As a Russian native speaker who graduated from the high school in Russia many years ago, one thing that I don't really understand is why these great works of Russian literature are included in the school must read list. An average teenager, myself included, always has some better things to do than reading a huge novel, barely understanding characters' motivations, because neither of these books were ever intended for teens.
Those who find time later in their adult life will re-read the classics and appreciate it, but many will not, and that's probably a result of forcing the kids to deal with something most of them are not ready for.
>An average teenager, myself included, always has some better things to do than reading a huge novel, barely understanding characters' motivations, because neither of these books were ever intended for teens.
Bookish teens have been reading these books since they came out.
And the average teenager has way worse things to do than reading a classic novel.
As for "barely understanding characters' motivations" that's how you understand characters motivations, and literature in general, by getting into even without understand it at first. That's true in almost every field in life.
Bookish teens will read them anyway.
Giving them the option to do so in school, I would imagine would be met thankfully by them if done well, and a "no thanks" from the less-bookish - who very possibly will go on to read them later on in life.
> Giving them the option to do so in school
Isn't that exactly the idea? Ask everyone to spend time reading a book is a way to give them time to do it. So that some may discover they are bookish. As for the others, it doesn't exactly hurt to try.
Part of the point of school however is to not let teenagers just learn only what they care about, because most of them don't care about anything except consuming and gaming and media slop.
Isn’t that the purpose of school? To make kids try and expand their thinking to think about things they don’t think about in normal life. A normal average teen does not think about chemistry, math, physics either. Will everything stick? Probably not. But some might stick for some students and that’s better than just giving up and only teaching teens about things average teens are naturally interest in (sex education?)
The comment you're responding to is talking about books that students will "barely understand". You're talking about subjects teens aren't interested in. The comment above says nothing about interest and specifically does not advocate against teaching things to teens just because they aren't interested in them; only if they won't understand them.
Even if you don't fully understand it the first time around, these are cultural reference points, so at least when you hear someone reference them, you'll have an idea what they are talking about and can get the point of what the adults are talking about. Then later if you ever read it again, you also have a better understanding of its place and get a better second pass understanding.
There is also the role of simply communicating to the next generation that society values these books, and they are important for some reason. Even if you only get one shallow layer of meaning at the time. Same with history and everything else. It's a time to get a first taste of what these things feel like.
>The comment you're responding to is talking about books that students will "barely understand".
That's how you get to understand something you "barely understand". You dive into it, and gradually you understand it better.
I understood classic novels in high school just fine. Further experience reveals more layers, but you still get lots of life lessons, and poetic moments, and better grasp of people and life, and introduction into a culture that's not just consuming slop, from reading them as a teenager.
There's a difference between teaching kids stuff they aren't interested in in order to expose them to it (good!), and teaching kids stuff that require the lived experience of an adult to truly understand and appreciate (of dubious utility!).
Even more so, I feel it's outright counter productive since it's not uncommon for kids to start hating book reading because of the impression these mandatory reads leave.
The two main purposes of school are to provide day care for workers' children and inculcating obedience to authority.
Yes it’s an interesting question and applies to many books chosen for teenagers in school.
Technically they can handle the text and it may improve their reading and writing, I assume this is the justification for setting these texts.
Emotionally and socially they are nowhere near ready to deal with Dostoyevsky’s nihilism and angst and Austen’s witty social comedy of manners about a situation young girls no longer find themselves in.
Compared to Dickens or Shakespeare for example though they are unlikely to engage teenagers and very likely to actively put them off reading.
One of the amusing things from reading Wodehouse school stories - the kids were avoiding Latin by hiding Dickens inside their books.
Today kids hide comics inside books to avoid Dickens; someday kids will hide something new inside books to avoid the mandatory comic reading.
Not sure about Shakespeare. We suffered through Shakespeare in both English and Drama classes. I'm not sure that improved my appreciation. Other things did. I had to learn to love Shakespeare otherwise.
I watched "Hamnet" last night, which was okay, but I dread to think what that film would have been like if I was made to watch it at school.
