In August of 2016, a coworker mentioned that she writes on her blog every day. I don't know why that was something that stood out to me: Lots of people do a lot of things that don't inspire me to change (be more pious, go to the gym, be pious about going to the gym), but I decided--with little fanfare--to start writing consistently, every day. I started off kind of rocky, but I feel like this entry, dated 24 Aug 2016, is the beginning of my essay writing process. Since then, I've written over four hundred essays, ranging on a whole wilderness of topics. Now that we're firmly in 2018, I'm wondering about why I do this.
I mean, nobody is forcing me to write more. I'm "forcing" my students to write a paper for me, inasmuch as grades compel kids to do something they otherwise wouldn't, and I'm hopeful that the topics they selected will be enough of a spark that they want to keep writing…but doing this sort of thing for oneself as opposed to doing it for anyone else is quite different. Let me correct myself: No one, save myself, is forcing me to write. And I think that's what's interesting. My coworker exercises all of the time. He goes to the gym, then often will be out playing soccer or basketball with the students. Some days, he puts in more hours exercising than he does teaching. No one is insisting that he do that. I'm pretty sure that even his wife would be okay if he didn't hit the gym as frequently as he does. The pressure is all internal and there isn't even a goal post, either. It's not like he's training to participate in an Ironman competition or run a marathon. He's just good at exercising and athleticism and he derives pleasure from that. I'm sure there are days when he rolls over and goes back to sleep, rather than getting up and going to the gym, but I get the sense that's an infrequent thing for him. So it is with writing. There are differences, of course: Writing doesn't do a lot for my physique, and I don't know if my wife would find me more (or less, I guess) attractive if I were to stop writing. There's less showering involved with writing, too, I suppose. But the parallels, particularly with the innate desire toward an ambiguous goal, stand out to me. In both cases, though, it's also a bit of a puzzle: What's the benefit? Health is one, obviously (physical in his case; mental in mine). But there are plenty of healthful things that a person could do that aren't of any interest to us. What truly motivates me to want to write? Tonight's a good example of feeling forced to write: It's a Wednesday, which means early morning meetings, a full day of teaching, a snatched nap, and then Cub Scouts. Because it was the Blue and Gold banquet tonight, the meeting went long (two hours!) and guilt made me stay and help clean up, since I napped instead of helping set up. I didn't hit the keyboard until after 9:00pm, which is unusual--I normally am finishing up by then, rather than starting. Yet I "have to write" something every day. So here I am, metacognitioning all over the place, giving a stream of conscious, journal-esque essay that I'm counting the words and then forgetting it happened. Today's essay wouldn't be in my "greatest hits" by any stretch. (And that's another thing: I write so much but I never rewrite anything. Occasionally, I'll spot a typo and fix that, but I never even reread what I've written. What's the point of putting down all of these words if they're not even the best words I could put down?) I can guess at two things that help drive me back to the keyboard: One, I feel like it's a "paying of dues", as if this sort of thing will somehow magically make me worthy of publication whenever I stop being lazy and send out my manuscripts so that I can collect some more rejections. It's almost like I'm trying to build up a karmic bank that will work in my favor sometime in the far-flung future. Two, I worry that if I stop once, the habit will be broken. Getting back into the swing of things after my sickness in December was really difficult for me. While there were things that I wanted to say, I was so ill that I couldn't concentrate enough to do anything about them. So forcing myself to write, even when I don't want to, is a way to ensure that, even though today is an off day, I can keep my habit sharp for the days when I do. Still…I don't like feeling forced to write. As a family this weekend, we sat down to watch Wonder. I don't watch a lot of movies, and those I tend to see are blockbusters in the theater. When at home, I find myself gravitating toward video games more than anything else. And family, feel-good movies aren't on the top of my list when I hit up Redbox. But my oldest son, Puck, had read the book and really wanted to see the movie when it came out. In typical me-fashion, I forgot about it until it came out on Blu-ray.
Still, despite some desires to instead lock myself in the office and read while the rest of the family watched it, I chose to show my son how I supported him and put in the film. (I should also point out that, by the time we were able to finally sit down to watch it, it was already an hour past the kids' bedtime. Yet, Puck was so eager to see it that I decided to let them stay up late. This was an unusual choice, since I'm a firm believer in bedtimes, because the parents' sanity time ought not to be curtailed. I mean, the kids' sleep is important. Yeah. That's it.) From a straightforward assessment, this film is great. It's shot and edited competently, there are enough fun, quirky things about the way it's told to keep it interesting--I particularly like the way that it jumps from character to character without losing sight of the bigger story it's trying to tell--and there are a couple of shots that were impressive enough to make me smile. On a storytelling and technical level, it works quite well, though I would pick a nit here and say that the bullies randomly showing up at the end of the film was kind of sloppy. I guess, since they were trying to keep the film under two hours, there had to be some plot-conveniences, but…yeah, the seventh graders showing up at the end (spoilers, I guess?) was just…weird. As far as the story goes, though, I'm a fan. Yes, it's emotionally manipulative in a bigger way than most movies are trying to manipulate the viewers--that's what you get when you have a kid who has a visible deformity and is trying to find acceptance. The themes are emotional, so the story is going to be emotional, too. And there's nothing wrong with emotional pay-off, provided the rest of the story is strong enough to allow that sort of behavior. And Wonder does that. Part of it is the casting. Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson do a good job of feeling like the concerned, involved parents that are--unless I miss my guess--becoming the expected norm for nuclear families. But the rest of the cast really does well, particularly the child star, Jacob Tremblay, whose makeup effects are perfect in that they allowed him to emote and act through them while still having a clearly "not-normal" vibe. It didn't feel exploitative (for me, at least) and was handled respectfully. But all of that is the superficial level: The meat of Wonder is to bring into sharp contrast the ways in which privilege, difference, and hardship are handled. The movie is replete with sacrifices made by the family for Auggie's survival, including the mother stopping her thesis writing when her son was born with unspecified birth-defects, an older sister who realizes the best way she can help her family is to lose her identity as anything other than a constant support, and a boy who has to learn how not to be selfish after having had his entire existence pandered to. This last point is subtle, but when Auggie is upset and his sister talks to him, sharing some of her pain, he's visibly shocked. How can someone else hurt? Though his inherent goodness helps him to understand the broader world, Auggie is shown to struggle with holding a grudge and being keenly open to criticisms. This makes him a vulnerable character (as does his appearance) as well as a flawed one. While I don't think I was ever thinking, "Man, Auggie is a jerk!", I did have times where I wasn't 100% on his side. That's an important aspect, because it shows that he, too, has to learn and grow--just like his classmates and family. That's what makes him an interesting character: He has somewhere to go…he isn't simply a force of inspiration in the people around him. The thing about Wonder, though, is that it's a painfully close movie for me. I mentioned that my son, Puck, was really anxious to see it. He's in fifth grade and has his own bevy of scars he carries. I'm not really keen on going into the details, so suffice to say that seeing the doctors rush the newborn Auggie out of the delivery room so that they could help him was an almost beat-for-beat recreation of what happened to me and my wife eleven years ago. While we knew of the congenital problems beforehand, we weren't allowed to hold our son the day he was born. So watching Wonder was touching on a tender spot in my heart. While