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Sour Grapes

By on 4.18.11 @ 6:06AM

Grapes of Wrath turns 72 but Steinbeck’s classic, and others, are collecting dust among college readers.

The Grapes of Wrath, published 72 years ago last week, remains a modern classic and a literary favorite, especially among older generations. Unfortunately, despite its success upon publication in 1939 — it was one of the ten best sellers of the year — young readers today are ignoring modern classics like Grapes in favor of more multicultural, narcissistic, politically ignorant fiction and non-fiction.

For the last century, modern classics have peppered the Publisher’s Weekly top ten best sellers list. From Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth (1905) to Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth (1931 and 1932) to Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940 and 1941), these novels were both popular with the public and acclaimed by critics.

Today on college campuses around the country, books like these hardly exist on recommended reading lists for college students. In fact, in a 2010 study by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), of 290 colleges and 190 reading programs, only five schools assigned classics, an inevitably debatable catalogue of books that have stood the test of time (Cornell did assign The Grapes of Wrath in 2009). Classics of antiquity — Homer, Plato — and works from the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods were absent altogether.

Instead, popular books that promoted multiculturalism and reflected “leftist political perspectives” replaced classics of the ages. Ten colleges assigned Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario, a creative non‐fiction account of the journey of an illegal Honduran immigrant to the United States. Six schools assigned Warren St. John’s Outcasts United, a description of a soccer program in a Georgia town for the sons of refugee families.

The study observed the majority of books incoming freshman read “offer a distinctly disaffected view of American society” and a “grim assessments of American life.” Several colleges assigned Zeitoun, the story of a post‐Katrina hero who is mistakenly accused of belonging to Al Qaeda. NAS found that all of the Katrina-themed books colleges assigned took Americans to task for their inadequate response to the disaster and treatment of locals. Leftist political views among academia are hardly surprising, but on a national scale like this they are disheartening.

One might think that if not for Jane Austen or Bram Stoker, college students would never pick up a classic of their own volition. Actually, the situation is worse than that. In 2009, the Chronicle of Higher Education found that college students, in their free time, would rather read about the love between humans and vampires. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book undeserving of explanation, nabbed the top spot. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight appeared on the list as well. In a Washington Post column about the subject, Ron Charles observed: “Here we have a generation of young adults away from home for the first time, free to enjoy the most experimental period of their lives, yet they’re choosing books like 13-year-old girls — or their parents.”

Classics, modern or otherwise, needn’t supersede all of the books young people read. In fact, it’s possible some of the books may become modern classics as they age. But whether college deans purposefully exclude known classics or college students overlook them, the students suffer most. Books like The Grapes of Wrath wrap the reader up not only in a moving story of a family experiencing the Oklahoma dustbowl of the 1930s —something not unlike today’s Katrina disaster — but it demonstrates the inner-workings of an author grappling with a socio-economic dilemma within a politically charged climate.

Novels as different The Age of Innocence, Gone With the Wind, Lolita and To Kill a Mockingbird — all bestsellers the year they were released — are sadly missing from today’s college campuses, yet each can teach readers that trifecta of literary brilliance and achievement: something about the world then, something universal about the world today, and something about the reader himself. If today’s young readers remain unexposed to such quality, tomorrow’s adults will be even more politically unaware, culturally shallow, and artistically ignorant than today’s. 

About the Author

Nicole Russell writes from Northern Virginia.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (54) |

Bulgaricus1| 4.18.11 @ 6:56AM

I can confirm that most literature read on non-christian college campuses by students is total drival. They are assigned garbage & then come out uneducated and completely unprepared for the read world. Big surprise, huh?

Carlos the First | 4.19.11 @ 5:54AM

My opinion: "Hamlet" was the greatest literary achievement of all time...I love that play...
For novels, can't beat Dickens.."Our Mutual Friend", and others...For opera: "Das Rhinegold".
To each his own. No disputing tastes.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.18.11 @ 7:16AM

I recently asked a group of high schools students (9 students) if they had ever read Moby Dick. Not one had ever heard of it.

MOS was 71331| 4.18.11 @ 10:58AM

I read "Moby Dick" only once when I was 57, and I couldn't understand why academics rave about it.

