By Kevin Kaumans, Entertainment Editor
I have said this multiple times in the past, but it is a common fact that people -especially those of the younger generation- don’t really read all that much, if at all. But what about those that do read? Sure, at least they make an afford to expand their horizons, but with what? Modern day fiction? Contemporary literature?
Don’t get me wrong, there is good contemporary literature out there. “Percy Jackson & the Olympians”, “Six of Crows”. “Wings of Fire” (the first thirteen books anyway), are all good examples of what 21st century literature can be. That being said, however, I can’t help but notice how…..what’s a nice way to say this?……simplistic books seem to be nowadays.
Some may think I’m just being mean for the sake of trying to come across as a sophisticated literature critic, but hear me out. When you open a book from a hundred years ago, what is the first thing you notice?
That’s right, the hard-to-understand dialect. We have dumb down our language so much that reading anything published before the year 1980 feels like learning a dead language.
Another grievance I have with modern readers is their seeming inability to read between the lines. What do I mean by this? Every time I go onto Goodreads and see reviews of a member of the classic literature canon, it always feels as if our intelligence is evolving backwards.
There was this one time -about a couple of years back- where I was reading some reviews for “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. I can’t remember the user’s name, but what I can remember is how irrational this certain reviewer’s one-star review was.
One of the major arguments of this review was asking why the book told a story of southern American racism from a white family’s perspective instead of a black one’s.
What the reviewer didn’t seem to understand was that the author herself grew up in a community that was hostile towards African-Americans.
It seems to have never occurred to him or her that perhaps Lee was trying to write about how someone from the non-receiving end comes to realize how much of a problem racism in this country is through observation much like she did.
There was another time where someone had left a one-star review of “Blood Meridian”, by Cormac McCarthy. This reviewer argued that the book was outdated due to the book’s use of slurs.
Conveniently, however, the reviewer leaves out the fact that the main characters of the book are scalp hunters that are hired to kill indigenous people. It apparently never occurred to this person that perhaps the author had these characters use bigoted words to showcase just how terrible these people were back in the old west.
I can go on and on until the sun dies out, but I’m sure you get the point by now. In my English classes, we are taught to first read the text literally, then between the lines.
So, either these reviewers were never taught that second part, or they just skimmed through these stories instead of actually reading them.
Look, fellow reader, if you and I don’t like the same books, that’s fine. There are authors out there that a lot of people enjoy that I think are overrated, and vice-versa.
But if you’re gonna criticize something, make sure you at least pay attention to the material.
I’m hoping that’s the case with these reviewers, because God forbid these people actually did pay attention and yet they still didn’t understand it. That would just prove my theory that we as a society are devolving.