Las Vegas waitress discovers a great "new" book, and shares it with me

[SoCalDem]

I was in the the cafe about 3 AM, and very few customers, so I was chatting with her. Mildly political..

She asked if we had flown in? and then proceeded to tell me about her awful flight to memphis, and the horriffic inconvenience going through security.. The conversation ended up with her and the other waitress in her area actually debating with each other about how there is no "real" security.. I reminded them that the government's primary function is to protect the US, and that this crew was asleep at the wheel for 8 months prior to 9-11..

One waitress piped up.. "Yeah, how DID that happen"? and now they expect us to trust them to keep us safe??"

I suggested a few things for them to read, and a movie or two, when the first waitress said.."Ohh I just read a NEW book...called "Brave New World".. It's very good."..

For a moment I had no words:)

I said yes.. it's a very good one, and Huxley has written others too:)


Are ANY of the classics still taught in high school?? That was required reading for my class...NINTH GRADE :eyes:


footnote:.. "The Americanization of Emily" is being re-released on DVD in May.. BUY IT..WATCH it..
It never got the notoriety it deserved, but it's always been one of my favorites.. (it was banned on military bases in its day)

[Book Lover]

1. *grim snort*

Perhaps it's all for the best: maybe the timelessness of the prose and the timeliness of the content is responsible for the person not knowing it's decades old... (Yes, I'm reaching).

[knitter4democracy]

2. I taught Brave New World my last year of teaching.

Boy, was that an eye-opener. *giggle* The kids really got into it more than just about anything else we did that year, and we had some awesome discussions.

I really got to a couple when I asked what the larger social purpose was to keeping teens working all those long hours and then spending all of it on the latest music, clothes, cars, and sex and drugs. I really think that most people are scared of teenagers deep down and just want them "kept busy." If you keep them busy, then they can't bring about any social change, can they?

I'm a sahm now, but if I were still in the classroom, that book would be required for all my kids--that, and Lord of the Flies. That's a fun one to teach, too.

[Katherine2]

7. My son's 11th grade class

is reading Brave New World right now. They also read Candide, part of Homer's Republic and Catch 22. My son has really gotten into reading since George Bush and the war in Iraq. I got him 1984 and he loved it, and has since read a lot of stuff like Farenheit 451, and also books about Che Guevara and the Mexican guy, Zapata.

[left is right]

10. Congratulations

you are raising a thinker. You must be so proud!

[knitter4democracy]

19. Rock on!!!

Hmmmm . . . public school? I was in the Catholic schools, so I was a bit more constrained on my choices. Man, I wish I'd had American Lit to do Catch 22, though. That book is still one of my faves.

Actually, most of what we teach is really subversive. Most teachers just don't reveal it all. For example, Shakespeare is really raunchy and nasty sometimes (okay, much of the time), and teachers don't touch that with a ten foot pole. Well, I did, but it did get me in some trouble. My kids read it, though, if just to find the raunchy parts. ;)

[yurbud]

3. everything is new to you at some point

I take a perverse pride in introducing students to classics they didn't know existed.

I try to be controversial in my college writing classes, but the piece that students think is most out there and risque is the most conventional--Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal."
(it helps that I don't give any intro before we start reading it aloud).

[SoCalDem]

4. True.. both of these women were in their 30's

and the one who told me about the book, was truly delighted in it.. I did not "burst her bubble" by telling her that it's an OLD book, because to her it was NEW.. and she will now look into the other works by Huxley,and hopefully read some of the ones I suggested to her:)

[leftchick]

18. interesting...

The first thing I do after opening a book cover and reading a blurb is to read the copywrite. It is a habit that never stops with any book I open.

[knitter4democracy]

20. That's fun to do.

It's also fun to read Rape of the Lock to them--with all the sarcasm you can put in your voice. Hee, hee! Teaching lit is fun. I miss it sometimes.

[politicat]

5. In the area I went to HS (NE AZ) BNW was not allowed.

Too sexual, too sensual, and too subversive. Those books were in the libraries, but there was no classroom time for them and no discussion of them. We read Shakespeare (which worked pretty well) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (and if you don't think you can get 15 Mormon kids to get indignant about forcing someone to wear an A on her chest.... )

Ditto 1984, Lord of the Flies, Alas Babylon, Anthem, and pretty much most SF with a fix it now or forget a future theme.

