It has run its course and the award goes to ....

[Erin]

I agree to a point, but Stephen King's books aren't all about titillation.  He has some really deep works.  I never would have thought it until I took up reading some of his novels a few years ago. 

Along this same tangent, I completely agree.  I used to say the same thing as MrsMungo but my husband called BS on me and drew the (true) conclusion that I'd obviously never actually read King. 

I started with the Green Mile.  

 

He's an excellent author!

[nmoira]

Great job!

 

Not exactly when you have 了 after the ç«. Keep trying:-)

 

Where's Laura when we need her?

[Arcadia]

what does the title mean? Curious....

ç« - fire (literal), anger (figurative)

了 - already

 

So the title means annoyed already.

 

ETA:

Fire ç« is also one of the five elements in chinese zodiac and traditional chinese medicine. The elements are metal, wood, water, fire, earth (金木水ç«åœŸï¼‰

[Georgiana Daniels]

Love it! I totally had to open the thread. What language is it?

[JadeOrchidSong]

ç« - fire (literal), anger (figurative)

了 - already

 

So the title means annoyed already.

I am very impressed!

However, this refers to the thread, not the starter of the thread. So keep trying:-):-):-)

[Arcadia]

Love it! I totally had to open the thread. What language is it?

Chinese otherwise known also as mandarin, putonghua （普通è¯ï¼‰, guoyu (国语）

 

ETA:

Le Feu which was the previous thread title is in french though.

[Georgiana Daniels]

Chinese otherwise known also as mandarin, putonghua （普通è¯ï¼‰, guoyu (国语）

 

Ooooo, thanks!

[Dana]

Along this same tangent, I completely agree. I used to say the same thing as MrsMungo but my husband called BS on me and drew the (true) conclusion that I'd obviously never actually read King.

I started with the Green Mile.

 

He's actually an excellent author!

I enjoy (love) his book On Writing. It's especially cool at the end where he shows a first draft and the his editing changes.

[JadeOrchidSong]

Arcadia,

 

Yours means å°é¾™è¦çˆ¸çˆ¸ç»™ä»–买一个标价¥20，000的比熊狗，爸爸一å¬å°±ç«äº†ï¼Œï¼‚我哪儿æ¥çš„那么多钱买狗？＂

ç« å­æ€¡ä¸€å‡ºé“å°±ç«äº†ã€‚那本å°è¯´åˆšä¸€å‡ºç‰ˆå°±ç«äº†ã€‚has the same meaning as I meant in the title. I love ç«äº† because it creates a great image in your mind which is hard to translate into another language without losing its original uniqueness. We will just keep it here.

 

 

Now one thread has evolved into two. Want more?

[Halftime Hope]

 

Your second point: I confess to having skimmed over the last several posts, which is where the bible was mentioned. I've gone back and read them, and I stand by what I said. Rape is rape and incest is incest, regardless of whether or not it's couched in flowery language or euphemisms. It's just as disturbing.

 

 

Floridamom, it's not that there aren't difficult topics and passages in the Bible, since that's the one piece of religious lit that has been brought up. (Why, i'm not sure; maybe because posters are thinking that the Bible would be required reading for children and high school student in the families that are offended by the suggestion that high schoolers could be required to read The Bluest Eye.) Yes, it is very, very disturbing when one reads of a rash father that takes his daughter's life because he made a stupid vow, but he is conflicted, knowing that one does not forsake a vow. Yes, there are many cases of incest and other horrors of human behavior.

 

The difference isn't in the language, "flowery" or not (many times it is not), for me, the difference is that in traditional classic literature and in the Bible, readers are not forced to dwell or linger inside the head or mind of perv or of the victim, witnessing their very graphic, very sick thoughts and the justifications for their behavior. (Exposure, not immersion.)

 

I know people whose life work is liberating young victims from the sex trade--that's about as horrific as you can get. They don't spend their time focusing with the girls on the details and horrors, in all their sordid pathos, to convince the girls to make the break. Instead, they focus on the beauty of the freedom that awaits, on the hope of the education that is available, on the promise of treatment and the health and well-being that is to come.

