Do the classics get better as we age?

One of my favorite classes in high was (not surprisingly I'm sure) my freshman English class. With Mrs. Reardon I experienced for the first time Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Lady or the Tiger, The Lottery, The Odyssey and countless other important works of literature. One of them, To Kill a Mockingbird, quickly turned into a favorite of mine. In fact, I revisited it again in college and wrote my undergraduate thesis on its critical response. 

Near the end of our time in Mrs. Reardon's class she mentioned that she and a fellow teacher had recently discussed whether or not To Kill a Mockingbird was wasted on high school freshmen. Were we really capable of digesting all of the complicated themes and grown-up world ideas as 14 year-olds? Of course we thought we were, and we told her so.

Since that first reading more than 20 years ago, I've read the book several more times, and Mrs. Reardon was right. With more life experience, the book means more to me each time I read it.

Fast forward to last week. With my American Literature class at the homeschool co-op where I teach once a week, we began discussion of Willa Cather's My Antonia. Cather is one of my favorites too. I find her prose lovely. It really makes me want to visit Nebraska and see those rolling prairies for myself (one day).

If you're not familiar with My Antonia, the basics with regard to the point I'm making involve a narrator named Jim looking back on his time growing up on his grandparents' rural Nebraska farm, particularly around a special friend he made, Antonia, who was the oldest daughter of Bohemian immigrants on a nearby farm. There is some question of whether Jim falls in love with Antonia (it makes for good class discussion).

But, years later, Jim is a successful New York City attorney, and his job requires some travel across the country. On one trip out west he arranges to visit his hometown. He's heard bits and pieces from Antonia and about her over the years, but it's been decades since they've seen each other. He borrows a horse and buggy and drives out to the farm where she lives with her now-husband and nearly a dozen children. Antonia is surprised and happy to see him. Jim relishes their time together catching up and meeting her children.

Jim is struck by how time and hard work on the farm have changed her appearance, though her personality has remained very much the same. After their visit, Jim returns back to his life in New York City and his wife.

During our class discussion last week, I had a Mrs. Reardon moment when I almost let slip out of my mouth, "Read this book again right after you've been to your 20th high school reunion!" I thought better of it, both because as homeschoolers they may not ever attend a high school reunion and also because they might have had the same indignant reaction my classmates and I did.

I imagine that, like To Kill a Mockingbird, My Antonia would have not had such a profound effect on me in high school. 

Thoreau's Walking and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

This is my second year I'm teaching American literature to high school sophomores and juniors at a homeschool co-op in Atlanta. We started with Puritan poetry and moved into Transcendentalism, focused on Emerson and Thoreau. Instead of having them read "Walden," to cover Thoreau I chose another essay to read and discuss in class: "Walking."

On the day of our class discussion we took a walk through the community garden outside the community center where our classes are held and had a pretty good discussion about how to enjoy solitude in nature amidst the urban sprawl of Metro Atlanta. 

At the same time the book I was reading for fun was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I didn't choose to read the two at the same time on purpose but I liked that it happened that way.

In Joyce's book, Harold Fry is a retired man living in a small town in the southwest corner of England. He and his wife are going through a bit of a tough time in their marriage and Harold is searching for new purpose for his life. Then, a postcard arrives from a former coworker from two decades before. Queenie is in her final days of a battle with cancer and writes Harold to tell him goodbye. Harold struggles to write her back an adequate letter, dashes something off and leaves the house to go mail it. Except he doesn't mail it. He decides to hand-deliver the letter 600 miles away and starts walking.

On his journey Harold meets memorable characters who want to share in the journey with him, receives the support he desires from his wife who's still waiting for him back at home and sorts out things from his past that have been bothering him.

It tied in nicely with Thoreau's ideas that walking to experience nature is how you sort through the tough things in life and figure out how to live your life as an individual. 

Recent Reread: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera is hands down one of the best books ever written. Everything about the story and the writing evokes beauty. I just reread it over the weekend in light of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's recent passing. I read a lot of it while at the neighborhood pool. Who needs a romance novel when you can read something like this, right?

I had taught all day the day that happened, and strangely enough, I had a conversation with a student about him. She's from Colombia and loves his writing just like I do. Then, later that evening I got a news blast that he'd died in his home in Mexico City. 

A few days afterward, I got word that a celebration of Marquez's life was planned in Decatur near Atlanta: 100 people would read aloud his 100 Years of Solitude in an event called, appropriately, 100 Readers of Solitude (clever!). I thought about going. Then my husband broke his collarbone and I honestly forgot all about it. I'm sure it was a great even though, and I hope I'll be able to go to another read-along event again.

USA Today published a story that Garcia Marquez has an unfinished manuscript that may be published. Here's hoping!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

 

My summer has begun! Late last week I wrapped up my spring semester at an Atlanta-area homeschool group where I teach middle school American history, and high school American literature and advanced literature and composition. These past two semesters have had me reading a lot to keep up with them. Now that school is out for me until the fall, I've got an ambitious reading list planned for the summer. Here's what's at the top of my stack:

In the car on audiobook: I'm waiting for one of several options to come up for me at the library. So for now, just a lot of 90s on 9.

On my iPod: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion: A Novel by Fannie Flagg

For fun (and variety): 
Jason Priestley: A Memoir by Jason Priestley
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power by Jimmy Carter

What are you reading?

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Go check out her blog.

Silver Linings Playbook and Building My Own Syllabus

Last week I was putting together my syllabus for a year-long American literature course I'll be teaching to ninth and tenth graders at a homeschool co-op starting in the fall, my favorite genre. There are so many wonderful things I've considered including that I needed advice and perspective from others to help me make sure I wasn't overloading the class. So I tossed the question out on Facebook to find out people's favorite and least favorite books they read in high school. For my purposes this time I threw out everything that wasn't American lit and made my choices from the feedback I got.

Did you see Silver Linings Playbook a few months ago when it was out? I loved the complex characters, plot and the balance between funny and serious moments throughout the film. I thought Bradley Cooper as the main character Pat was wonderful. While I liked him just fine in The Hangover and Wedding Crashers, I loved seeing what else he could do.

I just read the book version by Matthew Quick earlier this week. There are some big differences between the book and the movie, but I liked each of them for different reasons. In both the book and the movie Pat is trying to win back his ex-wife by getting in shape and reading everything she has put on the syllabus for her high school English students. Though he doesn't love what she's selected, he plows through them, looking forward to the day when he'll be reunited with his ex-wife and they can discuss the novels.

Two-thirds of the books Pat reads are ones I've chosen for my syllabus: The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn. The two Pat read that I didn't pick are The Catcher in the Rye (which almost made it on to the syllabus. If I teach this class again I might teach this one.) and The Bell Jar. 

Here are the rest of the novels that made it in: My Antonia, Of Mice and Men and The Color Purple. We'll also read A Streetcar Named Desire and bits and pieces of Phyllis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Thoreau, Whitman, Emerson, Sandburg and Dickinson. I'm looking forward to rereading all these classics myself to prepare.

Have I missed anything What other books do you consider to be important to American literature?