Most great literature fails to excite Finnloving student

Recently, my good friend Kyle Winter and I found ourselves deep in thought-provoking, intellectual conversation, a place we often visit, when the tough question arose, what constitutes good literature?

Volumes could be and have been filled attempting to answer this question. My advanced placement English teacher, Mrs. Tiller, does a fabulous job teaching her students the characteristics of great compositions, but it still remains a mystery to me why certain Pulitzer or Nobel Prizewinning authors are just that, award-winning.

Ican see the greatness in certain works, such as Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” This satire of American culture remains funny, if not as poignant, today. Also, “1984” by George Orwell, once again less poignant today due to the fall of the Soviet Union, is still a fascinating study of life under a totalitarian government. Possibly due to the fact that I do not read all that often when it is not required of me, that ends my list of universally great literature which I also consider to be great.

Most “classics,” in my amateur opinion, are trash. They are boring, plotless collections of words interested in presenting nothing more than a bleak theme through symbolism and other literary crock. “A Lost Lady” by Willa Cather perfectly exemplifies my point. Its description on amazon.com teads, “A portrait of a woman who reflects the conventions of her age even as she defies them and whose transformations embody the decline and coarsening of the American frontier.” What that enough to get a few critics to call her writing “superb,” and suddenly “A Lost Lady” is a great American work.

During first semester of AP English, we read several thrilling, absorbing short stories. We read Graham Greene’s “The Destructors,” which followed a gang of hoodlums as they destroy a house; Thomas Wolfe’s “A Child By Tiger,” which ends with a man going on a killing spree; and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” which is about a rural town that sacrifices someone chosen each year ina lottery in the belief that it will bring them a good harvest. Although they sound ultra-violent and dark, they hold the attributes of quality writing and have an electrifying plot. Apparently, the great writers choose to fashion their best ideas into short stories, and they leave their weak plots for their novels.

Probably because I watch a lot more movies than I read books and because the visual stimulation of film can be acquired with much less effort than reading, I can understand what composes great filmmaking much better than classic literature. Comedies such as “The Graduate” and “Rushmore” are clever in their subtleties, combining film and music artfully to create true masterpieces. In all honesty, they are basically character studies, yet they are somehow infinitely more enjoyable than literary character studies such as “A Lost Lady” and “The Great Gatsby.”

Tn answer to the question what constitutes great works of literature, I suppose the answer must be whatever critics and scholars say they are. For most, these books stand as unpleasant, grating experiences that are a relief when finished.

Whitney Keyes

Focus Editor

Sophomores Chad Beal and Stephanie Moyer have been best friends since Homecoming 2004, however, Friday January 21, they were blind dates. When Newspaper decided to sponsor a blind date, complete with dinner, free entrance to the basketball game and their very own paparazzi, both Beal and Moyer decided to apply.

“I lost a bet to my friend in homeroom, so had to apply,” Beal said. “He thought he would be going out with a girl the next week, and didn’t,