re-reading Twain

After reading an article in Time Magazine, I've begun re-reading Mark Twain. My only real exposure to Twain was a well-intentioned fifth grade teacher who made us read Huck Finn. I hated it. I couldn't get past the dialect and the antiquated language. I still don't like Huck Finn, but for different reasons. I find it boring. The action is over-the-top and it doesn't really make me think. It's how I feel about a lot of books that I should enjoy - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Old Man on the Sea, War and Peace.

I like reading older work, because I forget how much I am influenced by my own social context. As different as the post-modern authors may be, they share certain characteristics. They are more cautious, more minimalist, more casual in language, more solitary in tone. Few post-modern authors would tackle the themes and characters of Les Miserables. Or at least, few would do so in a way that is so expressive, so confident, so verbose as Victor Hugo.

I like the post-modern style, but sometimes it can feel like looking into a lens that's too fuzzy. When I read Twain, there is a sense in which he is bold, clear and often funny, because he doesn't seem to care who he offends. (It's strange that someone who wrote so clearly about the benefits of integration and the abolition of slavery now has his books banned by oversensitive school politicians) When I read over a broad spectrum of time, I gain something. I get to step outside the present and view things from a fresh perspective. I realize how unoriginal I am; how many of my ideas are simply borrowed from what I read and from what my generation believes.

There is an opposite effect, where I realize how universal literature can be. Although I am a product of my social context, I realize that people in ages past were similar to people now. Mark Twain could be a Daily Show correspondent or write for The Onion. I could see him as a cantankerous old man, smoking a cigar in front of a coffee shop, where a few of his friends each hold a newspaper and comment on the world.

In the past, I have had students read The Jungle and Aristotle and a few other classics. Students usually come to the same perspectives - that the books are more relevant than they thought and that they hold presuppositions based entirely upon their current social context.

Are there any classics you would recommend for someone teaching 8th Grade American history?

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