That was in the early 90s. From what I hear, it's gotten worse.

(I was lucky enough to have an English teacher who knew the classics and how to circumvent parents who didn't read by using the classics, and slipping the good stuff to her students. Other kids were not so lucky.)

[SoCalDem]

6. How sad for you...

Kansas 1960's...required reading lists went out twice a year, and all the greats were on them.. We were expected to have read ALL of them before we graduated..and they were taught in class..

[yorgatron]

8. you should also consider that she meant

new to her.
did you recommend "1984" by George Orwell?

[left is right]

11. I really think that Orwell's family should resubmit

"1984" under the new name of "2024" or any other future date. 1984 now sounds so dated even though the truths it tells are timeless

[DURHAM D]

13. Ditto - had same experience in public education in Kansas in

early 60's.

How sad what has happened to that state. All my relatives still live in central Kansas and they become more stupified every year.

[politicat]

17. I did read all of the ones I mentioned.... and many of my classmates did.

We just read them on the sly and talked about them on the sly. (My graduating class has a remarkably high rate of apostasy from the LDS church, as it happens...) But my classmates were almost exclusively the AP and Honors geeks. (It's not a bad school when a third of the class is in the Honors program....)

What's sad is now, and how much worse things have gotten in that area. They're talking about ID and the like....

[JanMichael]

24. Holy crap, that's awful. We had BNW plus many more "thinking" books.

My last year in HS was 1986 so I guess that Thought Police had yet to purge the class reading lists.

Man, that's bad news.

[ruggerson]

9. At least she's reading n/t

[tishaLA]

12. When I try to talk to my college students

about things I just assume most will have read by the time they get to college--Scarlet Letter, Great Gatsby, "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God," "Rip Van Winkle"--I am frequently shocked that they not only haven't read them, but that they often haven't even heard of them! And these are students at UCLA, not some fifth tier school.

When I was in High School, not that long ago, we had to do ridiculous things like memorize poems. I don't advocate that, but there has to be some way for schools to get back to teaching these things again.

[AmyDeLune]

14. Unfortunately, a lot of the Classics

just aren't being taught. I had a Humanities course in High School where we read Candide, Faust, Gulliver's Travels, assorted short fiction, and historical essays; all put into historical context and we studied the art of the various historical periods we were studying as well. It was an advanced course worth one credit each in English and history. The regular English classes weren't dismal, but the vocabulary and comprehension levels of many of the students really weren't as up to par as they should have been either. Sadly, that's just gotten worse over the years.

I also lucked out in that we got a new English teacher my junior year-- a college professor who had gotten so fed up with getting students who had A.)not read any classics and B.)couldn't write a thesis paper she had decided to teach in high school and turn out a few decent future college students before she retired.

(edited because I hit "Post" instead of "Preview").

[yurbud]

15. high schools between a rock and hard place on lit

On the one hand, they have the PC multi-cultural crowd trying to get them to diversify the canon, and on the other they have the hypre-sensitive religious right types who think Harry Potter leads to Satan worship.

To avoid trouble, schools stick to the bland and lifeless.

[Cleita]

16. Well, she probably didn't read it in school like most of us did

back in the Jurassic era, but at least give her credit for reading it now or even being able to read more than cereal boxes for that matter. Yes, there are a lot of semi-literate Americans out there who really can't read a newspaper article, let alone a book. Since I worked in the restaurant industry a lot, I discovered this.

Fortunately, youth and attractiveness and some basic writing and arithmetic skills would get you a waitress job, but I was rather amazed at the low levels of literacy many restaurant workers had, particularly among those who would do it all their lives and not it as a stepping stone to an acting career, working their way through school or as a second job like I did.

I wouldn't have called them stupid either, just a failed product of our education system.

[SoCalDem]

21. I did not call her (or think) stupid.. I never mentioned the age of it

:) I was a bit surprised that someome her age had not been taught it in school, though.. These two women (union, no doubt) are NOT *² fans :)

[Cleita]

22. I doubt most restaurant people would be * fans.

Most were quite liberal in their thinking in my day. I always enjoyed the restaurant jobs because there wasn't the politicking and back stabbing going on, except sometimes among the management, like at my daytime office job.

[SoCalDem]

23. especially in Vegas.. It's a BIG union town

:)

[qanda]

25. I didn't read BNW until college

Our high school was pretty crappy.