Carnival of Education

Published on January 31, 2007 in Blogging. 2 Comments By Joanne

The Carnival of Education is delighting visitors over at The Median Sib’s place. I liked Mr. Lawrence’s post on literary works you can’t stand. He can’t bear Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Commenters nominated Catcher in the Rye, Kafka, Moby Dick, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Hemingway, Wuthering Heights, Proust, Ethan Frome, Billy Budd and even Charles Dickens. I love Dickens. The writer I can’t stand is Henry James. All his characters need to get a job. Read Mr. Lawrence’s comments for more on the dirty bits in Moby Dick. I must have skipped that chapter. I’m planning on going back and reading it.

2 Responses to “Carnival of Education”

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Walter E. Wallis
January 31, 2007 at 9:15 am

One of the more odious results of censorship was to give Catcher in the Rye a success entirely undeserved by its content.
Bill Leonard
February 1, 2007 at 11:03 am

Hear, hear! Walter!

As it happens, during my junior year in high school (1959-60) there was a great flap in the district over the assignment of Catcher — a few parents complained; the teacher was reassigned; and every kid immediately did his or her best to glom a copy and read it. This was followed by general disappointment; most expected at the very least a lot of scenes like the famous (or at least extremely popular) Betty and Rodney at the beach episode in Peyton Place. What we got was, as Joanne Jacobs has commented on “Carnival,” a tale about an immature whiner.

And so it goes…