You Don't Have to Love the Classics - but That Doesn't Make them "Bad"

When I was a senior in high school, I went out on a date with a girl I didn't know very well. The subject of English class came up. At the time, I was taking A.P. Literature, and I was into it in a big way. My teacher was brilliant and intellectual, and reading Joyce and Shakespeare and Emily Bronte made me feel adult and sophisticated. The course was, to me, an important early stop on a road that would ultimately lead me to a Master's Degree in literature, and a career of attempting to incite similar passion in my own students. But this girl was apparently not taking A.P. Lit, and didn't share my enthusiasm for great books. When I brought up "The Glass Menagerie," which I had just read (and loved), she scrunched up her face and said - I still remember the exact words, because they hit me like a punch to the gut - "That's the worst book I've ever read!"

That was our last date. Was I judgmental for not wanting to date a girl who called a play a "book"? Possibly- but we all pass judgments on dates. (I mean, that's the point of dating, isn't it?) And we all have our deal-breakers, and that was mine. Of greater concern was her dismissal of one of the great American dramas as the worst of the (I'll estimate fewer than ten) books she had ever read.

I'm of the opinion that if a book achieves a certain amount of esteem, I no longer get to call it "bad." (I'm not just talking about popularity here - I still feel plenty comfortable asserting that The Da Vinci Code is a bad book.) It takes a special kind of arrogance to pass such a harsh judgment on a text that is comfortably in the canon. True, the idea of the canon  is itself somewhat subjective, but if a book is in the canon, it is objectively not "bad." That doesn't mean you have to like every book that's in the canon, but in my opinion, there's a right way and a wrong way to dislike a great book.

Ms. Morrison, I feel genuinely guilty that I don't enjoy your books more than I do. But you are widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of our time, so you clearly don't need my support.

In ten years of teaching, I frequently hear claims that echo my date's enlightened opinion - "Hamlet is sooo bad!" etc. - and they never cease to sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. I don't expect high school students to enjoy all of the classics. God knows I didn't. (More on that in a minute.) But there is a difference between "That book is terrible," and "I hated that book" and a more tactful, nuanced response. Something like: "While I didn't actively enjoy that book, I acknowledge that many other people did. I can understand the value in it, even though it wasn't my cup of tea."

Yeah, that last one sounds good. If a student says that to me - about any book at all - I'll be fine with it.

Why is it that we don't hear people express this third opinion more often? Even when I talk about books with adults, the discussion so often devolves into It was good/It was bad or I love it/I hated it.

I was recently asked to compile of list of my ten favorite books of all time, and I found it pretty difficult. Midway through the exercise, I realized that I had a much longer list of "Books I Grudgingly Appreciate," "Books I Feel Bad About Not Liking," and "Books I Respect Despite Not Actively Enjoying," Off the top of my head, here it is.

The Round House by Louise Erdrich (which I mercifully finished yesterday, and which inspired this topic).
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackaray
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Everything I've ever read by Toni Morrison
Everything I've ever read by Philip Roth
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
A Prayer for Owen Meany by Jon Irving
Everything I've ever read by David Eggers
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Dante's Inferno
Paradise Lost by John Milton
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I feel a strong sense of regret when I encounter books like these, which everyone seems to like except for me. I feel dimwitted and slow - even immoral. It's like standing around with a group of people who are all laughing at a joke I don't get.

I guess I've come to view reading in much the same way I view dating. There are plenty of nice, smart, beautiful, interesting women out there - but it doesn't mean I was necessarily compatible with all of them. Likewise, a book can be brilliant and profound and highly regarded - but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to love it. What I'm trying to say, Toni Morrison, is, I think we should see other people.