If it’s taught well I think it can be very entertaining. There are lots of levels to Shakespeare and lots of very basic comedy. Watchman in Macbeth etc. the motives of characters are also explained well.
The only problem is the language.
I haven't read much of Shakespeare, but the lightbulb moment for me personally was the 1996 "Romeo + Juliet" movie with DiCaprio. The modern contextualization makes it so much easier to parse the period dialogue.
I think Shakespeare might just be a badly chosen set of "classics". Romeo and Juliet is so overdone in pop culture there's nothing interesting there, and the one or two others we had to read were just boring. But then I ran across Much Ado About Nothing (while still in school) and remember it being actually good.
> Romeo and Juliet is so overdone in pop culture there's nothing interesting there
The whole point is to read the actual primary text that has been so done, re-done, overdone. And hopefully to recognize there's some real beauty and drama in there
This is a conundrum to me. I was a pretty bookwormish youngster and read a lot of classics. Often I had to push myself through works like Crime and Punishment but I felt like it was good for me. I’m glad I exercised the muscle of reading, but now I can understand that those books just don’t hit like they should when you don’t have the life experience to understand them. Something like Ulysses is still difficult, but at mid life you can really get it.
Would I rather have waited until 35? No, but I’ll probably go back and reread a lot of those books I read when I was younger.
Crime and Punishment is mild compared to something like Law and Peace or Anna Karenina.
That's a fair point. I read The Idiot in high school, when I was 14 years old, for an assignment. (I don't think I specifically had to read that book, but we were asked to pick from a list, and I picked that one.) I had so much trouble getting through it, and while I had the impression that the writing was brilliant, I wasn't educated or mature enough at that point to appreciate it or even understand many of the themes in the book.
I was generally an avid reader as a child, regularly blowing through the (age appropriate) summer reading lists every year as far back as I can remember, and then finding new things to read. During the school year when I had a 9pm bedtime, I would regularly bring a flashlight to bed, pull my blankets over my head, and read until much later. But The Idiot was tough, and I don't think teens should read books like that.
I've considered re-reading it as an adult, but I still have some scars from my first read-through, even if those scars aren't fair to the material at all.
One big problem in terms of "bad experience" is that in addition to reading the book itself, you're being graded on a specific kind of understanding of the book, which you then need to communicate to the teacher and the teacher needs to agree. The process transforms something that should be entertaining and edifying, into a combined dread / chore (especially if high grades are needed for life plans). Man I hated English class.
I think it takes a very specific kind of person to read Crime and Punishment.
So, as a baseline, I think most people have or can understand internal monologues. That's not what I mean, though that is a prerequisite.
But many real-life people, especially those that have gone through phases in their life where they were Raskilnikov (not criminals, not necessarily egomaniacs, but the whole melodramatic shut in deal) would tell you that they both understand Raskilnikov type people and would tell them to shut up.
For me, it was honestly a bit depressing. Raskilnikov reminded me of me in my worst moments. Honestly, a lot of the characters did. Having these strong, abstract, high and lofty ideals is contrasted against the real, practical characters like Rahmuzkhin. Every single one of the lofty idealists (besides maybe the full commune living guy - what he says is weird, but not his actions) is contrasted with the people on the ground, doing good work. Even Sonya - she's devout, but not so devout as to become a pastor, abstractly preaching about goodness and kindness, but blind to the suffering around her.
And isn't that what the lesson is at the end of the book, anyways? (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers).
Though it's not like just "doing good work" will bring you the sort of the "ultimate" that many of these characters seemed to have wanted. Once you try to formalize it and intellectualize it, you can point to how Crime and Punishment is such an illogical novel. And yet it feels so real.
Ah whatever. Enough armchairing from me :)
Funny, I'm rereading Crime and Punishment for the first time since high school and I can't get over how much Raskolnikov comes off as an angsty teenager. I probably understand him better now but related to him more as a teen
Only one or two of Russian classics were obligatory in Serbia high-schools — yet I devoured them all (esp Dostoeyvsky, Bulgakov, Gogol... Tolstoy a bit less so).
I am sure I'd find them different if I re-read them, but I could relate to characters and their struggles quite easily.
