How D-Wade Got His Austen On
In USA Today (via Yahoo) we find out a bit more about the Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade choosing Pride and Prejudice as his favorite classic.
He first read the book in an English class at Marquette. “I liked the story,” Wade says. “It had love and loss. I just liked it - the whole story line - how people overcame stereotypes.”
The Editrix is still annoyed that nobody made her read Jane Austen’s work in school. We had to learn about her on the streets, yo.
May 10th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Ugh, school assigment reading is enough to put one off forever. What did we get in junior-year Brit Lit? It was all Hardy and the Brontes; enough to make an impressionable teenager believe that England is constantly dark and gloomy and inhabited entirely by mad and/or depressed people. Thank heavens for Austen, O’Brian, and Forester; and would that I had encountered them before my thirties. They’ve provided an enormous amount of entertainment since.
May 10th, 2006 at 11:52 am
I had to read Wuthering Heights twice; disliked it the first time (high school) and liked it the second time (college).
I have to say I really got into the stuff I read in AP English. 1984, The Great Gatsby…
May 10th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
I learnt about Austen on the streets (read: through my mum’s copy of S&S without it being properly introduced to me) and the Brontës were vague names until I got to University and they started calling out to me like Cathy to Heathcliff.
This stuff makes me wonder what I’m missing - or whether we finally find out about things we are supposed to like or most of them end up passing unnoticed. Scary thought, huh?
May 10th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
To agree with you Cristina, it is scary to think that countless amazing things are passing us by, just because we dont have the good fortune of bumping into them. So much of what people grow up to be and believe is just that- chance.
May 10th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Started reading Austen after watching some of the adaptations and through hearty recommendations from a mentor; where would one be without those who have influenced us for the good, one way or another.
May 10th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
My perhaps out-dated impression of the U.S. high school curriculum is that it specializes/d in kinda minor works by kinda minor masters (Hemingway’s The Pearl, Steinbeck’s The Red Pony) or, conversely, that it thrust you into the turgid depths of 19th century fiction (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Wuthering Heights) without any sort of historical contextual information. It took/takes a determined reader to overcome both these handicaps of erewhile.
On the bright side, yesterday my 14-year old son took Proust’s Swann’s Way with him on a long field trip bus-ride because it had been recommended by [fictional character] Rory Gilmore on the [TV show] The Gilmore Girls. Go figure. I anxiously await his review. He was tepid on Mme. Bovary tho’ he did finish it all (Rory, a precocious reader if ever I met one, had also read this in her [fictional,private] high school.) Did these kids actually understand what was going on in that hansom? Call me a cab, Ishmael! (Next up on his list.) Yet, thank goodness for positive peer influences!
(To keep all of this within the context of this website, my son has seen & enjoyed a few of The Movies–including the Mormon P&P and Bride & Prejudice–but, though he gallantly tried, he couldn’t get very far in the Real P&P. I assured him that it was OK–I couldn’t either, the first time I tried it as a precocious teen reader. Austen’s quiet irony & wit takes a certain maturity to appreciate.)
May 10th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
I read boring (well, not fun) stuff in English (am in gr. 11). Usually our novels are Canadian lit. or stuff written in the 20th century. I liked To Kill A Mockingbird well enough. Some grades before us got to do The Importance of Being Earnest in gr.12, but that was with a different teacher. I want to do IOBE!!! I LOVE that book/play! It’s hilarious!
I wish we could read C-19 lit in school, but we don’t- probably b/c it’s too hard for most people to read. We do Shakespeare (of course), but he’s from way back, and not near as interesting as Pride and Prejudice or 1984 or A Room With A View or Evelina.
The boys would rebel if we had to read, “Pride and Prejudice” (said in a scornful, derisive, mocking tone that conveys “what is all the hype over a stupid girl book with sissy guy who’s probably gay“). I say that they’re just jealous about how we all gush over Darcy!
May 11th, 2006 at 12:16 am
Hmn. If I had to rely on high school for my current reading I would be poor indeed. We read some terrible Canadian fiction. The idea being that anything written before the 20th century couldn’t possibly interest us. Except for Shakespeare, but I suppose that was just to keep us from confusing it with the Bible…
I lamented this all in my blog once. Our librarian was quite mad and actually locked up the entire fiction section with a chain. O_O
May 11th, 2006 at 2:21 am
I thank Bridget Jones and Colin Firth for my love (and obsession) with all things Austen. They made my curious about this “other Mr. Darcy” and things went their way!
Sylvia from Austria
May 15th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Chantal brings to mind–
See The Oscar Wilde Collection (DVD) for a great performance. The Victorian era is roughly halfway between Austen and us and, at least among the upper class, a comedy of manners was still possible.
May 15th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Postscript: Natalie Ogle (P&P1’s Lydia) plays Cecily in (above) The Importance of Being Earnest–a trivial comedy for serious people. Alas, Elizabeth Garvie was prob. unavailable to play Gwendolen.