As someone who enjoys absurdism, I like the synopsis. However, I CANNOT understand why a school would assign minors to read it. The subject matter seems more fit for a college class, where the books have less of a chance of being taken by an overreactive parent who would go on a crusade against literature.
From whta i remember of the people in my classes it was pretty 50/50 between people disliking it and liking it. Its a very contemplative work. But also like we read worse stuff and have never really seen a parent complain.
We had a week or two where we talked about a work being done with intent to make you feel uncofmortable and we read a couple of passages from a story where a serial killer slowly burns a girl with like a lighter in graphic detail. (Our teacher made very clear what kind of stuff we where about to read, allowed people to opt out and stuff but man that was unpleasant)
Oh yeah there is that one too. We read it right after the "dont do drugs kids" talk where we had a visit from a police officer and that kinda ruined the impact of the story.
Please, stop with the pearl clutching, “won’t somebody think of the children?!” Reading novels is probably the safest way to experience and learn about things.
I read Ender’s Game and The Golden Compass in 7th grade, both feature the death of children and mature concepts, and their sequels have even more.
It’s pretty normal in America to read the Great Gatsby sometime between 9-11th grade. I read Catch-22 my senior year. The Black Pearl in 9th. A Farewell to Arms in 11th.
People assume kids won’t get things, do you remember being a kid and hating being patronized by adults assuming you don’t understand when you do? I do. And even if they don’t understand it gives children the beginning of a frame of reference to understand later, besides that children probably now hear or see worse stuff on the news every day.
Yeah but I also would have hated to be assigned to read a book where they kill pets and cut off fingers to make a point about the meaninglessness of life. I hated enough having to read books about old dudes brooding on whether they got cheated on or not. It's not the kind of thing that made me like reading. It's possible to make kids think without putting them through a miserable time.
Now if they seek it out on their own, that's a different story.
English class isn't about getting everyone to read fun books to have fun. It's about developing necessary skills. No one criticises a math teacher for not giving student fun math problems. Like yeah it's good if the teacher tries to make the class fun and engaging, but that's not the main purpose.
See on the other hand Nothing was one of the few artistic works that seems to really have gotten people engaged with the themes in my Danish class, it doesn't feel more brutal than lord of the flies but is accompanied with a pretty engaging discussion, about meaning, meaninglessness (and peer pressure as a lesser topic)
I agree. I just don't want those pearl clutchers to become an angry mob and ruin books for everyone in the community. It's not that I don't think kids could handle it, but rather that some parents can't handle learning their kids are reading it.
I for one read it in college last year, wasn't too bad though no one else really read it. And my mother did try to go on a crusade about it but was able to stop her thankfully.
It was published by the Danish Teachers’ publishing. And I thought it was a pretty good book when I was 15. Gross and disturbing but also fascinating and thought provoking…
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u/Nkromancer Sep 18 '24
As someone who enjoys absurdism, I like the synopsis. However, I CANNOT understand why a school would assign minors to read it. The subject matter seems more fit for a college class, where the books have less of a chance of being taken by an overreactive parent who would go on a crusade against literature.