 

In literature, one of my questions in evaluating what I was going to have my students read was the following: what is the focus, the overall message of the piece? Does it have any redeeming value, even if it isn't a "happy ending" story? For younger students, even though "Of Mice and Men" wasn't "happy", and there is horror when George opts to kill Lennie and in the girl's death at Lennie's hands, we are not made to dwell in a place of vulgarity and depravity for Steinbeck to get the message across, and Steinbeck was no prude. He could have written about all kinds of filth and vulgarity to illustrate helplessness and hopelessness, but he didn't. Imagine the places he could have taken the scenes in The Grapes of Wrath, but he didn't. (Exposure, not immersion.)

[happi duck]

I enjoy (love) his book On Writing. It's especially cool at the end where he shows a first draft and the his editing changes.

 

On Writing is a great book!

[Arcadia]

ç« å­æ€¡ä¸€å‡ºé“å°±ç«äº†ã€‚那本å°è¯´åˆšä¸€å‡ºç‰ˆå°±ç«äº†ã€‚has the same meaning as I meant in the title.

 

Your ç«äº† means "hot thread" :lol:

Your above sentences would have translate roughly to being famous (person) or being a best seller (book).

[JadeOrchidSong]

Valerie (TX), thank you very much for your eloquent, graceful, and respectful posts. Exposure, not immersion. I have learned a lot from you.

[Laura Corin]

Arcadia,

 

Yours means å°é¾™è¦çˆ¸çˆ¸ç»™ä»–买一个标价¥20，000的比熊狗，爸爸一å¬å°±ç«äº†ï¼Œï¼‚我哪儿æ¥çš„那么多钱买狗？＂

ç« å­æ€¡ä¸€å‡ºé“å°±ç«äº†ã€‚那本å°è¯´åˆšä¸€å‡ºç‰ˆå°±ç«äº†ã€‚has the same meaning as I meant in the title. I love ç«äº† because it creates a great image in your mind which is hard to translate into another language without losing its original uniqueness. We will just keep it here.

 

 

Now one thread has evolved into two. Want more?

 

Reaching the limit of my Chinese.  I understand Arcadia's meaning but not Aomom's ..... the novel 'took off'?  Sold very well? Or am I completely wide of the mark?

 

L

[Catwoman]

Hi, Valerie, OP here.

I really admire you for how well you elaborated your points. I agree with you totally. This is the best post I read so far. I am glad that some great discussion is going on now after all. Thank you very much for taking words out of my mouth. With English as my foreign language, I cannot write as well. So thanks again!!!

I just wanted to mention that I had no idea that English wasn't your first language!!! Wow! I am totally impressed!!! :hurray:

[KungFuPanda]

I've actually never heard of this book. Now, thanks to this thread, I'm curious and may very well read it. I clicked on the thread because the title pulled my eye. I managed to read Nabokov without any lasting scars. How does this book compare?

[Catwoman]

NEW TITLE ALERT!!! :D

[FaithManor]

Uhura, broadcast peace and hello in all known languages and get me Starfleet Command. (Oh, wait, I was confused there for a second.) :lol:

 

Still the same thread!

[bettyandbob]

Will the OP consider putting the title in Klingon?

[Arcadia]

NEW TITLE ALERT!!! :D

Google translate has an entertaining translation. I do know what the new title means :)

  

Uhura, broadcast peace and hello in all known languages and get me Starfleet Command. (Oh, wait, I was confused there for a second.) :lol:

Shalom chaverim

The nuns taught us how to sing that in 1st grade in the convent school I attended.

[Mrs Mungo]

I know these aren't appearing in the right order. The reply button is doing some strange things these days.

 

 

Along this same tangent, I completely agree.  I used to say the same thing as MrsMungo but my husband called BS on me and drew the (true) conclusion that I'd obviously never actually read King. 

I started with the Green Mile.  

 

He's an excellent author!

 

I have read Stephen King, a LOT of it. The more I read, the more I believed his purposes were inherently different than someone like Toni Morrison. I think King genuinely believes that most people are depraved at could be thinking something depraved at any given moment. The more normal he paints them, the more depraved their thinking seems to be. In no way am I saying that some of his books are really good and thoughtful. I am merely saying that I firmly believe that his purposes are different. 

