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  • From: "Beck, David A" <dabeck AT iupui.edu>
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] The Moviegoer
  • Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 20:10:18 -0400

Larry,
I see what you mean. But I think students prepare themselves when reading, say, Flaubert or Shakespeare, knowing that they are entering a different world. Some of the more modern works, however, seem real---in that it's their world--but the references don't. (A colleague of mine said that he taught Delillo's White Noise recently and realized how dated it is and that the "threat" seems less threatening than present-day reality.)
Of course, I could be all wrong. I don't have any strong convictions about what I'm saying. In fact, I'm just thinking out loud, trying to figure out why I have bombed with the Moviegoer, but not Lancelot or LITR. It's easy to see why students like those two--but even references in LITR are "dated." One student, who really liked it, said that he could tell it was written in the late 60's or early 70's.
I remember one student complained that nothing happened in the MG. I probably should wait for my 200-level class in the fall, but I just have a "hankering" to teach it this summer (and, come evaluation time, might pay dearly for it).
Thanks for the feedback.
-David


Quoting Lawrence Rhu <rhul AT gwm.sc.edu>:

Isn't it "dated" in the ways Don Quixote or Madame Bovary is dated?
Their protagonists fall under the spells of the fashionable fictions
of their times -- chivalric romance, sentimental novel -- but they
share themes that continue to engage us: the relations between
imagination and reality, moods and worlds, etc. Try The Movies of My
Life by Alberto Fuguet for a more recent similar sort of fictional
effort, but I would readily put Percy's masterful novel in the line
of those by Cervantes and Flaubert.

Larry

Lawrence F. Rhu
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Tel: 803 777 0144
Fax: 803 777 9064
Email: rhul AT sc.edu

dabeck AT iupui.edu 05/10/06 10:39 PM >>>
Friends,
A few weeks (months?) ago, someone posted a message about the success
of teaching The Moviegoer to a high school class. (I'm thinking it was
Rhonda.) But the email encouraged me to try it once again, in my Intro
to Lit class this summer. Most of the class will be bright-faced, eager
to learn, college freshman--well, college freshman anyway.
The Moviegoer is one of my favorites, but it's also one that I've never
taught successfully. Most thought it was too weird (I interpreted that
as being too dated--replace Tony Curtis with Tom Cruise, etc.) But if
high schoolers got it, then maybe it is the way I've been teaching it.
Lancelot has always gone over well in my 200-level lit classes. And
Love in the Ruins also works pretty well, though it's a little too
long. But TMG is such a great book that I thought I needed to give it
one more try. I'm re-reading it now and am really enjoying it again.
So my question is (to the list and to Rhonda, if she is the one who
posted the email): What is a good way of presenting this novel that is
dated (in its references) but is as timely now (if not more so) than
ever to college freshman?
Any help will be much appreciated. The class doesn't begin until 6/26.
Thanks.
-David


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An archive of all list discussion is available at
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/

Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy








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