<p>I’m an avid reader, and I absolutely loved “The Curious Incident”. I think that it’s much more fast-paced than P & P and that you may want to consider asking your son to start with that one to “rev him up” for P & P.</p>
<p>:) Good Luck to both of you!</p>
<p>Your son can stop reading Jane Austen just as soon as they stop making my D read Jack London! My suggestion here would be to go to the library and check out the audio version of the book as read by someone very dramatic and wonderful. Perhaps if your son could listen to the actual book (as opposed to watching the movie, which really is a very different experience) while reading along, or just relaxing, he might get more into it. Listening could involve less effort than reading, but he would still be taking in the original text.</p>
<p>My Senior year for AP English I had to read Paradise Lost, Medea, Wuthering heights, and a collection of essays by Flannery O’Connor all in the summer.</p>
<p>Your son can do it, but if he’s ready so slow a reader he cant finish, the sparknotes are always available. If he’s any good at bs-ing, they’ll be perfectly sufficient, and easy to finish in 1 or 2 sittings. Educators like to tell you they wont get you a good grade by themselves, but they’re lying.</p>
<p>What is interesting about this thread is that mom’s and I am not being snide at all, seem to think sometimes that their young men, if they don’t like chick books, shouldn’t have to read them, but us mom’s of girls, we don’t complain about guy books, so long as there is a bit of both</p>
<p>No thread on this site about girls reading Farewell to Arms, which my D did not want to read, but she discovered she liked the writing</p>
<p>It was just something I noticed, not true of all, but just a snippet of life</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I didn’t like scifi, but when we had to read the Martian Chronicles, my world opened right up</p>
<p>Hmm - I seem to remember reading a lot of Hemingway in school - should I have protested? I do admit my son had several choices and passed up P&P despite my avid encouragement. His own prejudices were too strong, and for that I blame the movie which was just coming out at that time. Otherwise he might not have even been aware of the subject matter. I hope high school boys are not arguing about reading Emily Dickinson!</p>
<p>The choice of P&P for summer reading seems to be fairly common nowadays - I assume there is some English teacher organization that comes up with recommendations and for good reasons. I know my son’s summer reading assignments ran a gamut of cultural and socioeconomic genres - should we have been concerned about the assignment because he wasn’t Japanese or African or Native American?</p>
<p>I chime in with the BBC series far and above the Keira Knightly version, especially if you want to match the book (don’t even get me started on “Troy” and how it was changed from the Iliad and Odyssey). But what might be fun is to get not only those two versions but also the 1940 Greer Garson/Laurence Olivier movie (delightful), pick one scene that was in all three movies, read the scene from the book, then see the different interpretations. You could do that at different points throughout the book, or with different characters.</p>
<p>As a caveat I must note that my husband does not read fiction at all, nor does he watch it on tv, although he has no interest in documentaries at the theater.</p>
<p>When my kids took AP Lit, they did a lot of novel reading in the summer. Most of the poetry and plays were read during the school year. In AP Language, they had to read a lot of philosophy/religion/political books over the summer.</p>
<p>Male culture is the accepted norm in our society; female culture is the exception. That’s why phrases like “chick lit” and “chick flick” exist-- if you want to talk about a “male” movie or book, you just call it a movie or book. A “female” book requires an adjective. Females must learn to navigate the world at large as well as the sub-world of “chick” stuff; males can exist in their own worlds without venturing into the sub-world most of hte time. If they DO venture into the sub-world out of choice, this often doesn’t go over well with their peers-- a shame.</p>
<p>Females are applauded for pursuing traditionally “male” careers, but the applause is not quite as copious for males who wish to become nurses (“why not go to med school?”) or 1st grade teachers (“why not teach high school?”) </p>
<p>So my feeling is, forcing a boy to read a “girl book” is a good thing. In this situation, though, since he’s not much of a reader, I’d say have him read it but use sparknotes to help him keep track of the characters and main events. I am an avid reader but have done that myself for books that I don’t enjoy, as sometimes I get characters mixed up if I’m not really into the story. I don’t think there’s any shame in it, as long as he reads the book too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t like a lot of the books that guys liked that we read. Most of the time everyone didn’t like “old” stuff, the category P&P would fall under. I’m pretty sure I would hate P&P. I also hate Hemingway, except his short stories were all right when they weren’t about hunting or otherwise killing things. </p>