Puck isn't as visibly different as Auggie, he is socially different. He grew up in comparative isolation, being disbarred from going to church, family gatherings, or even the grocery store. These early interventions ensured that he'd grow up, but it also meant that he wasn't experiencing the world in the same way that most "regular" kids do. I don't know if that's the sole explanation--it likely is much more complicated than that--for his own social awkwardness, but the fact remains that my son has a hard time. Again, I'm not keen on the details here, but Puck definitely has had issues with being bullied. It's one of the reasons that I don't know what to do with the Cub Scouts. So when Wonder's Mom and Dad send Auggie off to his first day of fifth grade, and Mom prays, "Let them be nice to him," it's a prayer that I, myself, have uttered. When the older sister finally tries to be her own self--not in a rebellious, stereotypically teenager way, but in an incremental, necessary way--I see how I, too, had to modify my needs and desires in order to help Puck into the world. But the scene that was hardest and sweetest to watch was at the end. Auggie's dad confesses that he'd hidden Auggie's favorite toy, a space helmet that covers Auggie's face. Auggie gets (understandably) upset. His dad answers, "I wanted to see my son's face. I love this face. It's the face of my son." I wished the filmmakers had given that moment some more time to breathe. It's so profound and difficult to express how it is to be the parent of a child who, by all natural rights, ought not to be alive, yet seeing him every day. I have friends whose kids have died--one even because of a heart condition much more severe than Puck's--and I have always been unable to know what to do or say: Their loss is in the ground, while mine is rubbing my patience raw. For me, my parental struggle has been to truly appreciate the lives that I've been entrusted to raise. While I get along better with my two younger boys, it's my oldest son who tries me the most and is the one who should most readily be in my thoughts. No one has guarantees; he, even fewer. Do I love to see the face of my son? Or is it simply one more thing that I have to take care of, that I love (of course!) but don't need constantly? And though I'd like to say that I only ever have love for my children, the honest truth is, they're kind of obnoxious sometimes. They're stinky and loud and incapable of doing as asked when asked. There's a catalogue of reasons--normal, human reasons--why I struggle as a parent. But I shouldn't hide myself behind a space helmet of excuses as to why I don't see my children more often, to, as Lear is urged "see better" the incredible lives that surround me.* And that's what Wonder did for me: It showed parents who have every reason to be upset and irritated and cranky--in other words, parents who were more like me--yet chose to truly relish the fact that their son was still with them, was growing and learning and overcoming challenges. Wonder made me want to be a better parent, to be more open and caring and to find ways of showing my children that I love them in a way that they understand and appreciate. That, I think, is the power of film. --- * This is one of the areas that makes my depression the most pointed, as it drains the happiness of familial connections. Since I've been taking Wellbutrin, it's improved somewhat, but this past week has been particularly hard. Seeing the movie helped…a little. Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Having my kids listen to books in the car is really nice. Not only do they tend to focus on the story, rather than bugging each other or complaining that they're bored, but it also means that I don't have to try to keep them entertained with DVDs running on the small screen mounted in the van's ceiling. Additionally, both of my reading children are really good at reading, since they read along with the narration in copies of the books. (Having a library card for a good library helps this along immensely.) However, one of the downsides (if I can call it that) about having my boys read these books is that the titles that we can pick are difficult--not because they're hard to read, necessarily, but they can be hard to find. There are lots of books at the library (little known fact, I know) but comparatively few audiobooks. Some titles that I would love to have my kids listen to aren't available on CD or digital download, and sometimes I can't find enough hardcopies of the books to go along with the narration. This has led to me really stretching, on occasion, to find something to listen to. Today, we finished listening to Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar. I was a fan of Sachar's stuff from when I was in elementary school, so I figured that my boys would like to hear some of his more zany stories. Add to that the problem of driving at night (when my boys can't listen to the book and read along at the same time), and I decided to download this one to listen to when we were in between books. It gave them a chance to relax and listen to a silly story without the stress of keeping pace with the pages. This book was as bizarre as I remember it to be. If you're unfamiliar, the series is set at Wayside Elementary School, where the builder accidentally had the plans sideways: Instead of building a school one story high and thirty classrooms long, he did it one classroom long and thirty stories high. Each chapter is a story (get it?) about one of the people in the class at the top of the school. The stories range all over from strange (the thirtieth one is particularly unusual) to the gross (there's one about a dead rat dressed up in a nearly-endless collection of raincoats) to the impossible (the one about the girl who falls out of the top story only to be caught by the yard teacher before being smashed into the concrete). All of them are quick, and they refer to each other in a way that makes it feel cohesive. What I think stands out to me about this book, though, is that silliness has its place. The lessons that it's teaching are reminiscent of Teen Titans Go! (which, if you've ever seen, you have a good sense of what this book is like--but with less shouting, violence, or fantasies about kissing Starfire) in that they either aren't a lesson at all or the moral is the opposite of what a good moral ought to be. But this is kind of its own type of worthwhile point, which is that people can be happy and silly and make no sense…and that's okay. As the world continues its depressing revolutions of insanity--as I'm writing this, a right-wing actor on Twitter is trying to shame teenage survivors of a school shooting for laughing--sometimes the best thing you can do is revel in lunacy. This book isn't absurdist--it's not trying to make an existential point about real life and the crippling conclusion that only by laughing at the cosmos can one hope to make sense out of it--but it's absurd. It relies on a child's sense of silliness and executes it well, taking itself just seriously enough to pull off the jokes. A final point: While not all of the humor worked for me, I have to say that this is a pretty funny book. I snorted at a lot of the punchlines, and actually laughed aloud at more than one idea. Writing comedy is hard, because part of what's funny is delivery--whether it be the voice, the timing, or the build-up--and a book is much more static than a standup or comedic film. While I'm not a professional comedian, I am a professional teacher, and if I couldn't keep my students laughing, I wouldn't be very good at my job. So even though I don't have time behind the mic, I do think about--and, to a certain extent, study--how comedy works and how to best deliver it. Sachar has a comedic gift that he demonstrates in this* book. I'm not necessarily recommending this one, but neither am I saying to avoid it. It's definitely cotton-candy--a read that's light, sweet, and doesn't stick around your mind long--but that can be a good thing. Having everything be as detailed, in-depth, and thought-provoking as some of the books I've read with my kids…well, that gets boring. It's good to be silly every once in a while. --- * I have read a number of Sachar's books. There's one that I liked so much that I've bought it twice…though that's because I wanted/needed the book but couldn't find it, so I had to buy it again, then found the original. Anyway, if you want one that's still really funny but not quite so bizarre, you could do worse than checking out Dogs Don't Tell Jokes. There is a bit with an invisible friend, but aside from that, it's a good story that talks about the insecurities that a young kid who wants to be funny has. Having dealt with self-esteem issues and depression since I was very young, I always identified with Goon, who relies on comedy to be his way of interacting. Yeah, that's a good one. Oh, and Louis Sachar also wrote Holes, which I didn't really think was as great as everyone was making it out to be. Well, everyone's a critic. How ought politics interact with religion?