When I read it, I was working for the Royal Saudi Air Force and living in Saudi Arabia. An RSAF warrant officer I worked with was taking an English lit course, and MB was one of the books he had to read. He spoke English fairly well, but he was really struggling with the book. I advised him to watch the Gregory Peck movie and write book reports from that. He later told me he'd taken my advice -- and got the best grade in his class on the book!

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.18.11 @ 11:14AM

Atrophy.

Ishmael| 4.18.11 @ 11:15AM

Moby Dick is the greatest American book ever written. Its an incredibly tight and densely packed allegory of the universe, society, American society, its place in the world, political correctness, human nature, fate, destiny, and transcendentalism all in one. It easily deserves to be listed in the top 100 of books ever written.

Missouri David| 4.18.11 @ 1:19PM

I like Cooper and Hawthorne, Faulkner and Stienbeck, but to claim Moby Dick the best, at least in top ten but then "Readin is for dummies!" Thanks and Merry Christmas.

Deb| 4.18.11 @ 7:22AM

Though off the beaten path, there are colleges which offer great books programs. I think they are St. Johns', William and Mary and New St. Andrews.

Occam's Tool| 4.18.11 @ 1:40PM

St John's has campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe. It's Saint John's College, not University.

Heck, as a pre-med at TCU, I read Seutonius and Tacitus. I took the class so I would HAVE to read them.

lm10001| 4.18.11 @ 7:26AM

They might try 'The Closing of the American Mind'. How higher education has failed democracy and improverished the souls of todays students.

Or... maybe they're better off just cliff noting college and playing the xbox.

Dollface| 4.18.11 @ 7:28AM

Moby Dick? Who wants to read about a whale when saving them through socially correct actions is so much more fun.

Appleby| 4.18.11 @ 7:28AM

Classical novels do not include deviant sex, and one can scan in vain for the words f*** and s*** -- plus the books are just too darned long. People in these books may smoke cigarettes, which would cause babies to die if the book were brought into the same house with the babies (assuming the babies hadnt been aborted in the first place); they may also include guns, war, a disproportion of white men, or words longer than four letters.

Not to mention that classic books take longer than six minutes to read.

Incidentally, I am currently reading a little book written in 1937 called *The Joys of Reading* by Burton Rascoe, that makes the identical points made in this article.

Anommynous| 4.18.11 @ 10:54AM

Well, Jonathan Swift made liberal use of scatological humor, and Chaucer wasn't beneath using obscene humor, but overall your point is well-taken.

Occam's Tool| 4.18.11 @ 1:42PM

My Dear Appleby:

The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius contains lots of deviant sex. How can you write about Caligula, Tiberius, Nero and Messalina without deviant sex discussions?

Jim| 4.19.11 @ 1:08PM

Clearly Appleby mean APPROVING text about deviant sex, etc. The appearance of same doesn't necessarily make a book bad, but if the text reveals such things are okay, or approved, that is where I jump ship.

Tina B| 5.18.12 @ 8:15AM

Where does Lolita lie in the grand scheme, I mean lay, I mean fall, no. . . I mean is Lolita approving or disapproving of deviant sex? Just asking because the last time I read it I was a Catholic HS underclassman, and all I can remember was the deviancy and never noticed the attitude towards it.

diviz| 4.18.11 @ 3:59PM

So you don't consider Shakespeare to be classic?

Appleby| 4.19.11 @ 11:15AM

Shakespeare was TeeVee for the people of the time. If it were translated into modern English, including all the dirty jokes, it would be immensely popular with the same people who watch "Jersey Shore."

When I was in Grade 8, our school class were taken to Stratford, Connecticut, to see a performance of "Taming of the Shrew". Before the performance, a helpful actor came out and explained the numerous dirty jokes in the banter between Kate and Petrucio -- to the absolute horror of the teachers and parents who had accompanied us. (Remember, this was in 1962, when it was forbidden to say "pregnant" on TeeVee and all married couples slept in twin beds.) Never enjoyed a performance as much as that one, before or since.

