Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A Message From Topeka. (Where Our Most Favorite Student Correspondent Ever Drops a Shitload of Questions We're Going to Be Unable to Answer.)


Okay, so my question is:

what did ya'all read back then?

Curiousity, all that.

We did Shakespeare; Rom & Jul, et tu Brute? emo hamlet, and crazy ol' Macbeth. Hawthorne, not his best obviously. (Yawn, yawn. Red. He did some cool ghost stories 'tho.) The Crucible, we also watched the movie which made me cry. (To be fair -- I /loved/ me some Zora and Willa and I have a soft spot for Invisible Man.) Death of a Salesman did not bother me. Who still believes in the American Dream? Fuck the 50s, seriously.

Oh, and is Harper Lee dead YET? I really connected with Carson Mccullers, Salinger (/of/ course). Drop in some good scifi - Asimov, Bradbury.

We never covered the fun stuff -- Vonnegut, Heller. (No Kafka! no untangling Faulkner's alcoholism.) How did I not know that Capote was so obviously gay?

What are we missing? I mean in the past and the present. Will we see Cormac in our classrooms? Who is the next Steinbeck? can I get a bit of Palahnuik? David Foster Wallace?

I guess I'm asking: what's the new stuff? the old stuff? what is good? was is bad? What is essential to you?

luvs,
tina