. I don't believe in a good book that doesn't have some echo of human need or frustration somewhere. If only more can see that as they read, and admire the minds of men who are able to compose and articulate the repressed need of every human in the world, books just might be able to thrive and survive in the digital age. 


And if you disagree, look again.


For if we let go of these classics that have circulated so well amongst the highest intellectual class, we might lose all that their gatherings and ramblings and musings have surfaced over the years - the reality that man is an insatiable being, too noble and too intelligent to be satisfied by the empty promises of earthly instant gratification.