 

  

Floridamom, it's not that there aren't difficult topics and passages in the Bible, since that's the one piece of religious lit that has been brought up. (Why, i'm not sure; maybe because posters are thinking that the Bible would be required reading for children and high school student in the families that are offended by the suggestion that high schoolers could be required to read The Bluest Eye.) Yes, it is very, very disturbing when one reads of a rash father that takes his daughter's life because he made a stupid vow, but he is conflicted, knowing that one does not forsake a vow. Yes, there are many cases of incest and other horrors of human behavior.

The difference isn't in the language, "flowery" or not (many times it is not), for me, the difference is that in traditional classic literature and in the Bible, readers are not forced to dwell or linger inside the head or mind of perv or of the victim, witnessing their very graphic, very sick thoughts and the justifications for their behavior. (Exposure, not immersion.)

I know people whose life work is liberating young victims from the sex trade--that's about as horrific as you can get. They don't spend their time focusing with the girls on the details and horrors, in all their sordid pathos, to convince the girls to make the break. Instead, they focus on the beauty of the freedom that awaits, on the hope of the education that is available, on the promise of treatment and the health and well-being that is to come.

In literature, one of my questions in evaluating what I was going to have my students read was the following: what is the focus, the overall message of the piece? Does it have any redeeming value, even if it isn't a "happy ending" story? For younger students, even though "Of Mice and Men" wasn't "happy", and there is horror when George opts to kill Lennie and in the girl's death at Lennie's hands, we are not made to dwell in a place of vulgarity and depravity for Steinbeck to get the message across, and Steinbeck was no prude. He could have written about all kinds of filth and vulgarity to illustrate helplessness and hopelessness, but he didn't. Imagine the places he could have taken the scenes in The Grapes of Wrath, but he didn't. (Exposure, not immersion.)

 

The reason I think it is worth exploring that POV in books like Lolita is because people think they can recognize a pedophile or a depraved person. Normal people think that person realizes how wrong their thoughts are and that's why they hide them. But, books like Lolita and The Bluest Eye show us that the thoughts are so abnormal that the perpetrators of such crimes believe they are in love, that they aren't doing any harm, that they may actually be doing the girl a favor. The books allow people to see why a victim may carry guilt or why such victims believe that he/she led the person on or happily participated. It is very hard to do that without getting in the perpetrator's head. For me, these books serve a purpose. Lolita, in particular, really helped me see why so many victims felt guilty for having sex at such a young age rather than seeing the people as sex offenders. 

 

Several points as I've been thinking about this topic for a day, before I posted (or posted more than the initial, knee-jerk post)

 

1) I don't think there is a problem with having students/learners feel uncomfortable because we are asking tough questions about ourselves and about humanity.  But there is a huge difference in looking at a character's sick/perverted/evil thinking and being able to remain detached from it, like we can with Macbeth or Hamlet or Heart of Darkness, or with any of the ones you named which do make us uncomfortable or open our eyes, vs. dragging an impressionable teen or young adult into the sewer of depravity so thoroughly that they will have images and thoughts that will stick with them for many years.   There most certainly is a difference of degree and intensity.    I agree with several other posters that this book might  make sense within the context of a college abnormal psych class, for those who have *chosen* to take the course, presumably with their eyes wide open.

 

2) Further, I would argue that there is no virtue in desensitizing a reader to horrific acts so that they will accept or understand the reasons why the characters committed the crimes (Morrison's stated tack) vs. the classic authors' approach of laying out the crimes or the twisted thinking and letting us draw our own instinctive, conscience-driven conclusions. 

 

3) When I am confronted with situations like this one, in which there are varied voices espousing values which conflict with one another (we should read literature which describes perverse acts in excruciating detail to better understand the human condition, to better appreciate the masterful craftsmanship of the writer, whatever...)  vs. my view (the descriptions are horrid, and while I do want to be aware of what is going on in the world, I don't need to immerse myself in it.), it brings to mind a useful illustration from The Hiding Place: 

 

Like the little girl at the train station struggling to move the big suitcase when she could have let her father carry it, I ask myself is this something I or my students need to carry now, or is it unreasonable/unnecessary/inappropriate for me/them to carry this weight at this time and place.  Furthermore, will I/they ever need to carry it?

