Revised Impressions

As both a dad and a teacher, I often have the chance to revisit books that were important to me at other times in my life. I've found that some of my favorites still stand up well. I find that I almost never tire of reading One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish to my kids. (The words are just so fun to say.) Last year, I taught Brave New World to my A.P. Lang guys, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the book more than I had when I first read it my sophomore year of high school. I understood more now than I did twenty years ago, no doubt, and Huxley's ideas seemed incredibly prescient. (Smart phones are just our version of soma, amirite?)

Not all books hold up so well, though. This week I had to revise my impressions of two books that I used to enjoy, but was surprised to now find pretty cringe-worthy.

Tikki Tikki Tembo is a book I remember having read to me in third grade. It wasn't one of my favorites really, but I liked it well enough, and I remember every kid in class chanting the entire long name (Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo... etc.) TTT is an old Chinese folk tale (or so it wants you have you think) about two brothers. The elder has a long, elaborate name to signify that he is the more valued of the two. The younger's name is Chang, which the book claims to mean "little or nothing." (It doesn't.) One of them falls in a well. He gets rescued. Then the other one falls in the same well. He gets rescued, too. That's the whole plot. But the dumb plot is very low on the list of things about this book that are objectionable.

The main problem is the racism. Really, this book is the equivalent of a black-face minstrel show. Characters wearing the most stereotypical Chinese peasant get-ups go around saying things like "Oh, most honorable mother," and "Ah, so." The story casually conflates elements of Chinese and Japanese culture, as if to say, "Whatever. Same diff." The long and ridiculous name sounds more Japanese than Chinese, but either way, it's total gibberish. The kid's name might as well be Ching-chong Bing-bong. Needless to say, the author is a white lady.

The artwork is fine: the illustrations resemble those old silk paintings of scenes from rural China. But the book in general is hopelessly out of date. It is to children's literature what Song of the South is to Disney movies. That's the one that apparently takes place in some sort of plantation utopia, in which happy slaves spend all day singing to white children. And that movie fell out of favor years ago. Although I'm sure it was written without conscious malice, it's basically the definition of cultural appropriation.

I can happily live without Tikki Tikki Tembo in my life. My reread of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was a lot more upsetting. This was a book I absolutely loved. When I read it in high school - on my own, not for a class - it spoke to me. On the basis of these fond memories, I gave it the highest possible rating on Goodreads. Last spring, I selected it as a summer reading book for a group of students. I assumed they would enjoy it as much as I did.

And I hope they did enjoy it. (I guess I'll find out on Thursday.) Sadly, it just didn't hold up for me.

To be fair, there are parts I still enjoy. The constant machine imagery still resonates, even if it's a little overwrought. Some of the minor characters (Harding, Billy Bibbit) are well drawn. And of course, McMurphy is an excellent character, deeply flawed, but deeply charismatic. His dialogue feels inspired, and his interactions with Nurse Ratched are some of the novel's highlights. The novel does gloss over his sexual misconduct, though. Dude is a statutory rapist, but the narration seems to endorse his sketchy defense that "she wanted it." I'm not arguing that he needs to be a moral paragon. In fact, I think the book would suffer if he were. But we are encouraged to think of McMurphy is an unambiguous hero, and Ratched as an insufferable villain. And indeed she is awful. But she also didn't rape anyone.

The book's casual, "boys will be boys" attitude towards rape points to its biggest problem: clear and unabashed misogyny. Every woman in this novel is either a frigid "ball-cutter" like Ratched, or a whore like Harding's wife, as well as the literal whores on the fishing trip near the end. Women seem to exist for the purpose of tormenting men, and the only way for them to reclaim their masculinity is to put them in their place. Often through sexual domination. McMurphy's victory over Ratched is marked by his symbolically raping her. (He rips her shirt open to reveal the huge breasts, which all of the patients have obsessed over for the duration of the novel.) And this is a moment we are encouraged to cheer for.

All of these elements are somewhat muted in the movie, by the way, which is one of the reasons I think the movie holds up better. For one thing, they took out the symbolic rape, which is certainly a good thing (although I think the stage version retains it).

Anyway, I'm not ready to throw this novel out entirely. I still like McMurphy in spite of myself. But it does make me uncomfortable. In the past I've entertained the idea of teaching it, but that's a hard no now - especially at a boys' school. There still might be a place for this book in the canon, but teachers shouldn't ignore its more abhorrent elements. I'll put it on the same shelf as The Taming of the Shrew, which obviously has its literary merits, but also has some social underpinnings we just as soon ignore.

My thoughts about the novel aside, nothing will ever take away from one of my favorite Simpsons' jokes. (From one of the later season, no less.)