Oh, I never said that he wasn't a good writer - just that the massive dose of him combined with Phillip Roth and several other "über males" wasn't an ideal literary cocktail. That class definitely needed a lot more diversity of viewpoint to be a true picture of the literary landscape.
Ten Earth Imps
tenearthimps
Agreed! I did love Faulkner, but that was because I read several of his books the year before with a different English teacher who was really delighted by my report on As I Lay Dying and encouraged me to read The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom for extra credit. I didn't get him mixed in with the other massive…
"Anyone who's been condescended in a seminar by a smug English major bro who didn't even finish the reading can probably relate to these findings"
No, the proposal changed after the media shit storm happened, and he scaled back his proposal and claimed it wasn't meant to be legislation and that it only applied to welfare recipients. The original intent was legislation that applied to all pregnant women. Seriously; he was interviewed about it on the local news at…
Yeah, what happened is that Zoeller drafted a copy of proposed legislation that covered all women, but it got leaked to the press and caused a public firestorm before he had time to have legal vetting of it that would have told him that what he was proposing was hella unconstitutional and wouldn't stand a snowball's…
This story first came out in early September, when Zoeller was saying this:
Okay - the original draft proposal that came out of summer study session DID in fact, propose testing ALL pregnant women, not just the ones on welfare. I've seen a copy of the draft that was circulated to me and it also got leaked and publicized by Planned Parenthood. That may not have been their final draft, but it…
The original version of this bill was for testing ALL pregnant women, not just the ones on welfare. For real; Macabre Cadabra's claim is wrong. It really was written that way coming out of a summer study until half the state freaked the hell out about it.
Hoping to get this promoted out of the greys, because first-hand anecdotes are incredibly useful here....
Yep - that was my college professor's take as well on both Nick and Jordan. And re-reading the novel as an openly gay adult person, I can't avoid seeing that now.
Well, yeah, but - The Fountainhead! Who could trump that?! If you're only allotting 5 slots to women, you have to be really picky.
I like Catch-22 better now, but it still strikes me as pretty nihilistic and therefore not enjoyable.
That is practically verbatim what happened to me. It wasn't until I read other Vonnegut novels and then went back and read Slaughterhouse Five, outside of the proximity to Catch-22 and other war novels, that I really appreciated Slaughterhouse Five for what it was.
Rand was one of the 5 women on our list - The Fountainhead. For further reading, we could pick up Atlas Shrugged, but it wasn't recommended for class, as it was too long and would interfere with getting the 30 books in.
It was practically impossible not to at the time, just due to the proximity. Fortunately time has helped me appreciate Vonnegut, which is nice, because he's our home town hero, after all.
On the other hand, what I did learn from "The Great American Novel" is that when you're bothered by something - punch it in the face. Probably not the thing I was supposed to pick up, being a girl and all, but hey, don't teach me if you don't want me learning stuff.
Looks like they ditched the link, although it's in google cache.
My high school gave extra credit if you took the "Great American Novels" summer program between your junior and senior years - enough extra credit in English to pack a serious punch on your GPA. So it was a popular class. The syllabus for the three month program was picking at least 30 novels from a selection of 50 -…
I would feel sad for this guy, but then I remember that I get to have sex all the time because I chose not to be an ass, and I stop caring about him.