If you decide not to read this dumb and ridiculous Rebecca Traister article, here’s a summary:
First midlife crisis at 31. Where do I begin? Ah, yes, memory lane. Blame a book. Piggy! Name too funny for character, dismiss book. I was diligent and smart. Because I could outsmart Quakers without reading the book! I was better than them and now I’m a writer! In your face, ex-schoolmates! Can’t really break down “sooey” in phonetics, but what the hell, I need a transition point. Overintellectualization of book I barely remember. Never really liked this book, so I’ll go off the deep end here. Rape! Murder! Mother England! Guess the book sucks and junior high was foolish. Still better than you.
You forgot to mention that the article is essentially the book report Traister failed to write in 8th grade – all but the last paragraph or two are given over to a plot summary.
I’ve been bitterly disappointed by “Summer School” series (although admittedly I didn’t read all the entries). Between the guy who was shocked to discover that Jane Eyre is really quite good, as demonstrated by a comparison to Sex and the City, and the girl who was disappointed at the lack of explicit sex scenes in The Wings of the Dove, it really does seem that the entire endeavor is a wash. Which is a shame, because the idea – trying to find something to connect to in books that are supposed to be the literary equivalent of vegetables – had a great deal of promise.
And the plot summary actually makes the book sound pretty interesting!
I must say that this book review is so self-satifiedly purile that reading it was actually a disgusting experience. This woman must spend her time (and her mind) withing the confines of garden parties. This great book is ALL ABOUT having the primal forces in the human psyche thrown into one’s face, so that one can no longer avoid and dismiss them. This is a woman who very much needs to wake up to some of the more disturbing facts of human nature.
Amen. Lord of the Flies was a terrific read for me in the 5th grade (recommended to me by my 17 year old siter) and scared the crap out of me; since then I’ve re-read it a couple of times and have found Golding’s work as subtly powerful and poetic as any I can remember reading.
Agree with posters 3 and 4, baby! LOTF is a righteous screed, and Traister is a self-absorbed twit who isn’t fit to sharpen Goldings’ pencils. Generation Clueless. Yeah!