I do not necessarily think that those who wouldn't appreciate them as teenagers would ever appreciate them as adults either — maybe a small percentage would.
I dunno, I feel like Dostoevsky hits perfectly around high school. I enjoyed Crime and Punishment around 9th grade, but tried read some Dostoevsky as an adult, and it really reads like young adult luterature.
I only learned to appreciate Tolstoy as an adult though - it was extremely boring for me as a teenager barring some smaller pieces
The Brothers Karamazov reads like young adult literature? Hard disagree there. Maybe in terms of how navel-gazey it is, but the themes are not at all young adult.
Tolstoy is pretty heavy on religious perspectives on moral question. That's probably why I would be boring to a teen. And I totally agree that books like C&P are perfectly readable for young adults. Some people overemphasize the part of analyzing hypothetical symbolism instead of "just" enjoying the story.
Yeah, but I've also appreciated the symbolism much more as an angsty teen than as an adult.
The best part about Tolstoy is how he depicts the intricacies of human relationships, and that's a thing most people cannot appreciate until they hit like 30
I would have agreed that making teenagers read way above their (life) experience level may scare some off of returning to the same books after growing up, but am not so sure anymore. Most adults don't read period - if not for the school reading list they wouldn't have even touched the classics anyway.
On the other hand, some of the kids actually like the books they are given. I know I did. Not every single book, but a lot, and maybe that's the whole point- you find out what you like by trying a bunch of stuff that you don't
Most adults don't read because they were forced to read inappropriate, depressing and poorly readable books at the time when they're supposed to be learning to love books.
The classics are the cause of reading hate, not the victim.
IMHO it's less about being a teenager, and more about turning those great classics into school assignments.
With one exception (Musset's Lorenzaccio), every single book my teachers gave me to read felt like a boring chore.
But when I try Crime and Punishment at 17 by myself, I loved it so much that I immediately purchased The Brothers Karamazov (and loved it even more).
I can guarantee that if it had been a school assignment, I wouldn't have made it past page 50.
As a teenager I chose Dostoyevsky for a few big English assignments, much was lost on me. Trying to tackle something you're unprepared for has educational value; like being in a Hacker News startup when you're inexperienced. You might fail at the attempt, but you've learned a lot.
By my third reading, I'd decided Crime and Punishment was a Comedy-Horror; think American Psycho.
The same thing used to happen in Brazil. Machado de Assis is great for older audiences, but a bore for children and teenagers. Making them read his books probably did more harm than good.
Things that need to be taught need to be taught. Reading, writing, and counting can also be kept for later. Misanthropic heralds could even say that many strata of modern society don't really need literacy, and should just be given smartphones with cameras. “Later” easily turns to “never”.
A student should be given the best examples of human art, not some watered down versions, otherwise there is a chance that people will never try to reach that level. A lot of them won't (and reading some books never was a guaranteed path to a good life anyway), but by deciding what is “good enough for the common person” you artificially limit their world on that path (thankfully, there are other paths).
Whether they realise it or not, people are shaped by their environment. A book that you don't like can still point that certain questions and ways of thinking exist. Its place can easily be taken by seemingly “more appropriate” pop cultural or pop psychological works that, unfortunately, don't reach that level in order to be as “accessible” as possible.
The problem here is the existence of “required reading” lists, and mass education in general. That institute is completely flawed, bureaucratised production process of “studying”, and only the heroic actions of individuals who have to fight it from the inside make it less dumb. A good teacher can teach why the good book is good, but where to find so many of them?
See, for example,
https://www.olgasedakova.com/Moralia/280
https://www.olgasedakova.com/ecclesia/2174
(in Russian)
https://www.olgasedakova.com/eng/Moralia/269
https://www.olgasedakova.com/eng/Moralia/264
(in English, excerpt)
Russian literature is based on suffering. Someone always suffers - either the protagonist, the author or the reader. If all of them are suffering you have a masterpiece of Russian literature.
I guess it is because it prepares you quite well to suffer endless corporate memos.
> suffer endless corporate memos
I think classic russian literature can be everything, but not an exercise in formal double-speak incantations.