Growing up in Utah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meant that I grew up with the assumption that conservatism was the Lord's politics and that evil men like Bill Clinton were going to bring the absolute economic ruin of us all and likely help usher in the final moments of the last days. I remember, in fact, hearing on the radio that Clinton had approved some sort of military action and thinking to myself, Well, I can tell my kids that, no thanks to President Clinton, I was sweeping the kitchen floor when World War III broke out. I assumed that, because Bill Clinton was involved, it was inherently and fundamentally wrong. When I got to vote for president for the first time in my life, it was in 2004 and I voted Republican straight down the ticket. When I hit college, I was taking a course on ethics and values by Dr. Bulger, who challenged a lot of my thinking simply by discussing important philosophical issues. It was in that class, really, that my love of philosophy was kindled (though listening to Dr. Truman G. Madsen's lectures on philosophy also provided a bedrock, of sorts, which I had with me throughout my missionary service). I think his approach worked for me because it wasn't confrontational, necessarily, but neither was it interested in shoring up the students' worldview. While I didn't study philosophy in school, I learned how others thought, felt, and responded to some of the things that I took for granted. There's nothing new or surprising about this experience: Most people, I think, have a time when they stop thinking theirs is the only way and there's no more room for learning and instead pursue other epistemological conceits. In my case, it wasn't Dr. Bulger alone who made me start considering other possibilities for viewing the world, including my politics: It was my LDS mission. I've talked about my mission before. It was a Dickensian moment for my life, in part because I didn't understand that I had dysthymia, and in part because I kept expecting something more profound to happen to me. So, yes, it was the best and worst of times for me, and I don't regret it or think that it's a problem. However, one of the things that living in South Florida taught me was the great expanse of humanity that exists outside of my miniscule pocket of the universe. Most notably, I learned a lot about the suffering and sacrifices of the immigrant population there. Because I had been called as a Spanish-speaking missionary, I sought out people who spoke Spanish, and the vast majority of those people were immigrants (though some were second generation, so technically they were American-born citizens). Learning about what was required for them to come to America--legally or not, it didn't matter--showed me that there is a lot of value in the opportunities that the United States provides. That helped me appreciate my country in a way that was much more tangible and important than the occasional flag I'd wave during a too-hot Fourth of July parade. I still remember, back in 2007, sitting in my in-laws' basement, feeling upset because of something that I'd read online. I can't remember what was being discussed specifically, but it had to do with immigration. One of the people on the forum I was flipping through had the BYU logo for his profile picture* and his was the one in which the most hateful and racist things about immigrants were being said. That's when I realized that I really wasn't a Republican. Now, there are plenty of semantic differences between Republicans** and conservatives, and there are a lot of people within the party who don't see themselves in the ways that Republicans usually market their politics. I recognize that. But by being a part of a group, you assume a lot of the inherent identity of that group. On individual cases, you can maybe extract some variation, but in terms of lump sum, that's the whole point: There's power in plurality, and Republicanism is filled with all sorts of people. And the lump sum of Republicanism is--currently, but I would contend, has been for a long time--pretty rotten. There were other experiences--including exploitation of workers at the hands of burgeoning bourgeoisie bosses--that further pushed me from any sort of identification with conservative positions. As I grew up and became more politically aware, I realized that any sense of solidarity I could have with the right-wing of American politics was impossible. Not that I found much comfort in "the other side" (as if there are two choices here, but so long as it makes easy copy, we're effectively in a two-party country). Don't assume that I'm a Democrat, either. Libertarianism is a sick joke that's two parts egoism and the rest callousness. I'm not liberal, since there's too much love of money within the neo-liberal scene (and that's the only scene that liberals are actually in) and that's absolutely part of the reason that we have so many supposedly intractable problems. If I had to pick a label, left-leaning independent is probably the best--lots of socialism and materialist readings in my neck of the woods--but that still misses what I'm after, and labels fail too often for it to be useful to me. In short, I view politics the way I do and there are precious few politicians--especially in Utah--who reflect what I think. But there was something else that happened to me whilst I was turning away from Republicanism: I found myself struggling more with my understanding of my religious culture. Despite being dyed-in-the-wool Mormon, a rejection of the politics still felt like a rejection of Mormonism. As I mentioned above, I'm not conservative. I don't agree with hardly a sliver of any plank that the GOP puts forward. In fact, the idea that I'm lumped together with the group of Mormons--and therefore am (understandably) considered part of conservative politics--turns my stomach. Though I can't say for absolute certain, I don't think there's anything that could be demonstrated to me that makes me feel other than the fact that President Trump is the GOP norm, conservativism par excellence, not an aberration or perversion of its policies and mindset. It's open to debate if Mormonism is doctrinally conservatively minded (I don't think it is) or if the culture, in large part because of the Cold War and the trash that people like Cleon Skousen peddled, has married itself into a presumed political preference. It's clear that Democrats can be Mormons (Harry Reid is easily the most visible of that breed), and there are a few others who view their Mormonism as pushing them in a different political vein. Yet those are certainly exceptions--they hardly speak for all of political Mormonism any more than Mitt Romney does. The theological issues with this are thorny: If what we value religiously is uniform, then shouldn't there be uniform behaviors and, in this case, political theories? What kind of responsibility do religious institutions*** have when they align themselves with political causes that cause trauma, damage, or pain? And if there's a religion like mine, one that claims divine guidance (as many do), and the politics goes against the doctrines of that religion, what happens then? I don't know. I haven't been able to figure out how to divorce politics from religion. I…just don't know. --- * Sure, the possibility exists that there was a person using the massive Y who was actually not a fan of BYU and was only doing that in order to throw off the rest of the posters. People do weird things. It's rather irrelevant--and impossible to learn the truth of--to what I'm trying to say here, though. ** Can we let this footnote be the acknowledgement that Democrats and liberal identities can be considered the same way and not let that observation derail the point or even pretend that it matters to what's being said? Thank you. *** As institutions aren't people, they shouldn't be allowed into politics. But the problem with that is, upon dissolving any party or lobby, there is an impulse that people who are like-minded ought to be allowed to work together. That's all a party is, in its most essential terms. Nevertheless, I'm against lobbies, parties, and special interests groups. If people of an institution wish to push forward a political agenda, that's fine: Rights reside in people (not corporations or institutions). When I was hanging out at Barnes and Noble recently, I overheard a snatch of conversation that points at an inherent tension in how I--and most English teachers I know--teach their curriculum.