<p>Probably a very small minority of teenagers is going to want to read P&P. I’m not going to lie here, yeah, that sucks. I can think of a few intellectual people who would like it but I’d rather read a modern newspaper or a modern nonfiction historical account if I had to read about the time period, as would most people I know. But this is an english class where presumably you know ahead of time that it will be about literature. Electing to take honors or AP is…electing. I mean here’s the thing, the reason you’re opting to take honors is to “not be associated” with the stuff going on in regular classes, but when people refuse to do the assignments it brings the level of the class down. If that’s the assignment for the class you’re in, I think you more or less need to complete it to some sort of minimum level, but if the assignment is to read a book, that will entail actually looking at the actual book. I’m not going to say he has to hang on every word or even READ every word, but he should at least scan the book and get the general idea.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Mark Haddon the author of “The Curious Incident” has said that Jane Austen was a major influence in writing this book:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,6000,1189538,00.html[/url]”>B is for bestseller | Children and teenagers | The Guardian;
<p>And just so there is no misunderstanding, I certainly did not mean to belittle P&P. The real beauty of this book is that while it does have many levels of witty, satirical complexity, it is also written in a style that is simple and easy to read (ie, “light” - why was that taken to be derogatory? Comedy IS satire, P&P IS a romance novel even if not of the same formulaic style that currently exists, and it IS much lighter than something heavy like “War and Peace.” Btw, I would also call Shakespeare’s “The Two Men of Verona” a light romantic comedy). </p>
<p>P&P’s simplicity is one reason why it attracts readers of ALL ages (although I would still argue that it attracts mostly female readers); each reader will get something different out of it depending on their age, sex, cultural background, etc. and it is a classic that should be read by both sexes; it has withstood the test of time and its messages remain relevant today. And “The Curious Incident” now seems like a good contrast on a couple of different levels.</p>
<p>Scanmom, interesting snippet from The Guardian. I had never made that connection! I loved both books and consider P&P an easy read, though wordier than contemporary books. Mathson didn’t much care for it when he had it assigned, but dh reread it at the same time and ended up reading all of Austen novels over the next few months that year. If he’s willing to read a third book - Elizabeth Moon’s *Speed of the Dark *is another book with an autistic narrator. It’s interesting to compare it with the Curious Incident.</p>
<p>Jane Austen famously remarked that she didn’t write her books “for the dim elves in the corner.” Your son may not enjoy P&P, but unless he’s a dim elf, he might recognize that Jane Austen is one of the most astute observers of human beings in the history of the English langauge. Or maybe it’s just a chick book…</p>
<p>No, my S is not a “dim elf” in my opinion but would be by CC standards. </p>
<p>He is a very literal reader and the whole P&P commentary of being trapped by social convention into restricted lives thing would fly right past him unless someone pointed it out/explained it. If it were presented to him, then he would see it and most likely have an opinion about it. </p>
<p>I never said he didn’t want to read it because it was a girl book. Someone else threw that in. </p>
<p>I said I didn’t think it would be a book most 18 year old males would want to read, not because of the story as much as the way it is written, very wordy, unfamiliar syntax and though others have different opinions, I don’t feel it’s very easy to read for a person who has only read straightforward modern fiction (think John Grisham, S had no problem with “A Painted House”). </p>
<p>He’s just not a great comprehensive reader and I’m trying to find a way to help him through it so he can get the assignment done. </p>
<p>BTW, the extra credit book for summer reading is “Great Expectations” which I guess would be called a guy book since the protangist is male but S would have been equally horrified if this were the assigned book rather than P&P as he would get lost in the dark wordy descriptive passages and characters.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to suggest that you called P&P a girl book; I was just irritated by that common criticism, which has always struck me a small-minded, especially given the breadth of Austen’s wisdom, humor, and intelligence.</p>
<p>I haven’t read through the whole thread, but I assume someone mentioned the A&E film version of the novel (starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle). It’s the single best adaptation of a novel I’ve ever seen. It nails Austen’s humor, something literal readers often miss because it depends on subtleties of tone and situation. If your son can see the humor in the novel, it will become a lot more lively and enjoyable–and a lot less remote. Good luck.</p>
<p>Ouch spoonyj- I guess my sons were dim elves because they didn’t like Jane Austen!
