Saturday here.
At the recommendation of my sister Adrienne, I'm reading Shuggie Bain, the 2020 Booker Prize winner by Douglas Stuart. It's set in Scotland and explores the heartwrenching lives of Agnes, a crumbling alcoholic, and her suffering children. It reminds me of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes in its unblinking look at poverty and family pain.
It's a hard sell: Want to read a beautifully written but very depressing book?
Yet this is exactly the book I want. I am drawn to stories that can talk about agonizing realities with beautiful language. It's as if the well-turned phrase and original metaphors warm me even as I absorb stories of coldest cruelty.
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My freshmen just finished reading Of Mice and Men this week. Like Shuggie Bain, Steinbeck's novella is heavy. I do not think it can be read without the prick of tears. We read the final chapter aloud together on Friday, and I still cannot read these lines without choking:
Lennie begged, “Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.”
“Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.”
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I want my students to know literature that makes them laugh out loud. My favorite authors weave humor into even the darkest scenes (as do Steinbeck and Stuart).
But mostly I want them to understand that word-crafting can stir emotion, and that leads to empathy.
What tragic and beautiful books do you recommend? My tsundoku pile is always growing!
Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Read.
Allison
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| Andrea called while I was at my mother-in-law's house this afternoon, so he got to hear an accordion duet performed by his grandma and great-grandma. He was (obviously) thrilled. |
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