She's a little weird, but I liked her book(So girly, though, it's not like I related to most of it. Except being a comedy geek who hung out with her parents in high school.That was more like me than what most people say about high school. )Including, I suppose, Joss' "high school hell' thing.) The Bluest Eye is still the Toni Morrison book I like best. It's so much more simple and unvarnished than the things she's written since.
Lydia: Its removal from Burma is a felony and when triggered it has the power to melt human eyeballs.
Giles: In that case I've severely underpriced it.
'Potential'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
erikaj - Sep 19, 2012 5:07:19 am PDT #19744 of 28344
Always Anti-fascist!
§ ita § - Sep 19, 2012 5:07:43 am PDT #19745 of 28344
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
There were times, Strix, where I felt an English teacher reading over my shoulder, and wanting me to compare and contrast uses of imagery, etc.
Sometimes I get mad at her because I don't think she needs to be that confusing, and she bounces around viewpoints from chapter to chapter here like nobody's business. I really like the story. I even like *most* of the ways she chose tot ell it. But a couple of them are to twee for me, and get in the way of the emotion and the social commentary.
Strix - Sep 19, 2012 9:07:44 am PDT #19746 of 28344
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
ita ! oh, I get you...the imagery can be a little heavy-handed, but it was her first novel, so I cut her some slack. And my freshmen needed some obvious imagery, so...
Did I ever mention that at my last high school, 95% Black students, that I was NOT ALLOWED to teach Beloved to my SENIORS because it was too "sexual?" By a Black woman superintendent who had NEVER READ IT? Who thought Native Son was just PEACHY to teach to freshman (masturbation, rape, murder?)
Yeah, still fuming... No wonder I quit. I was...flabbergasted.
Pix - Sep 19, 2012 12:32:31 pm PDT #19747 of 28344
The status is NOT quo.
I love teaching Bluest Eye. I've taught four Morrison novels, but none teach as well as that one, IMO.
Strix - Sep 19, 2012 8:07:40 pm PDT #19748 of 28344
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Beloved would have been a challenge to teach, I admit.I found it challenging in sections first go-round, and I read it as a junior in college. And I was coming off of thousands of books and was a rather sophisticated reader! But despite the complexity of sections, it was also very accessible in many parts.
Damn, where's my copy? (I can't read Beloved when it's summer; dunno why, it's just a thing.)
DavidS - Sep 20, 2012 6:12:13 pm PDT #19749 of 28344
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Guess what Emmett is currently reading (literally right now in his room) for English class?
The Bluest Eye.
Pix - Sep 20, 2012 6:25:23 pm PDT #19750 of 28344
The status is NOT quo.
I hope he's got a good teacher. It's a wonderful book with the right context and guidance but can fall totally flat without it.
DavidS - Sep 20, 2012 6:36:31 pm PDT #19751 of 28344
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I hope he's got a good teacher.
We'll see. Just about every book he's been assigned in high school has been an exercise in miserablism all hammering home the theme that Racism Is Bad. So...
Strix - Sep 20, 2012 6:43:02 pm PDT #19752 of 28344
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Oh, I taught LOTS of those!! Make him read Feed as a palate-cleanser. He's old enough. It's age-appropriate and has lots of thinky stuff. AND ZOMBIES!
Pix - Sep 20, 2012 7:07:08 pm PDT #19753 of 28344
The status is NOT quo.
But the thing is, The Bluest Eye isn't about Racism is Bad, and if it's taught that way (as it often is), that's a damn shame. It's about identity, particularly in terms of how people in marginalized communities internalize majority culture views (in this novel, primarily about beauty and color) so deeply that the community begins to cannibalize its own. It's about scapegoating and hierarchy and the responsibilities any community has to its weakest members. It's about gender and class and power. Also, if students reach the end of that book and don't understand that all of these characters are African American and/or mixed race, they've missed the entire book.
I'm pretty passionate about it. I hate when it's taught badly.