In my memory's paraphrase of the moment, one woman said to her friend, "I understand that it's a classic, but if you don't want to read it, you shouldn't be forced to read it. That kind of thing sucks the fun out of reading…" I get that idea. I like to read. That's why I went to college to study English. I also like to teach. That's why I went to college to train to be a teacher. So teaching English is a combination of things that I really like. I may even be kind of good at them. Because I was trained in both teaching and English in a particular way, I kind of assume that that's at least one effective way of learning--an "it worked for me" kind of assumption. Like almost everyone, I read whatever I liked (though there were some books that I avoided and that my mom didn't want me looking at). And, like most everyone, I had to read some books in school whether I wanted to or not…unless I wanted to take a failing grade, which wasn't really a viable alternative for me. Going through high school, I still remember (and, in some cases, have) books like The Stranger, Pride and Prejudice, Farwell to Manzanar, The Scarlet Letter, Othello, and Of Mice and Men. Basically none of them would have been a part of my reading vocabulary, and some of the books weren't worth the time I gave them (Sister Carrie being one of them that springs most readily to mind), while others laid a foundation of appreciation off of which I've continued to build (The Merchant of Venice was in the tenth grade, and I still remember the way that Mrs. White taught Macbeth that year). While there were some misses, I think most were hits in that they were positive reading experiences and, for the most part, enjoyable. But none of them was a Spider-Man book. None had dragons, magic, spaceships, or any of the other things that I loved (and still love). The closest we got to reading fantasy was in my mythology class, and while I loved reading about Fenrir eating gods up during Ragnarok, a three-page synopsis of an old Nordic poem isn't really the same. In short, my self-selected reading diet included significantly different genres than what I was given in my classes. College made this even more clear: While I enjoyed a lot of stuff in the British Literature section of my major, American literature never really resonated with me. "It's about murder, adultery, or both," I said after having read The Great Gatsby, As I Lay Dying, East of Eden, and The Awakening. In retrospect, maybe that's why I liked Moby-Dick so much: It was about a whale. That was a nice change of pace. So I get the fact that being "forced" (inasmuch a grade can force anyone to do anything that they don't really want to do) to read a book will put a reader into a bit of a funk over the point. I certainly didn't know why I was being forced to read Pride and Prejudice the first time I went through it (though now it's one of my favorite novels). And I would never have picked up anything by Jane Austen had I not bought into the way grades worked. My life would have been deeply impoverished had I only ever read what I wanted. I think there's a false assumption that reading is inherently a chore and only by making it "fun" can we ensure that the rising generation likewise wishes to read. And if that assumption is true--if the only purpose of reading is pleasure--then I'm definitely doing the wrong thing in my job. Right now, we're reading Things Fall Apart, and that is not an easy book. Not because of the vocabulary or writing style, but because of what it discusses, what it can make a reader question and reconceptualize. But Achebe's masterpiece is not a fun book in any but the most generous of senses. A manifestation of this assumptions is also seen in the way that the Harry Potter series was sold: "It gets kids reading books!" That is, the downward sales of children literature made people think that kids didn't want to read. When Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released, that changed the dynamic and suddenly children literature was selling really well. And it's true that millennials read more than other age groups. Buy I'm not convinced that Harry Potter led kids to read more: I think Harry Potter led kids to read more Harry Potter. While there are likely individual cases where that's the case--because a kid read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she wanted to try out some of the other famous books that were on her mom's bookshelf--I'd venture to say that there are also anecdotal cases of kids being assigned a book from school and then going on to read more from that author and genre, too. In other words, I don't think it's the volition of the reader that changed kids into readers: I think it was reading something that connected with them. And that leads to the question of curriculum. Why teach the old books, the classics? Without going into details there, the shortest answer is, the classics are good. They're really, really good. You can mine a great deal of significance from Hamlet (so much, in fact, that I've studied it annually for ten years and I'm still learning more with each pass), and you can mine quite a lot from Alice in Wonderland. That's what makes them classic. But there's plenty of richness to mine in the Harry Potter series, too. Not only are there a lot of books that tackle a lot of important themes, but the series as a whole has depth and importance, particularly in the light of resisting tyranny, eugenics, and racism. You can find those themes in many different arenas of literature and the point of school is to help you learn more about those arenas. Indeed, that may be the most compelling reason why schools should avoid focusing too much on worthwhile popular fiction: The newest YA book has a marketing department; Dante does not. While I understand these ladies' conversation at the bookstore--the best place to be having that kind of talk, to be honest--I think I have to disagree with them. If there's a problem with school's "forcing" (still don't like that phrase) kids to read a certain kind of book, it's less the book and more the coercion of the grading/graduation system that is causing the problems. But without a structure in which books can be thoughtfully shared and explored--and a school does this better than almost any other structure--then the self-guided approach tends toward, for lack of a better phrase, a hedonistic reading. My tenth graders have to read hard books and excerpts from old and complicated poems. They're confronted with new ideas on a nearly-daily basis (when I'm doing my job right). The conduit for that is the literature that I've selected to give them. If a student doesn't read the book, she misses out on a great deal of value, even if she spent that time reading the latest book in the Divergent series--that is, something she wanted to read. Additionally, a school ought to be a place where the books selected are based upon what the teacher is passionate about. That leads to a class in which a mentoring situation can occur. While class size can influence the way each individual is able to express herself about the book, the interest, interpretation, questions, and clarifications that the teacher provides can be the way through which difficult texts become accessible. The success of Harry Potter, as Vox describes it, is because people wanted to talk about the books. The conversation around the book and because of the book is sometimes just as crucial as the conversation that a reader has with the book. A classroom is the perfect place for that conversation because of the diversity of points of view and life experiences that are brought there. This is why book clubs exist: So that adults can replicate some of the classroom experiences that make book reading so worthwhile. So, yes: I "force" my students to read books that they wouldn't have picked up otherwise. But I don't leave it at that. I go through it with them. Perhaps, then, the problem isn't with the book but with the teacher? If that's the case, I better make sure that I'm doing my job. This year, I want to make a more concerted effort to write some of my thoughts about the books that I'm reading. I try to write about them as soon as I finish them, though that hasn't always been the case. As it stands right now, though I did complete my listen-through of The Bible's Cutting Room Floor by Dr. Joel M. Hoffman. Coming off of my experience with the lecture series on the Hebrew Bible, this was a good follow-up.
The Bible's Cutting Room Floor goes through a process summarizing many aspects of apocryphal writings, as well as history about Jerusalem, Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Hoffman, in fact, puts quite a bit of time into the nearly unbelievable story of how the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and recognized for what they are, which in and of itself made for an interesting read. Since a lot of these apocryphal sources come because of the Scrolls, it's also necessary context. Most of the book, however, is an explanation about the different apocalypses that weren't included in the eventual product that is the Bible. Books like The Life of Adam and Eve that picks up the thin threads of Genesis and weaves a fuller account of the characters from Paradise Lost (or our forbearers…something like that), or The Apocalypse (that is, the revelation) of Abraham, which describes the life of Abram (eventually Abraham) in a way that adds--and, in some ways--changes the way that the biblical account is read. Dr. Hoffman writes well, keeping focused on the ways in which the stories both challenge and enhance the way the Bible narrates events, and he pays attention to questions that are being answered--and not answered--through these "new" stories. That helps me to keep track of what's going on, since I don't sit down with a Bible next to me to review how the canon really goes. What really stood out to me is the way it made me feel. I mentioned (somewhere) that, because members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints aren't sola scriptura (on a couple of levels), we turn to the Pearl of Great Price for a lot of our early exploration of the Old Testament. Within the Pearl of Great Price, there's a book called the Book of Abraham. In it, there's a history and story about how and why Abraham did what he did in his life. When I got to the