I
attended an all-boys public high school. Sophomore English was a survey of
world literature, “world” defined as British and American. Among a number of
other works, we read Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar; and we read Emily Bronte’s Wuthering
Heights. We had to pay for the paperback edition ordered by the
teacher, and so you identify all sophomores at any given time by seeing what
books they carried around, and whether Wuthering
Heights with a purplish-blackish cover was there (this was in the days
before backpacks).
It
was mortifying. Imagine asking a 15-year-old boy how he’s enjoying Wuthering Heights.
Class
discussions on the book – for a solid week – were painful. More than a few
openly rebelled and wouldn’t read it at all. A few were smarter than that and
at least bought the Cliff Notes version. A few struggled through it. To my
knowledge, only one boy in the class liked it, but knew better than to tell
anyone. The teacher, however, figured it out when she graded our essays. She
made a point of extolling the virtues of this one particular essay, and even
read selected passages.
I
never forgave her.
To
continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak
Poetry.
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