True. But reading low density, dry material that you don't want to and feeling mental and physical exhaustion from the process sums up both war and peace and corporate communications.
Very droll.
It does unfortunately fit most of the examples I can think of. Even in comedy like Gogol people suffer.
I understand where you coming from, but both Russia classics Soviet and modern authors have decent comedy pieces.
Not to mention works that are just not about suffering but life.
Yes, but the people that have read Moscow 2042 count in the numbers of fingers on the hand of carefree bandsaw user compared to the people that have read Crime and Punishment. Which when I read it I understood that I was punished, but had not idea what my crime was.
The only widely known fun book outside of Russia is Master and Margarita.
>The only widely known fun book outside of Russia is Master and Margarita.
I pretty sure Chekhov (as an example) is widely known outside of Russia and he's master of short fun stories, no?
In fact I'd even say he's somewhat more popular in the West than in Russia.
I would say that Checkhov is mostly known for his plays, not for short fun stories.
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>> my country was effectively enslaved by invading russian forces for decades to serve as nuclear battlefield with the west
Some countries are a buffer zone between Russia and the West. Nothing worse then having western Agent Provocateurs having a base of operation right next to your country.
And somehow Iran, China and Russia have absolutely no experience in using their own Agen Provocateurs. Its always the West creating Coups and Rebellions.
> effectively enslaved by invading russian forces for decades to serve as nuclear battlefield with the west
seems like western germany, which was also considered to be a nuclear battlefield with the warsaw pact, but the marketing was nicer, I suppose.
This isn't a specific Russian problem. English speaking school children are forced to read Shakespeare, and I really don't think that works either. (That isn't a condemnation of Shakespeare but of schooling.)
I do love literature, but that is in spite of school not because of it. School did a lot to put me off some books. I was lucky to have read Golding's "Lord of the Flies" before our class did, because it gave me a better appreciation of it. I did read some big books as a teenager. I waited until my twenties to tackle Dostoyevsky though. "The Brothers Karamazov" was especially difficult.
If your school just had you silently reading Shakespeare they were doing it wrong. It is meant to be performed and watched, his works are plays and poetry not novels. I was lucky, my English Literature teacher in high school was a (very) minor playwright and well aware of how important speaking the lines out loud is, and how watching a play is so very different from reading it.
No, we weren't reading Shakespeare silently. We read him out in class, probably with the least amount of enthusiasm possible.
Shakespeare is good for kids, its mostly quite light and fun and not very long, theres a linguistic challenge but thats a good learning opportunity
It's a 'good learning opportunity' that distracts you from every other aspect of the work.
You can't learn two difficult things at once well. When you have to put significant amounts of mental energy into parsing the semantics of each sentence, it utterly ruins any enjoyment you might have from the work itself - and makes it much harder to clean any meaning or subtext from it.
Shakespeare would land much better if people were reading it in a language they speak, as opposed to a language that he spoke.
When 90% of your mental effort is dedicated to understanding exactly what the hell he is saying, you aren't going to get a lot out of his work.
(It's not supposed to be read at all, in fact - it's supposed to be seen and heard. In a language that you intuitively understand.)
Are kids "ready" to deal with organic chemistry? Or integrals? Do you think that more people will need the knowledge of the reproductive system of plants than the skill of reading and uderstanding large texts? Not simply understanding the words, but actually analyzing and comprehending what's being said
I actually started re-reading Crime and Punishment right after writing my previous comment, because I barely remember anything after many years. These are the second and the third paragraphs, and reading this text now, in my forties, I perfectly understand everything that's written, and the emotions the protagonist feels, because I know by my very own experience what it is to pay rent, to be in debt, and to have no money. But as a teenager? No freaking idea.
But as for the chemistry, biology, math, or anything else, I don't see any reason why a teenager won't be able to understand that.It's called empathy, we don't have to experience exactly the same thing as other people to be able to understand them. The author himself never experienced the things he's writing about. Do teenagers lack empathy? Of course, but this is education, after all
He probably did not experience that specific situation, but his life before writing “Crime and Punishment” was pretty rough, including prison time and exile in Siberia. Not sure how he would've reacted if he was told that his works will be obligatory reading for 15 years old kids.