part in the book that's about the Apocalypse of Abraham, I was uncertain how to proceed. Would I want it to sound like Sunday School--what would that mean? What if it were different? How different did it need to be to feel 'wrong'? In other words, I couldn't decide if I wanted this Apocalypse to be a slightly-different version of what I believe is revealed scripture, or if I wanted it to be something on an entirely separate level. As it tends to happen in the world, my desires had no impact on what was actually there. The Apocalypse of Abraham dives into Abraham's past and family life, which is strikingly brief in the Christian tradition. In Genesis 11:32, Abram's father dies. In Mormon doctrine, however, there are a few verses at the beginning of the Book of Abraham that explain that Abram found it "needful for [him] to obtain another place of residence" (1:1) and a facsimile of a drawing taken from the papyrus that contained the Book of Abraham. The facsimile is of Abraham on an altar, about to be sacrificed by his father, Terah. For Mormons, this adds to the poignancy and dedication of Abraham when he has to tie his own son to an altar (because we trace our religious ancestry through the Judeo-Christian line, we believe it was Isaac, not Ishmael, who was on the altar). The Apocalypse of Abraham, however, goes into greater detail that may--or may not--harmonize with Mormonic teaching on this. In the Apocalypse of Abraham, Terah is, indeed, a pagan worshipper. But Abraham's problem with his dad is a theological one, and he slowly begins to disbelieve in the traditions of his father when he puts the idol of a god, Barisat, close to the fire. The idol burns, proving (to Abraham) that there is no power in the idol. As he's considering what that might mean, he is told by God to escape before his house burns down. In the process, Terah dies. Abraham seems to be troubled by this, because he has to come to grips with his own involvement with the death of his father, which puts a surprisingly human face on one of the most influential--you could even say legendary or mythical--people in all the history of the world. His troubles and struggles continue throughout the rest of the Apocalypse, particularly when Azazel (more normally called Satan) descends before being rebuffed by Abraham and the angel that's accompanying him. After Azazel leaves, Yahoel (the guardian angel) gives Abraham special garments that had once been set aside for Azazel. For a Mormon, there are a lot of areas of interest in this, but they don't easily click into place or square with what's already considered scripture. And that's why I was unsure how I felt as I approached this part of the book. If the point of a religion is to live by faith, then isn't any attempt to plumb the past for proofs immediately invalid, even if the proofs arrive? That is, of what use are archaeological explorations of the Fertile Crescent if we don't care if it backs up the Bible, because we're going to believe it anyway? And what's the point of studying out religious things at all if we're never to think about contradictions, changes, and interpretations? Though the book isn't about faith per se, I feel like The Bible's Cutting Room Floor gave me a chance to look again at how I perceive and believe. This is a constant process for me--probably part of the reason why, in the last year alone, I've gone through at least a half-dozen books about the Bible and the history of the world in which it was written--and this book has helped me to think more deeply about what I can consider evidence. That isn't to say that the Dead Sea Scrolls and other apocryphal writings--the stuff that ended up on the "cutting room floor", as Dr. Hoffman calls it--are necessarily evidence, necessarily false, necessarily necessary, or necessarily helpful. When questioned about the idea of the Apocrypha (long before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), Joseph Smith said, in essence, "There's good stuff and some not so good stuff. Read it if you'd like." I don't know that I understand this stuff well enough to make a clear judgment, but this introduction to an entire other area of potential scriptural exploration has been an enjoyable and enlightening one. As far as a recommendation, I think your mileage may vary with this. The book isn't too terribly long, but it talks about a lot of things that may disagree with you, particularly if you're highly religious. I would have liked some additional interpretation--that is, qualified explanations from Dr. Hoffman's point of view--rather than near-constant synopses, but, at the same time, that was basically the purpose of the book. Read it if you'd like. This is a hard book to read. It isn't hard in the way, say, Derrida or Calvino is hard, or hard in the way that James Joyce is hard. It's not a literary hard; it's an emotional hard. The story about how The Hate U Give got published is almost as incredible as the story itself. Rather than rehash those details, you can read up on the story here, though I will point out that a debut author getting a six-figure deal--and that book going on to sell 100,000 copies, is fairy-tale level stuff. That it happened to someone so deserving is an extra layer of coolness. I mean, really: Black woman writer, using a computer that's held together with tape, ends up landing a huge book deal and saying something powerful and real at the same time? That's pretty awesome. Oh, and she's contracted for a second book that comes out this June because that was part of the original deal. And there's a movie not only optioned (which is usual for a popular YA novel), but in the works? I mean, the whole thing is a bundle of inspirational bodaciousness…bodacity. Whatever that word would be. That's the light side of The Hate U Give, and it's worth celebrating. The book, too, has a strong message of "We can make things turn out all right," and though it's hopeful, it's not a sunshine and meadows ending, either. Here's the thing about THUG: It is the kind of book that matters because what it talks about is the lived experience of far too many Americans. It talks about racism in an open and unflinching way, avoids familiar tropes for this kind of topic--whenever it gets "preachy", it's less about preaching and more about explaining to a broad audience about the reality of Black America. The humiliations. The tragedies. The anger. The resolution. Coming from my can-camouflage-with-a-white-board level of melanin deficiency, it's hard for me to understand the experience of Black people in America. I have some empathy with the Latino community in its broadest sense, having worked closely with people from almost every Central- and South American country whilst I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I have enough friends and students (current and former) who are non-binary in their sexual orientation that I have visible examples of LGBTQ communities who help me to understand what life is like for them. But Native American and Black communities are harder for me to wrap my head around. This is likely a failing of my own imagination--and something that I'm trying really hard to overcome. I say this because there's plenty of literature, movies, and documentaries about the plights of all sorts of minorities in the United States, but I don't avail myself of them. I have my reasons, and one of them is language. At least, when it comes to a large swath of Black representation in film and music, profanities are not shyly shared. (The Hate U Give is a good example of that.) And though it's childish to say, "I'm not going to read a story about the murder of a Black boy and the fallout that action has on a community because it says the 'eff-word'," it's one of the reasons that I tend not to put a lot of time into learning more about the vibrant history and nuances of the Black American experience*. When I first learned what The Hate U Give was about, I couldn't decide if I should read it. Part of it is a snobbish thing--if I'm going to read, I want to make sure that it's really something worthwhile, so focusing on the classics and classic literature is a safe bet. But I'm also someone who's read five volumes of Spawn comics, so I know that that argument isn't really the case. No, I didn't want to read it because I knew it wouldn't be fiction. Sure, Starr is a fictional character, and her town of Garden Heights is, from what I can see, made up. But it's made up of scraps (and that's all that's left some people--maybe even most people--in America) from real places. And though the Carter family isn't real, their traumas are. Though Khalil wasn't really gunned down by an officer who mistook a hairbrush for a handgun, Tamir Rice was murdered because he held a toy. The racial insensitivity (if I'm being generous) of Hailey isn't fictitious: I know plenty of White people who respond to these all-too frequent tragedies in the same way. There were times, while I was working through the immediate fallout of Khalil's shooting (which happens in the opening pages of the book), that I thought, I need to read something tonight. Then I'd look at where I was in The Hate U Give and jump onto Twitter instead. I cared a lot about Starr--she's an engaging, funny, fun, and interesting person, surrounded by thoughtful, hard-working, dedicated people--and I didn't want to see her get hurt. Every time she was having a good time, I kept thinking, How's this going to last? Every positive experience was sure to be followed up with yet another tragedy. This continued until I finally reached the end of the book. Then, right as I thought I was safe to feel that we'd reached the clear, Starr pulled me out of the fiction and back into the reality. She talks about wanting to push on, advocating for those who had died, but also those who are still alive. She lists her brothers and sisters, then says, It's also about Oscar. I recognize some of those names--not all, but some. I know there are more…far too many more. And that was what struck me so powerfully. The names she includes before that list are all fictitious, the imaginary members of an imaginary family. But then she pulls back the curtain and steps into the real world, documenting a short, painful list of real-life tragedies. No one in Trayvon Martin's life can flip to the front of the book to when he was still alive.