 

I would argue that some adults, teachers and professors, really like seeing how big a suitcase they can demand that young people drag, and in this case, not only are they dragging a big heavy suitcase, but they are asking the students to open it and sort through all the inappropriate contents as well. 

 

4) Another completely different issue, and this time on a personal note: there is value in reading both cautionary and exemplary tales, in learning through fiction, parable, and through the lives of exemplars.  The Bible and other religious writings that serve as guides for life include both.  But the interesting thing is that Christians are instructed to let our thinking linger and dwell on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy."  (I don't remember if there are similar admonitions in other religious writings; I'm sure others can chime in.)  So in teaching my and others' children (and I have taught high school lit classes), I am going to draw a careful, responsible line between exposure to ideas vs. immersion in foul details, and I'm going to think long and hard about my goals and how to achieve them without causing harm to those in my care.  

 

1) I think I covered this bit in the paragraph above.

 

2) I don't think desensitization is really the goal. I think that is very different than getting into someone's head.

 

3) I haven't seen anyone arguing for allowing such books use the world "should." Nowhere did I say (and I didn't see anyone else say) that everyone SHOULD read these books. Nowhere does the CC state that. Nobody is advocating for that. This is a strawman.

 

As for the second part, you read The Hiding Place. I think it is JUST as disturbing as The Bluest Eye. Do you think high school seniors are too young to be exposed to those horrors? If not, why are those horrors okay but other horrors experienced by other people are not? I'm genuinely trying to understand why you think the emotional baggage of one is greater than the other. 

 

[nmoira]

who does the award go to?!

We should start with Miss Congeniality.

[Erin]

 

 

I think King genuinely believes that most people are depraved at could be thinking something depraved at any given moment.

:confused1:

I'm having trouble coming up with good examples of depravity in his books, regardless of purpose behind it...  Which books are we talking about?  Maybe I'm not as well-read as I thought lol

[JadeOrchidSong]

who does the award go to?!

Do we need another mystery to be solved:-):-)

I can give a hint if you really can't solve it. Let me know:-)

By the way, ds wants me to make more threads like this (the title game, not about the book. He didn't read the posts, only the titles I changed over and over). He had some fun, too!

[Cricket]

I'm genuinely trying to understand why you think the emotional baggage of one is greater than the other.

This is such a personal and subjective question. I think the line will be different for every person. Everyone already brings their own emotional baggage to a work of literature. This discussion brought back to mind a book I read as an older teen. For the life of me, I don't remember what book it was so I guess I blocked that out. But I remember coming to a point in the book where I threw it across the room and was done. I felt betrayed by the author by taking me down a road I didn't want to follow. I wish I could remember what book it was! I haven't read The Bluest Eye but I have a feeling it might be a book I would throw. Lol

 

Does The Bluest Eye at least end with hope? That disturbs me about many books too. I have a hard time dealing with the hopelessness. Horrid, horrid feeling!!

[VeritasMama]

It's not gratuitous, it's part of what makes Pecola who she is. Gratuitous sex or violence is thrown in for the shock value. Morrison does shock us in her novels, but she doesn't do it without good reasons. If she did, it would be gratuitous.

 

 

 

This.

 

 

 

Are you saying a novel by a Pulitzer Prize winning, Nobel Prize winning, Presidential Medal of Freedom receiving author isn't "real literature"?

 

There's more than enough incest in the bible to go around. It's pretty disturbing. Would you, whether or not you believe the bible is true, keep your high school senior from reading it?

Why is it so hard to comprehend that just because I don't think something is appropriate for a high school lit class doesn't mean I don't think it is worthy literature. I say exactly what I mean people, read my words and stop putting more words into my mouth.

 

I didn't say it was gratuitous. I said it was graphic. Graphic depictions of rape and incest are not appropriate for a high school lit class, IMHO. Some may disagree. Shakespeare and the Bible, to use examples brought up by others, do have taboo themes and discuss horrific events, but NOT IN A GRAPHIC WAY.

 

As I said, the book shouldn't be banned and topics such as this should be discussed, but it doesn't have to be presented in a GRAPHIC way in order to be discussed or understood. I think that it is a work that is more appropriate for a college course.