I don't think you can educate kids about certain types of emotional matters and certain types of empathy, at any age. Their brains just have not developed to the point where it's possible or useful.
"Empathy" doesn't really fully cover it, though. Yes, someone of any age can emphasize with someone in a tough situation, but actually having experienced something similar, or have seen others in similar situations, or just having lived longer and been exposed to the world at large... all of that changes how a passage like the GP quoted hits. Most children are not going to be able to really feel that passage. But I'd say most worldly adults would be able to, even if they hadn't lived with crushing debt.
I mean, most of us will probably never actually experience having murdered someone.
Yet we still can enjoy the though process of such a person through the book. I don't see why "paying rent" is any more difficult to experience through reading than "murdering" - if anything the general era/geography/social differences are much more significant than these (I live in an ex-Soviet country and read it as a teenager, twice - it had such a profound effect on me. Even still seeing the Russian reality of the time was harder for me (but still easier than I believe it would be for a US teen), than all the intricate internal monologues).
Understand maybe. Feel it? I wouldn't have.
Try to read 10000 random numbers, one by one. Ary you able to understand them? Yes. Do you want to read them? I don't think you do. Now imagine it's pushed to you at age of 16 and called "math". You'll hate it for a good part of your future life.
Teens might know what it's like to owe money to a friend, not be able to pay, and be embarrassed every time they see their friends
If we're going with a math analogy, I guess it's a bit like teaching them integrals in 3rd grade. You can do it, they probably have the raw IQ for it. But they won't really understand and appreciate it at a deep level (this is even a problem for people when they encounter integrals at the end of high school / early uni).
Novels like these need some life experience to really shine. A 13 year old isn't going to go "how does this writer see so clearly through so many of life's finer details", because they have never experienced 90% of what's being talked about.
There's a huge difference between purely intellectual subjects, like organic chemistry and integrals, and the mix of emotional and intellectual depth of a novel. A lot of the meaning of literary works is built on top of shared human experiences, just like the meaning of integrals is built on top of more foundational math. However, we don't have any good way (and certainly make no effort in school) to teach this shared human experience to pre-teens and teens.
A good part of the value of some of these works basically comes from recalling similar feelings you felt in situations similar to the characters, maybe comparing your actions at such times to theirs, or the reactions of other people you knew, etc. It's simply not possible to experience this part of the work as a teen. Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this limitation is in Lolita - the nature of the relationship described, the power and life experience differential, the contrast with the reader's normal interactions with children - are impossible to be conveyed to or truly empathized with by teens.
STEM subjects are actually taught in order with foundations first, etc etc. Literature requires understanding all kinds of context that they don't teach.
> Are kids "ready" to deal with organic chemistry? Or integrals?
Yes, absolutely. A kid can learn both of those things and understand them, assuming they have the proper foundational knowledge, taught to them in prior classes/years.
Most kids do not have the lived experience or emotional development to understand the complex adult themes written about in novels such as the ones being discussed. There's really no way to fix that aside from waiting until they're older.
Yes the amount of damage this does to kids must be huge.
Some people here argue that "math is also what kids don't like" but math and chemistry can be understood by a teenager even if he doesn't like it. But these "classic" books can't because much more life, adult problems and having children, deaths of parents and illnesses have to happen in order for one to comprehend this books.
It's like trying to force a 8 year old to read romance novels: since his sexual hormones are not yet activated, he won't understand why a boy all of a sudden likes a girl.
The main damage is they forced it into us and call it "classic literature".
I hated it with passion, even got F's in my report cards, and could re-read it only in my late 20's. Still hate these "language and literature" teachers, all of them.
Same thing with religion and other forms of high culture. Introducing it too early will only result in a distaste, and that the person thinks they already know it. Reading the Bible as an adult can be thrilling.
I liked it especially as a teenager - that is the time when you are the most depressed and the books makes most sense. Not everyone will like every book. That personal preference does not mean the book cant speak to the whole age category.