Popularist or Literati?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hmmm. . .delighted and a bit amused that there are people actually wanting to know which of the three works I am working through (or over) this week, I find to be "awful." At the risk of giving offence, I will reveal that I find Frankenstien to be a truly dreadful book. As this is a purely subjective response I shan't even begin to explain my reasons, but I will say -- interestingly enough given the thread topic -- that I find it almost unbearably bad in both realms that we are addressing: I find it boring to read, and a terrible book to try and teach (I am only "doing it" in the classroom as I have had a syllabus forced upon me by an unenlightened committee of sadistic colleagues).

radagastly, could not agree with you more about showing the plays rather than reading them. While I believe that there is an awful lot to be gained from close attention to the texts of the plays, things that will never really come out fully in production (at least not consciously) I stress again and again to all my students that Shakespeare's plays are. . .well. . .plays, and that they are meant to be performed. We watch a lot of videos (just this week we saw the 1998 Trevor Nunn Othello in which Ian McKellan brings to life one of the best Iago's I've ever seen -- several students said after watching a few scenes, "that actor reminds me of the guy who plays Gandalf", and when I told them the reason for this resemblance, they were outraged for I had "ruined" their vision of Gandalf by association with Iago!!).

One more point in defense of the literati, of which I suppose I am one, by dint of reading preference and profession. Most of my colleagues do not express the kinds of snide comments about Tolkien, or any writer for that matter, that get people so angry. The vast majority of the people I've had the pleasure of working with are very much live and let live when it comes to reading tastes and practices -- I have many a colleague who reads P.D. James or Tolkien or even Maeve Binchy. Lots read Rowling! I have even been known to immerse myself in an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel from time to time. It's just that I also immerse myself in the poetry of Keats or Derek Walcott, or the novels of Wilson Harris and Salman Rushdie.

I think the one thing we all decry is not so much "low" or "high" tastes or preferences in reading, but narrow tastes. Someone who reads only avante garde poetry is as annoying (and boring) to me as someone who reads only space opera sci-fi. Fortunately, there are very few people like this in the world. Sadly, the real dividing line isn't between different kinds of readers, but between readers and non-readers. I cannot tell you how many students I see each year who tell me that the only novels, poems and plays they have ever read have been for school.