By the way, the part of Kate was played by Ruby Dee, whom you may not know is a Black woman. Shakespeare refers to her as "nut-brown Kate" (which probably meant she had Spanish colouring) -- but Ms. Dee was outstanding and since her sister was called Bianca (which means White), it was one more excellent joke that in the early 1960s could not be made out loud.

Tina B| 5.18.12 @ 8:19AM

Appleby, I too was in 8th grade in '62. And you were blessed to see a young Ruby Dee on stage, and to have had a teacher who took you on such a field trip. Another thing that does not happen much today. A Shakespeare field trip, I mean.

PaulyD| 4.18.11 @ 7:31AM

As an English major in college in the 1970's, I was assigned to read most of the "modern classics" mentioned in this article. As I've grown older and wiser, I've come to realize that most of these books are drivel too. The "Grapes of Wrath" certainly was proclaimed a classic in its day by the usual suspects - critics who approved of its socialist "message."

Books that were written in the 20th century and now the 21st are lacking in the universal truths that were common in earlier classics, such as those written by Jane Austen, or even earlier, Shakespeare. But to that end, most of what has passed for knowledge in the 20th century (outside of technical and scientific knowledge) has actually been a descent into decadence.

The "modern classics" are really nothing more than steps on that down staircase of cultural decay.

the permanent newbie| 4.18.11 @ 9:10AM

Unfortunately, on this matter PaulyD is entirely correct. Far too many twentieth-century "classics" are on that list for reasons quite unrelated to literary merit. Exhibit A should probably be The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.18.11 @ 11:15AM

Ditto.

Tim the Enchanter| 4.18.11 @ 1:44PM

PaulyD: You describe yourself as an English major from the 70's. You then state that books written in the 20th century are lacking in universal truths. You obviously have not heard of G.K. Chesterton. I'd recommend continuing your education with the aforementioned.

PaulyD| 4.18.11 @ 2:43PM

I said "most," not "all."

I love to read G.K. Chesterton. But do you think the average college professor has even heard of him these days?

Tina B| 5.18.12 @ 8:24AM

Everything is in a state of decay, from Lit to science, music, visual arts, and, the higher tech takes us the lower tech takes us. Hey, you think maybe it's us? Or is it the state of this world, winding down to its renewal, when the Lord of Glory returns for us at last?

roadmaster| 4.18.11 @ 8:03AM

I don't know many young people who can even READ, much less enjoy the classics. They cannot balance their checkbooks either, but they feel good about it.
Try hiring them to do a job - you can't get them off their Iphones long enough to WORK!

Larry| 4.18.11 @ 9:18AM

At least they have plenty of self-esteem though. :-)

Larry| 4.18.11 @ 8:10AM

As someone who works everyday with college and high school graduates, I'm not surprised at any of this. Our wonderful tax-payer funded teachers and professors are turning out know-nothing garbage for products.

JimH| 4.18.11 @ 8:56AM

Maybe because my kids went to one of those awful backwards Florida public schools I keep hearing about on this site, they got to read a few of the classic books cited here in middle and hich school.

cuban pete| 4.18.11 @ 9:41AM

I served on a high school district school board in a suburb of Chicago for nine plus years. Our meetings were regular and open to the public(of course). From time to time the Daley/Madigan dems would try to float some iniative to do away with local boards and have all schools controlled by the State of Illinois. I reminded the people who came to the meetings that this was one of the few governmental bodies to which citizens had direct access. They could come to a meeting and talk directly to the people who made policy and proposed tax increases ,etc. This is still the case in most areas.
Having said that I would suggest that if you have a concern about the curriculum of your school district start showing up at board meetings and register your displeasure. You can have an input on what goes on in your school and you can make your concerns about reading lists,etc. known.
Make a case for the continued inclusion of the classic Western canon in your school's curriculum.

cavan1| 4.18.11 @ 3:29PM

I was chairman of a public employees union (School district with 115 schools) for three years. It is why I am now a conservative.
I attended all the school board meetings.
At one meeting the room was packed, easily 500 people attended. I was sitting next to the teacher's union president and I asked him what was this all about. No one goes to school board meetings. He said they were going to discuss the new sex-ed curriculum.
At one point the chair of the school board said, " Thankyou for coming tonite, but where were you when we were voting on the new reading curriculum?"

