CCBC-Net Archives
[CCBC-Net] Amazed--but not amused
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: LAURIE DRAUS <DRAUS>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 08:56:52 -0500
I've just been catching up with the August discussions and I wasn't going to jump in this late in the game, but I just have to say that the one Cormier book I have read, I Am The Cheese, had a very similar off-putting effect on me as Rukhsana has been describing The Chocolate War having on her, though it had nothing to do with the church: that is was very well-written, but desperately bleak, and leaving one at the end with no new focus, inspiration, hope, or direction for a young person to glean. When I read or watch anything, I try to get something from it to put into my mental/spritual "toolbox", something to add even the smallest new dimension to myself, and from this book I got nothing but bleak hopelessness, which I do not find to be a useful tool, and I find it hard to imagine that most young people would.
I, too am "religious, but hardly Catholic," if it matters in this regard.
I do plan to look go back and revisit some of his other works now after hearing more about them, but one work, rightly or wrongly, can indeed put one off its creator, and that book left me with no further appetite for Cormier.
I don't know that I've ever quite mastered reading novels (or anything else) in a neutral gear as aethetic objects. I'm not sure that's how their authors intended them to be read.
Someone had spoken previously of how stories that show success, or at least hopefulness, in the end, that show the value of perserverence "don't prepare children well for the real world" or words to that effect. I am not so sure this holds true. While I am not suggesting that every book end with "happily ever after" and people dancing around Maypoles, I do think that our forefathers and mothers did quite well in "real life" after being reared with that sort of literature and did not find it a problem not having books full of disappointment and desolation to grow up with. Something to think about, anyway.
Lauri Cahoon-Draus
I was amazed--but not amused by some of the "I know what I know and will fight you to the last comma" chit and chat about--especially--"Chocolate War." It threw me back eons and decades to the years I taught Ch. Lit
(read "books") at a local Jesuit university (U.S.F.) One of those years was the year that "Chocolate War" was released. I had the class (all of senior or post A.B. standing) read the novel. It was fascinating to observe how the group tri-vided: One bunch--the non religious group
(neither sister, brothers, fathers), were quite neutral and examined the novel--as a novel. They were impressed with its power. A second group were religious folk (sisters, fathers, etc., etc.) most of whom worked in the parochial schools. They believed that Cormier's book described an exact and very unpleasant situation. The third group, religious folk
(sisters--and only sisters), all of whom also taught in the parochial schools, believed Cormier's book was an attack on the Mother Church and that it lied, and was probably slanderous.
I thought back to those fascinating discussions when I read the comments of one person in particular on this site. I wondered about her, and wondered if she had been/is, someone who might have joined the third group--those who thought Cormier was attacking Mother Church, the Pope and parochial schools, and tus could not separate emotion from a novel. Novels should always be read in a neutral gear as aesthetic objects, not emotional causes. Some of us will NEVER change our minds, e.g., the Curia.
As for my ex-students--all have left religious service and all now--as far as they tell me--think that Cormier sketched the situation of power in the Church exactly as it hs been--and is--alas.
Big Grandma
(Sorry--I keyboard poorly)
"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty." Jessica Mitford (191796)
~ ~ ~ To send a reply to the entire CCBC-Net community,click on...
mailto:ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu To send a request to remove your address from the mailing list, click on...
mailto:ccbc-net-unsub at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Received on Thu 30 Aug 2001 08:56:52 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 08:56:52 -0500
I've just been catching up with the August discussions and I wasn't going to jump in this late in the game, but I just have to say that the one Cormier book I have read, I Am The Cheese, had a very similar off-putting effect on me as Rukhsana has been describing The Chocolate War having on her, though it had nothing to do with the church: that is was very well-written, but desperately bleak, and leaving one at the end with no new focus, inspiration, hope, or direction for a young person to glean. When I read or watch anything, I try to get something from it to put into my mental/spritual "toolbox", something to add even the smallest new dimension to myself, and from this book I got nothing but bleak hopelessness, which I do not find to be a useful tool, and I find it hard to imagine that most young people would.
I, too am "religious, but hardly Catholic," if it matters in this regard.
I do plan to look go back and revisit some of his other works now after hearing more about them, but one work, rightly or wrongly, can indeed put one off its creator, and that book left me with no further appetite for Cormier.
I don't know that I've ever quite mastered reading novels (or anything else) in a neutral gear as aethetic objects. I'm not sure that's how their authors intended them to be read.
Someone had spoken previously of how stories that show success, or at least hopefulness, in the end, that show the value of perserverence "don't prepare children well for the real world" or words to that effect. I am not so sure this holds true. While I am not suggesting that every book end with "happily ever after" and people dancing around Maypoles, I do think that our forefathers and mothers did quite well in "real life" after being reared with that sort of literature and did not find it a problem not having books full of disappointment and desolation to grow up with. Something to think about, anyway.
Lauri Cahoon-Draus
I was amazed--but not amused by some of the "I know what I know and will fight you to the last comma" chit and chat about--especially--"Chocolate War." It threw me back eons and decades to the years I taught Ch. Lit
(read "books") at a local Jesuit university (U.S.F.) One of those years was the year that "Chocolate War" was released. I had the class (all of senior or post A.B. standing) read the novel. It was fascinating to observe how the group tri-vided: One bunch--the non religious group
(neither sister, brothers, fathers), were quite neutral and examined the novel--as a novel. They were impressed with its power. A second group were religious folk (sisters, fathers, etc., etc.) most of whom worked in the parochial schools. They believed that Cormier's book described an exact and very unpleasant situation. The third group, religious folk
(sisters--and only sisters), all of whom also taught in the parochial schools, believed Cormier's book was an attack on the Mother Church and that it lied, and was probably slanderous.
I thought back to those fascinating discussions when I read the comments of one person in particular on this site. I wondered about her, and wondered if she had been/is, someone who might have joined the third group--those who thought Cormier was attacking Mother Church, the Pope and parochial schools, and tus could not separate emotion from a novel. Novels should always be read in a neutral gear as aesthetic objects, not emotional causes. Some of us will NEVER change our minds, e.g., the Curia.
As for my ex-students--all have left religious service and all now--as far as they tell me--think that Cormier sketched the situation of power in the Church exactly as it hs been--and is--alas.
Big Grandma
(Sorry--I keyboard poorly)
"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty." Jessica Mitford (191796)
~ ~ ~ To send a reply to the entire CCBC-Net community,click on...
mailto:ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu To send a request to remove your address from the mailing list, click on...
mailto:ccbc-net-unsub at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Received on Thu 30 Aug 2001 08:56:52 AM CDT