Actually, I think it’s a preference thing, although I believe everyone, boys and girls alike, can benefit from reading all different types of writing- fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry, emotional, war, sports, scientific, political, etc.</p>
<p>Packmom, sorry you got connected to the gender thing- I think I might have been one of the posters who started it.</p>
<p>Personally, what I didn’t like about the mandatory summer reading assignments, was that summer was the time for the kids to read for ENJOYMENT. My kids went to schools that required summer reading every summer, starting in elementary school. All year long they would read what they were told, and finally they get out of school for summer and…guess what? You have to read this and this and this and this and…</p>
<p>I can see it for AP classes where they have to get through a specific list of material, but not for regular and Honors classes. I always thought they should have a choice in the matter.</p>
<p>My oldest son just started, in his freshman year of college, to pick up books to read for fun. Before that, he never had the time!</p>
<p>I had many fights (well, not really fights, more like discussions about differences of opinion with occasional mildly raised voices and strong language) with my son this year about Pride and Prejudice, which more or less anchored his English Lit AP curriculum. He really did dislike it, and he is a pretty good, broadminded reader. I really did think less of him for his failure to appreciate it (although I think, ultimately, he did appreciate it).</p>
<p>Here’s my position: It is chick-lit. It is a tough read for a boy who doesn’t like to read novels much. Too effin’ bad. It’s a near-universal cultural touchstone among educated English speakers, and I doubt you would be able to find more than a dozen freshmen at any elite university or LAC who haven’t read it (or who weren’t assigned to read it, at least) in high school. Kids who want to be seen as educationally ambitious and literate have to learn how to read it, just like kids who want to play football have to learn how to block, tackle, and read formations. You don’t like to block? Boo-hoo-hoo. You don’t like to read girl-books? Gimme a break! The point is to stretch a bit, amigo, so start stretching.</p>
<p>You can bond with your future roommates over how much you resented this. You will score points with future dates by being able to recognize when the date-movie you’ve taken them to is recycling this plot.</p>
<p>In a more constructive vein, rather than watching one of the many movie versions of P&P, which is sort of cheating, why not watch a couple of the movie near versions of P&P, ones that give you a sense of what your contemporary (usually female) peers find interesting about the book without substituting for it. Bridget Jones. Bride and Prejudice. (Watching Aishwarya Rai for two hours: not a chore. This one helped a lot with my son, but he was already something of a Bollywood fan.)</p>
<p>D’s SAT I critical reading subject was about “Astronauts”, she is a chick-lit kid,:), needless to say she did not do as well on the CR part.</p>
<p>I haven’t tried to persuade S to read P&P, which happens to be one of my favorite books (along with Persuasion). It’s not because it’s chick lit, but because, unfortunately, he still reads for information and plot rather than for psychological insights, style, social commentary. So he loves science books, as well as science-fiction and fantasy fiction, but had a hard time figuring what was so great about Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment or Dickens, neither of whom can be described as authors of chick lit.</p>
<p>I think as a matter of being part of the human family, with all kinds of levels of society, etc. that it is healthy for people to read about people and how they tick</p>
<p>It makes it easier to get along, imo, if you have some clue as to the nuances of life</p>
<p>And learning about history it great, but reading something like Trinity, or Little Women, shows it in a new way, how it affects people in a personal way, not just memorization of some facts</p>
<p>ummm…I don’t think Packmom’s S is planning to attend an elite university or LAC and probably does not care much if he is “seen as educationally ambitious and literate” (I know my budding engineer S certainly does not). </p>
<p>Packmom, have you and your S looked over the actual writing assignment? Is the assignment broad enough that he could come up with a topic that is better suited to his learning style, something more concrete rather than abstract? (he will be doing more assignments in class, plenty of time to focus on the psychological and social insights later). Maybe he can come up with a general idea of what he wants to write about before even starting the book (eg perhaps from watching the movie since that is at least visual) and then as he reads, just note portions of the book (or cliff notes) that seem to pertain to his topic as he comes across them.</p>