Radioman777| 4.18.11 @ 9:47AM

College? This was high school lit in the 70's.

Jeff R| 4.18.11 @ 10:14AM

All I can say is "Amen." Oh, and recommend to anyone who has never read it, Diana West's "The Death of the Grown-up."

MOS was 71331| 4.18.11 @ 10:41AM

Why don't we American Spectator bloggers each suggest one or two titles of English-language books which would be of value in a college or high school lit course? My first choice would be Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men." (As it happens, I first read it in 1962 because it was assigned in my freshman lit course at Carnegie Tech.)

Larry| 4.18.11 @ 12:11PM

My choice as always would be "Atlas Shrugged". I read it every year and have done so for several years. Timely because of the film which opened on Friday. In spite of the film being terrible, I'll continue to read the book every year.

Joe Redfield| 4.18.11 @ 5:20PM

"1984" and "Bonfire of the Vanities".

Appleby| 4.19.11 @ 11:18AM

"Brave New World" and "Democracy in America."

Matthew Quigley| 4.18.11 @ 11:10AM

I had to read "Grapes of Wrath" in high school, and I honestly didn't like it. In fact, most of the so-called "classics" bore me to tears. The sole exception to that was "Paradise Lost," and that was a bit hard to get through...although it was a very fascinating read.

There is only ONE reason I would insist on teaching the "classics"...okay, two. First is that it provides cultural literacy and perspective on the development of the English language. Second is that I can see no reason why students shouldn't be tortured by having to endure Shakespeare's utter crap the way we were when I was in school.

cuban pete| 4.18.11 @ 11:26AM

Matthew:
"endure Shakespeare's utter crap.." Wow!
You're just trying to get people's attention because I know you don't believe that.
Cordially,
cuban pete

Matthew Quigley| 4.18.11 @ 2:34PM

Pete,

I do think Shakespeare is crap. When it comes to English literature from the Tudor-era, I lean toward John Donne. I first was compelled to read "Romeo and Juliet" when I was in ninth grade, then "Julius Caesar" in tenth, "Macbeth" in twelfth, and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and one of the Henrys in college (mercifully, I've forgotten which one). On stage I was forced to see "Romeo and Juliet" when I was in high school, and then dated a woman who insisted on never missing any Shakespeare production being presented in town (THAT relationship ended fast..."Hamlet" is possibly one of the dullest and most pretentious things ever written in the history of the English language). I honestly am NOT a fan of Shakespeare, I really do think what he wrote was crap, and I sincerely believe that sitting through his stuff is torture.

Ed Wood was a better dramatist than Shakespeare.

cuban pete| 4.18.11 @ 3:25PM

C'mon, Will was a little better than Ed Wood.
In any event Wood was a transvestite so he would have enjoyed playing female roles at the Globe.
Cordially,
cuban pete
PS
As a last ditch attempt to change your mind may I recommend Harold Bloom's " Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human. It is available in paperback.

NaturalBorn Texican| 4.18.11 @ 12:15PM

Anything by Leon Uris, but especially "The Haj."

Louis L'mour: anything by C.S. Lewis, but especially the Narnia series: Hemmingway, Pearl Buck, .........sorry, it's hard to stop!!!

somnolence| 4.18.11 @ 12:32PM

When I was in high school I used to have mowing jobs in the summer, and one of my customers was a little old lady who was a retired librarian. She had primarily been a librarian and her husband had been a teacher in Louisiana in the Huey Long era there and afterwards. I remember her saying that she would never have stood for having The Grapes Of Wrath and Voltaire's Candide in her library because of the "immoral" tone of both books. The funny thing is then, at age 16, I had already read both, and they weren't on the required lists in any of my high school literature classes circa 1968-1972.

solidground| 4.18.11 @ 12:44PM

Colleges and universities obviously are doing a very good job of compiling all the required reading necessary to create good little robots who in later life will think and behave as programmed while in late adolescence and young adulthood. Makes me think of the leftist song/tome about little boxes on the hillside. Only now we have little group thinkers all across the economic and political landscape. More and more, I feel like a stranger in a strange land.

Jeamar37| 4.18.11 @ 4:24PM

PaulyD. Did you go to Closed Mind U? I would think an English lit major would be more discerning that to think all good writing stopped in the 19th century. Or haven't you read anything written since then?