That's hard to read. That's hard to live. That's hard to believe. And there's a danger to this kind of writing. It can point toward complacency in the people who most need to act and change ("It worked out all right in the end! Happy endings mean the pain was worth it!"); it can trivialize or, in some ways worse, capitalize on the real tragedies brought on by police brutality and racism in our country. It takes the safety bubble, the distance that the fiction provides, and confronts the reader with a sharp reminder that though this story is fiction, it isn't a lie. In some ways, the book is predictable, but not in the same formulaic way that comes about because I've seen too many movies and read too many books. The tragedy in the book is the one that's lived in the headlines and recorded and mourned over online: The crime, the suspicion, the redirections, the failure of the justice system. The plot hinges not on clever contrivances but a connection with the real world from which it sprang. There is, of course, plenty of innovation and newness that the story shares, including the way in which Starr has to split her personality between her private school self and her "ghetto" self--a superheroine's schizophrenia without any of a superheroine's powers--which leads to additional ways of exploring interracial relationships and how we want to be perceived by others. What Angie Thomas has managed to create in Starr and The Hate U Give is visceral, powerful, memorable, and important. She has shown the fundamental thesis of Black Lives Matter as an activist movement--not the talking-head interpretation of punditry--and shown a light on a massive injustice. Though I don't miss the sadness the story dwells in, I do miss the Carter family. Her characters feel vibrant and alive, even in their difficulties, and that sort of writing is why this book is successful and does all the things that good literature does. Though I still think it swears too much.** Highly recommended. --- * As for the Native Americans, I carry a lot of embarrassment about how the United States treated them. I once asked a parent who is Native American what she felt about the history of Native Americans and how they've been treated since Columbus in 1492. She said, quite honestly, that it still hurts. It's been over 500 years and the wounds still aren't healing. That conversation has given me a lot of pause over the years. I'm trying to bring myself to learn more, but there's a lot of sadness in that history. It's hard for me to get into that mindset. This is one of the areas of my character that is difficult to confess to, as I do not have any excuses for my ignorance save shame and the feeble excuse of "It makes me uncomfortable." ** I'm prudish about swears. A little goes a long way for me. But that's me faulting a culture different than my own for being different, and that's not the right attitude to have. So pretend I didn't say that. The thing that I like about Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (aside from the fact it lets me write Lloyd, which is fun to type, what with its double ells and all) is that the story is pretty straight-forward fantasy fare--quests, good guys versus bad guys, and even malevolent magical Macguffins (say that three times fast)--all laced with important messages and growth for Taran.
I talked about The Book of Three before. Much like in that essay, I'm not aiming to give a full synopsis of the book. If you haven't read The Black Cauldron, you should! (There is a movie version--Disney made it back in 1985--but I haven't seen it, so I can't vouch for it. Based on the trailer, it's a mixture of the first two books anyway, so it likely won't help you much if you need more than a summary. You can rent the movie off of YouTube if you really care to.) Instead, I wanted to focus a bit more on what is the most important part of The Black Cauldron: the ending. If you are planning on reading the book, you need to do that before reading on, since…y'know…I'm talking about the ending. So…spoilers. Obviously. This book is about Taran and his faithful companions going on a cauldron hunt--the Black Cauldron creates zombies that then fight for the bad guy, so it makes sense to want to destroy it. Most of the book shows how Taran struggles to find the thing, only to have it, at the very end, taken by the "surprise twist" of the ending. I put that in quotes because, while I was surprised by the ending of the book when I was a kid, the plot twist is so brightly illuminated it hardly casts a foreshadow. One of the minor characters, a cold and distant man called Morgant, betrays the fellowship of Prydain's defenders and takes the Black Crochan (as they sometimes call it) for himself. It's a similar story beat as the ending of The Fellowship of the Ring, though Morgant is no Boromir. What Alexander does in this part of the book, though, bears some analysis. Throughout the book, whenever Morgant is mentioned, it's in adulation. He's loyal, capable, and the stalwart example of what a good lord should be. Though he doesn't get a lot of page time, whenever he's there, people nearly always defer to his judgment, and the reader gets the sense that he has done great things for Prydain. Years of sacrifice and war against the constant threat of Arawn (the Sauron-parallel in the story) has shown him to be a trustworthy man. So the betrayal is abrupt--as I said, Morgant isn't on the pages often--but shocking. We've heard so much about him, it's a surprise that he has plans of using the Black Cauldron for his own ends. However, there's another character that needs to be mentioned: The haughty Prince Ellidyr. The man is prodigiously strong, and his pride is as powerful as his arm. Ellidyr is frequently in the company of Taran and his companions, and his behavior is always deplorable. Sneering, bickering, and constantly belittling others around him, he acts as though his rank--a younger child in the house of Pen-Llarcau--makes him far beyond the others in worth. Alexander makes it a point that, by the end, most everyone--in the book and reading it--hates Ellidyr. The only thing that cares about the man is his horse, who's just as temperamental as he is. When the final moments of the companions' betrayal are coming to a close, Ellidyr has an opportunity to destroy the Black Cauldron: By sacrificing himself in the Cauldron, thereby destroying it…and killing himself. When the moment comes, Ellidyr doesn't hesitate. In fact, he struggles to fulfill his choice: Despite being stabbed in the side, he manages to fight his way to the Crochan and throw himself in. The sacrifice complete, the man and the Cauldron are destroyed. His mare, insensate with grief, throws herself off a nearby cliff, adding a chilling animalistic suicide to the scene. These two men are running contrariwise to each other: One is venerated throughout the book, only to betray and become like what the companions fight to defeat; the other embodies every selfish and prideful impulse, one who has homicidal desires if it means he can claim more honor, yet dies doing what no one else had the ability or bravery to complete. Like a twist in a braid, those who were appreciated shifted sides with those who were despised. Listening to this book, it made me realize that Alexander was trying to dramatize a couple of things: One, how incongruous humans can be. Sometimes we think we know someone, only to learn something that utterly shifts our view of them. This is the hard part of growing up--meeting you heroes only to learn that they're just as flawed and human as everyone else. We're both good and evil, lazy and industrious, shrewd and foolish. That's what people are, and though there are some who more thoroughly in one direction than another, people will be consistently inconsistent--and that's about all you can count on. The second one is the idea of judgment. Is Morgant a bad guy? He is at the end. But if you don't read the last three chapters, he never becomes one. Is Ellidyr a hero? Again, without finishing the story, Ellidyr's status as a would-be murderer is likely the best analysis you can give him. Morgant falls; Ellidyr rises. Do the actions of those men in their final moments dictate who they are? Is Morgant's good retroactively undone? Are Ellidyr's crimes posthumously forgiven? I don't know. These questions are dramatized in the book, but the answers aren't. Maybe there aren't answers. Shakespeare said, "The evil that men do lives after them;/ The good is oft interred with their bones."* There's a temptation, because this is fiction, to allow the last impression be the final impression of a character. Ellidyr acted nobly at the end, therefore he is noble. But I'm not sure that's necessarily what Alexander is pointing at. Or, at least, I don't know if I can agree with that point. While I would prefer that people not inter the good I've done with my bones, I don't have any way of controlling that. There is a lot of repentance that I have to do on the way to try to live a good life. Is that enough? I'm not talking eschatologically here, either. I mean reputation and honor, yes, but the more nebulous "having done good in the world" type of thing. And if I am a good person, and I betray my ideals moments before dying, have I then undone my hard work? Am I wicked and evil because of that one act? Again, I don't know the answers to these. But, as I mentioned in my first essay of the Prydain Chronicles, there's a lot more to look at in these short books than a simple story of a quest and a black pot. You should read it. --- * That one is from Julius Caesar. Another way of putting it, as he did in Henry VIII, is "Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water." Things Fall Apart