 

It is frustrating to have to repeat myself over and over again on these boards because my statements am opinions are either misunderstood or misrepresented others. I try hard to be straight forward and clear about my opinions. People either have a hard time with reading comprehension, or they are setting up straw men arguments to prove their own point. It feels like a a huge waste of time, frankly. I can handle it when people disagree with me, I get sick of having to explain myself over and over because they disagree without actually understanding what I said.

[Catwoman]

Not that anyone cares, but I'm done with this thread now that there won't be any more new titles.

 

The magic is gone.

 

:D

[JadeOrchidSong]

Not that anyone cares, but I'm done with this thread now that there won't be any more new titles.

 

The magic is gone.

 

:D

I agree. The peak for the title game was reached at ç«äº†ã€‚It went downhill after that. However, the discussion was really helpful for me to understand both sides. Thank you, everyone! 谢谢你们的å‚与，鄙人å—益匪浅。

[Halftime Hope]

I know these aren't appearing in the right order. The reply button is doing some strange things these days.

 

 

 

I have read Stephen King, a LOT of it. The more I read, the more I believed his purposes were inherently different than someone like Toni Morrison. I think King genuinely believes that most people are depraved at could be thinking something depraved at any given moment. The more normal he paints them, the more depraved their thinking seems to be. In no way am I saying that some of his books are really good and thoughtful. I am merely saying that I firmly believe that his purposes are different. 

 

 

The reason I think it is worth exploring that POV in books like Lolita is because people think they can recognize a pedophile or a depraved person.  So is having high schoolers read TBE going to help them identify the next perv that comes their way?  I don't think that's what you are saying.   <snip> Lolita, in particular, really helped me see why so many victims felt guilty for having sex at such a young age rather than seeing the people as sex offenders.  If I as a high school lit teacher am looking for books that touch common threads throughout humanity and themes that are timeless, am I going to pick victim's guilt as one of my Top 50 topics to explore in the two years that I have older students?  Probably not.  I think I'm going to pursue things that resonate with the majority of my class and that will be issues for them in one form or another throughout their lives. Hope and dreams, justice or injustice, redemption, hypocrisy, bigotry, sacrifice, jealousy, contentment, racism, fear, triumph over one's besetting nature--there truly is no end to themes that can enrich ALL the students' lives.  One of the qualities of great literature is that it deepens our understanding of our common humanity.  If this were to happen with TBE, it would be in spite of those scenes.

 

 

1) I think I covered this bit in the paragraph above.

 

2) I don't think desensitization is really the goal. I think that is very different than getting into someone's head.   

 

Did you read the linked Rationale Article earlier in the thread?  I don't know how you couldn't come away with desensitization from what Morrison herself says:

 

"readers need to understand what Toni

Morrison was trying to do and not judge her on the actions of her characters. In an interview with Tate,

Morrison tries to explain what she wanted readers to see and how, through the structure of her novel, she

tried to get them to that point:

I tell you at the beginning of The Bluest Eye, on the very first page, what happens, but now I want you to go

with me and look at this, so when you get to the scene where the father rapes the daughter, which is as

awful a thing I suppose as can be imagined, by the time you get there it's almost irrelevant because I want

you to look at him [Cholly] and see his love for his daughter and his powerlessness to help her pain. By this

time his embrace, the rape, is all the gift he has left. (Rigney 32)

 

Morrison was trying to relieve readers of the shock of such a deed early so that they could see beauty under

the surface. She wasn't trying to justify anything, merely to allow readers to look at what happens in a

different way, to get them to realize that it isn't so simple as they would like to think. The world isn't black

and white as many would like to think. Morrison's novel has objectionable parts, but that is a part of what

makes it so valuable."   

 

I will stand by my original characterization, Mrs. Mungo:  this is exactly desensitization.

 

3) I haven't seen anyone arguing for allowing such books use the world "should."   Nowhere did I say (and I didn't see anyone else say) that everyone SHOULD read these books. Nowhere does the CC state that. Nobody is advocating for that. This is a strawman. 