Tom Scheffelin | 4.18.11 @ 6:18PM

After 35 years, the Classics Illustrated comic books can once again be purchased new from Jack Lake Productions (http://www.jacklakeproductions.com). After reading a Classic Illustrated story, which might take only 30 minutes, one has an idea of the plot and the characters. A percentage of the readers might then read the book. Classics Illustrated are a terrific companion to reading the book, and not a substitute; however, the alternate is for very, very few students to ever read such stories.

To date, 49 different Classics Illustrated, such as The Three Musketeers, Black Beauty, and The Count of Monte Cristo, are available. In addition, 48 Classics Illustrated Juniors (stories by Hans Christian Andersen and others) are also available.

Classics Illustrated and Clasics Illustrated Juniors can be given to elementary, middle school, and high school libraries, or one's city or county libraries. I have done both. The second graders love the stories! The children and the teachers just need the knowledge that they are available, and the opportunity to read them. A modest donation of Classics Illustrated or Classics Illustrated Juniors to a teacher or a library go a long way. They only cost between $4 and $10 each; schools and libraries get 20% off.

One can buy a second grade teacher a boxed set of 12 Classics Illustrated Juniors, which only need approximately three inches of shelf space. One can buy a high school 40 copies of Gulliver's Travels for the high school's english teachers to share; the students can then discuss the story, what the author really meant, etc.

Or one can start a reading club at a school. For instance, if a student read all 49 Classics stories, wrote a brief summary of each story, read five or ten Classics books of their choice, then they would receive a Reading Award from the school or PTA at a suitable ceremony.

Ideas for you to consider.

Tom Scheffelin

Bill| 4.18.11 @ 6:31PM

Jane Austen is one of the better read classic authors because her works tended to be very light fare. The works of Dickens, Thackery, the Bronte sisters were much more complex. My daughter took two English Lit courses in college and although they did cover a fair number of the important authors they did have nothing from Thackery, my favorite author of that era.

Suzanne Rhoades| 4.18.11 @ 9:12PM

Interesting that everyone thinks we mean the same thing when we say "reading." There's much more to it, for me, than plot, character, etc. I have to love the author's writing style. Couldn't get through page 1 of Moby Dick but have read most of the other "classics." Just because you don't like an author's style of writing doesn't mean the book is bad. It simply means you don't care for it. Like different kinds of food.

Paul Harris | 4.19.11 @ 12:10PM

I agree 100% that we should not neglect the classics, including Updike's "The Jungle" but if you're going to attack "Zeitoun" then back it up with some evidence of why it is faulty. I was a tourist trapped in the Superdome, next to the facility where Zeitoun was illegally held, so this book was incredibly poignant and believeable for me.

Paul Harris
Author, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina"

somnolence| 4.19.11 @ 2:53PM

Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle", not Updike.

Flee| 4.19.11 @ 4:00PM

I am partial to Faulkner, Graham Greene and Sinclair Lewis. I enjoyed their imagery and subjects. C.S. Lewis was also a favorite. Of course these were read in high school rather than college for the most part. It is disheartening that college students are not required to get exposure to classics as we once were in high school and earlier.

Tina B| 4.19.11 @ 7:53PM

as an addend: C.S.Lewis' fantasy trilogy is great reading for adults too. My son, almost 40 now, an avid reader of mysteries and the third generation to be so bent, rereads the Tolkein series and still enjoys them.

Modern wordsmiths who draw a clear distinction between good and evil: Lee Childs, Michael Connelly, Brits P.D. James and Dick Francis in his heyday.

Christian apologists: Ravi Zacharias, Ron Rhoades or Philip Yancy

(all this after a life of Catholic Education and classics up the wazoo, no complaints, though.)

Oh and by the way, to JimH: Thanks for having our back, someone needs to (beside the NEA, of which I am NOT a member). Our students get the same classics at the Florida middle school where I teach.

sealed motor | 4.20.11 @ 4:21AM

I am glad to talk with you and you give me great help! Thanks for that,I am wonderring if I can contact you via email when I meet problems.

Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:12PM

is good

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