Every year, I assign the same six novels to my tenth grade students. There's a security in teaching the same text again and again, to say nothing of the fact that it both simplifies my preparation for the class as well as deepens my understanding of it. This time, I decided to try reading the whole book before even starting in with my students. So, even though I gave them their copies to read today, I finished reading mine this afternoon. And, since I'm trying to document the books I read more fully (though I still owe an essay for The Hate U Give), I figured I should drop some words on Things Fall Apart. Part of what I love about Achebe's book is that it's so subtle. I mean, immensely subtle. Achebe's purpose in writing the book is to be an anti-Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad's book about going into the heart of Africa has long stood as the example par excellence of British imperialism, but Achebe felt that it went about the topic all the wrong way. He was more interested in exploring the world that was disrupted by the arrival of 19th century British involvement, so he wrote his masterpiece, publishing it in the late 1950s. Since much of the history of Things Fall Apart, as a novel, are already known or readily available, I'd rather focus on what I meant by its subtlety. See, Achebe wanted to create an empathy in the reader for those who overtaken, but he had to do it in a very particular way: He had to make the story understandable and even palatable to a European/American/Western audience while, at the same time, being true and authentic to the roots of his culture and his ancestry. And to do that, he had to make sure that Okonkwo, the main character of the book, was not a particularly empathetic character. In fact, Okonkwo is a jerk. Even by Ibo (as it's spelled in the book; Igbo is another spelling) standards, Okonkwo has some serious issues. Yet there's a lot that Westerners can see in Okonkwo that really resonates with, for lack of a better word, White culture. In the book, Okonkwo is an immensely hard working man. He works so hard, in fact, that even forced idleness--whether for religious observation or because of a natural pause in the cycle of the seasons--grates his nerves. Many strands of Puritanism likewise put an absolute premium on hard work, viewing it not as a way to salvation, necessarily, but as the paradigm off of which one should lead one's life. In other words, work is its own reward and a demonstration to God one's piety. While Okonkwo isn't a Puritan in terms of religion, he's conservative in that same (apolitical) way; work is his proof of worth. "He takes it too far, though," say some. True. That's the point. He's going far in the other direction--and he has his reasons, as the book expounds. But that's the whole thing: By having Okonkwo operate on a bit of morality that is common, Achebe generates a type of empathy. But by having Okonkwo take it too far, the reader is given a space--I'm like him, but not too like him. Thus the lesson of universality of human behavior goes down easier; there isn't a sense of sermonizing that "We're all the same!" but instead a dramatization of it, with a bumper that ensures a sense of safety. This happens throughout the novel. One example I often share is that of the mosquito: Drawing the reader's attention to it subtly in the beginning of nine, Achebe provides an explanation for the rest of the action in the chapter. Here, we see Okonkwo's favorite child, Ezinma, lying sick. According to the history that unfolds in the course of the chapter, it is because Ezinma is considered an ogbanje, "one of those wicked children who, when they died, entered their mothers' wombs to be born again" (77). For Okonkwo, the clan's explanation for her sickness serves him. He has faith in and trusts the words of Okagbue, the medicine man when Okagbue asks Ezinma for her iyi-uwa (a totem these "wicked children" use to bring themselves back to harass their mothers). An entire episode unravels from there--and thus we see why Ezinma is sick. But the mosquito is there at the beginning of the chapter to provide an alternative explanation. Maybe Ezinma is not really an ogbanje. Maybe she doesn't have an iyi-uwa. Maybe she's really sick…maybe it's the mosquito's fault. Maybe she has malaria. The point is that both stories serve the purpose of the novel, and both illustrate the tension between the worlds: The rational, Western explanation; the spiritual, traditional explanation. Achebe, I think, would land on traditional readings if pressed, but there are frequent areas in this novel that allow him escape routes, as it were. This is similar to what Milton does in Paradise Lost and his masterful use of the word "or". An option is provided, and people can read it as they list. When it comes to what he's trying to accomplish in the novel, that subtlety is crucial. If he says the flat out truth--British imperialism undermined and destroyed a vibrant, rich culture--the people who most need to hear that truth (the inheritors of the British/Western/imperialist mindset) will close their ears. Indeed, he says things in a similar fashion a couple of times in the book, but he always takes care to put these sentiments in the thoughts and mouths of his characters. He avoids editorializing by allowing the logical protestors of imperial policies--the oppressed--to express their ideas. Though I'm expressing it baldly, Things Fall Apart is a beautiful example of how to tackle a delicate subject while still remaining firmly in a moral position. Few, I think, can read Achebe's work and say, "Nah, imperialism was all good." At the same time, Achebe goes out of the way to provide characters with the sort of conversion (literally) to the White man's way of thinking, thus allowing those who seek exculpatory readings to latch onto the idea that there was positive gain by the imperial behaviors. Lately, there has been a bit of revisionist history pressured onto the concept of imperialism. Obviously, a lot of this is definitional, but most critiques come through the 19th century European expansion into Africa, Indochina, and Pacific Islands. As Dr. Harari points out in Sapiens, mankind's history is one of conquering, extinction, imposition of one hegemony over another. Who is "original" in a species so mixed as ours? And while this is true, I think there's something to be said for the post-Enlightenment mindset: After the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Men were penned, the Western world took a turn away from any form of inherent supremacy. While we have not lived up to those ideals--hardly at all, in some cases--the point is that we set for ourselves a new standard by which we insisted we ought to be judged: Through the rationally arrived at human rights. With the passing of time from the Enlightenment, however, the realization of those ideals has been mired by the insensate inhumanity rendered on humankind. So when we talk about imperialism, it's fair to look at it as a post-Enlightenment West imposing its will--almost always violently--upon other cultures, peoples, and places. Genocide, rape, rubble, and ruin came in the wake of European "exploration" of Africa, and any dismissal of that is a travesty. "But," some are quick to say, "look at all the good they did! Look at the railroads, the medicines, the education that have been brought!" Yup. Those are there, and they're all positive things. Unasked for things. Forced-upon-them things. But positive things nonetheless. The problem I have with arguing that imperialism was actually good because of whatever positive benefits were bestowed upon the people is twofold: One, it's immensely Machiavellian. I'm not much of a Machiavel in the first place--in fact, I think the guy's philosophies have done a lot of harm (while getting a lot done, admittedly), so having an "ends justify the means" mentality to human interactions is myopic at best and dangerous at worst. The second reason I don't think this argument holds a lot of water is because the assertion is that where the invaded peoples were headed wasn't already good. Africa is a huge continent--something like 20% of the landmass of the entire planet is in Africa--so there's no way that broad generalizations will satisfy anything. There were some absolutely atrocious behaviors of the native Africans against each other. The Euro-American slave trade would never have flourished the way it did were it not for Africans selling each other as slaves to the White man. Like every human culture (and like Things Fall Apart illustrates), there are good and bad aspects everywhere. And Africa certainly has its share of problems. But they are their problems. To assume that India is better off because of the British rule (thanks to the hundreds of thousands of miles of railroad) diminishes the capabilities and potential of India to navigate her own issues. There is still immense suffering in the world, and Africa is in really bad shape. It's entirely possible, however, that the immense damage that imperialism (and the slave trade before it) caused the continent has so set back its potential that we'll never know what it could have been--that counterfactual may be lost to us.