 

Pardon me, Mrs. Mungo, I was incorrect.  The Novel Rationale article is where I saw the word should, "Not only was The Bluest Eye in the Best Books for Senior High Readers, but it was also in Steven Arozena's Best Books for Public Libraries. Both of these sources recommend Toni Morrison's novel as valuable literature. These sources list only the best of English literature, the novels that should be in every public library or read by any high school reader."  Ergo, not a strawman.

 

As for the second part, you read The Hiding Place. I think it is JUST as disturbing as The Bluest Eye. Do you think high school seniors are too young to be exposed to those horrors? If not, why are those horrors okay but other horrors experienced by other people are not? I'm genuinely trying to understand why you think the emotional baggage of one is greater than the other. 

 

 

ETA:  I should qualify the following by saying that I would not have chosen to have my students read The Hiding Place as part of their literature coursework, thrown in with a number of other books which were clearly classic children's literature (many were Newbery books).   I would have my own kids or other students read it as a historical non-fiction as part of a unit study or something like that--just not as literature in the traditional, educational sense.

 

In The Hiding Place, which I read with my 8th and 9th graders last year with their parents' consent, there is an overarching theme of God's mercy and provision, His sovereignty and his presence, His care and His awareness, in the most awful of places, in the most desperate circumstances, and in the most heart-wrenching choices.  In the midst of the most horrific inhumanity imaginable, God, too, was there.   That said, there is nothing in THP that was even remotely like the sordid, graphic language, the excruciating detail, the obscenity that was in those excerpts that I read from The Bluest Eye yesterday.  We read The Hiding Place with great emotion, with tears in many places, with empathy and horror, feeling sorrow, revulsion, and outrage for what had been done to the ten Boom family, to the country, and most of all to the dear Jewish people that Corrie made our friends, but we did not feel violated by what the author showed us.  I can't explain more than that; I hope it is enough.

 

[JadeOrchidSong]

The Hiding Place and Joni are the first two English books I read as a brand new Christian 23 years ago. THP impacted me immensely in my walk with God. I can only recall strong emotions about faith, love, trust.

Thanks, Valerie, for sharing your feelings about it.

[Lady Florida.]

Why is it so hard to comprehend that just because I don't think something is appropriate for a high school lit class doesn't mean I don't think it is worthy literature. I say exactly what I mean people, read my words and stop putting more words into my mouth.

Why? Because you put quotes around the words "real literature", as though The Bluest Eye isn't real literature without quote marks. Many people would have come to the same conclusion. And I didn't put words into your mouth. Read my post. I asked you if that's what you were saying. Later, when responding to someone who took your post differently, I also said only you could tell us what you meant. So instead of clarifying your intent, you lash out?

 

 

I didn't say it was gratuitous. I said it was graphic. Graphic depictions of rape and incest are not appropriate for a high school lit class, IMHO. Some may disagree. Shakespeare and the Bible, to use examples brought up by others, do have taboo themes and discuss horrific events, but NOT IN A GRAPHIC WAY.

Can you show me where I said you called it gratuitous? No, because I didn't. I was multi-quoting and clearly responded to someone else calling it gratuitous. Later in my post, I quoted you and responded to your post. Multi-quoting allows one to do that.

 

It is frustrating to have to repeat myself over and over again on these boards because my statements am opinions are either misunderstood or misrepresented others. I try hard to be straight forward and clear about my opinions. People either have a hard time with reading comprehension, or they are setting up straw men arguments to prove their own point.

If you have to repeat yourself often, and if people are misunderstanding you, perhaps you should try wording things differently. Apparently this happens often here since you seem frustrated about it.

 

I get sick of having to explain myself over and over because they disagree without actually understanding what I said.

Again, if you have to explain yourself over and over, is it possible it's not always the reader's fault?

[Erin]

Am I the only one who has just checked this book out from the library so I can see what the hub-bub is all about?

[mommybee]

Am I the only one who has just checked this book out from the library so I can see what the hub-bub is all about?

I did too......I think I've read it before but I needed to read it again to see if it's the one I'm thinking of.

[unfrumpable.]

Am I the only one who has just checked this book out from the library so I can see what the hub-bub is all about?

 

I looked for it today while I was there, but that particular branch didn't have it. They had a couple of her other books though. I'm going to see if I can get it transferred from another branch.