* Achebe's book helps me to recognize that noble desires must be tempered with a very cautious, careful approach to how one interacts with another culture and place. It helps me to see how we can avoid harming others in our rush to help them. It shows me that there are, sometimes, very real, external reasons why things fall apart. I recommend it. --- * Part of why I liked Black Panther was because it answered--in the way good science fiction does--what that might look like. Black Panther When highly-hyped movies come out--for good (Wonder Woman) and ill (Justice League)--there's always a plethora of hot takes and insta-critiques that come out. I can lay blame on our "hyper-connected world" and "speed of communication", and while that's certainly true, it's probably more important to realize that we're humans after all, which means we've always been good at rumors, gossip, and judging things. As a small, late 16th century example of this, consider how Robert Greene, in his pamphlet "A Groatsworth of Wit", takes some not-so-subtle digs at the "upstart crow" of William Shakespeare. There are likely older examples of people voicing disgust (or approval) over something or someone and then using the best mode of communication to let people know how the writer feels. While it's true that there are things to take away from every film and book and game, it's also true that some films, books, or games can give more to the audience. And that's part of why Black Panther was such an enjoyable movie. Though I may have said this a number of times before, my interests lie in the direction of the oppressed and the marginalized. Part of that is because of my own tradition (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suffered some extreme persecution in the early days of the Church) but also because of my religion (I've promised God that I would "bear one another's burdens" and to be "willing to mourn with those who mourn", as described in Mosiah 18:8-9). As a feminist, I'm as intersectional as my limited understanding allows, recognizing the ways in which feminism strives to find and support equality in a world that is fixated on maintaining its ruinous status quo. Additionally, I am a sectarian humanist, and the common brotherhood of mankind is my business: I believe that there hasn't been any human interaction that is not one of family, no matter how far flung we are. So when those who are in power are challenged, I listen to those who are typically silenced. When those who are victims are ignored, I try to hear. Thanks to Twitter, I can hear voices that to me were muted. Part of that comes from the homogeneous structure of where I live (with over 90% of the population being white and over 80% of the population being Mormon). Part of that comes from my interests: I like a lot of white guy stuff. Because of this reality, I put forward as much effort as I can to seek out minority and female voices--the best being the insights from women of color--in order to see how pop culture is being perceived by another point of view. I'm glad I did. There were a great many things that these voices helped me to understand. Within Black Panther, there is a lot of subtext and subversions that the film deconstructed and I would have missed out had I not tried to become more understanding of--in this case--Black culture. For example, there's a scene (no, this isn't a spoiler any more than the trailer is a spoiler) where Okoye, the bald-and-beautiful general and right-hand woman to T'Challa (the Black Panther) lays into a handful of goons with her spear. In that segment, Okoye grouses about the wig she's wearing as part of her disguise. During the eventual scuffle, she uses the wig as part of her attack against the henchmen. This worked as worldbuilding--Okoye prefers her own hair (or hairless) style--but it's speaking to all of the Black women out there who have been gored on the dilemma of hair styles in general: Either "too Black" or "bald is ugly", leaving them feeling even more out of place. Because the film not only embraces, but draws attention to this sharp double-standard, it's saying a lot more than "strong Black woman character". It's asserting the worth of African standards of beauty while also expanding the character's personality and enriching the world. Then, though it's brief, it also works as a fun twist to the standard action scene, providing a creative moment in which a hint of comedy leavens the otherwise serious scene. Black Panther does this time and time again. As one other example: The tragedy of stolen girls by Boko Haram a couple of years ago--a tragedy that has, in typical form, been largely forgotten--is approached at the beginning of the film. The girls are saved and freed--Black Panther (and his female almost-equal*) is a hero who behaves like one.
There are many other subtle approaches to the concerns, preoccupations, and injustices that the Black community, as a whole, has to grapple with. Here's the part that I like the most, but some may consider this part as spoilers, so I'm going to give a bit of space before I jump into this concept. ***Spoilers*** Wakanda is not a utopia. It's tempting to think of it as some sort of African-Eden in which the bloody hands of 19th century imperialism (and even before) never touched the beauty of the savannah. However, the place is still a human place and is still filled with its own problems. T'Challa's father, King T'Chaka, is guilty of a crime that leads to the majority of the conflict of the movie. And that sin, which he has hidden and covered up, is paralleled by the idea that Wakanda has, for so long, left the world to its own devices. Even though Wakanda is a beautiful answer to the question "What might have been?", it is not without its guilt. A conversation between T'Challa and N'Jadaka (the villain) draws out the hypocrisy of--for lack of a better phrase--Wakanda's lack of foreign policy. Wakanda's success has been because they have used vibranium--a magical metal that powers all of their high tech weapons, instruments, and vehicles--for millennia whilst hiding from the rest of the world. The conclusion of the film is "with great power comes great responsibility," but on the national level. Wakanda has hidden itself and its powers and its understanding of science from the world, keeping it for its own purposes. Isolationism and nationalism are confronted as ills that are not unique to Western powers and are ills, regardless of who does them. Now, do I think the Wakandans "owe it" to the world? Not necessarily. In a post-imperial world, there's an argument to be made for some expiation and, perhaps, a type of punishment. We can't be beneficiaries of atrocities and then feel cheated when the victims don't give more. Do I think it's the "bigger thing" for T'Challa to become involved in world affairs in order to help it? Oh, yes, definitely. T'Challa learns throughout the movie that making hard choices that are right is the best choice, and he demonstrates that he's learned that lesson through the final moments of the film where he "comes out", as it were, to the rest of the world. ***End of Spoilers*** While I often talk about other qualities of a film when I write about them, I feel like Black Panther is operating on a different level here. There are moments of excellent film making (though the hand-to-hand fights were a little too blurry/rushed for my taste), and the musical score was particularly significant and matched the tone of the film perfectly, but that isn't why I recommend it. The point of superhero stories is that they tap into a mythical understanding--and, sometimes, hope--of the world. Making sure that other audiences, other people, other cultures get a chance to see themselves** making hard choices and being celebrated by the culture at large is why I recommend it. Much like Wonder Woman, Black Panther is pushing us toward a broader view of what it means (and what it looks like) to be heroic. And with the flagship, large-press, massive spotlight that comic book movies can shine on this topic, Black Panther helps to bring home the message even more strongly than I would have imagined. You should go see it. --- * I say "almost-equal" because Nakia does a fantastic job as a spy, a helper, and a fighter, but she doesn't have superpowers nor as strong of an arc. She's a secondary character, and though I didn't feel she was ever diminished or detracted from, it wouldn't be correct to imply she's given the same attention as T'Challa. ** I have movies that were made for people like me. H*ck, there's even a trio of movies about a white guy whose name is Steve who helps to save the world--and that doesn't count his role in the Avengers movies. I've said it before: Representation matters. I like "seeing myself" on the screen (I married a redhead, so you can imagine what watching Spider-Man 2 was like for me) and I'm thrilled to know that a great many people finally get the treatment that I've been enjoying, almost exclusively, since 2002. |
AuthorWould you like to support my writings? Feel free to buy me a coffee (which I don't drink, but I do drink hot chocolate) at my Ko-Fi page. Thanks! Archives
July 2022
Categories
All
|