Posted on 12/29/2004 12:36:31 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
This November, Judy Blume was presented with a medal from the National Book Award Foundation. The same day, Madeleine L’Engle received a medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Though both authors are best known for their books for teenagers, they couldn’t be more different.
Blume made her name as the writer of Deenie, Forever, and other young adult novels known for their sexual themes and explicit descriptions. Typically, many of the articles written to celebrate her medal pictured Blume as a sort of big sister who provided guidance and reassurance about premarital sex, masturbation, and similar topics. Washington Post writer Jennifer Frey gushed, “Blume is, at heart, a childhood friend. . . . She is the one who told us secrets, who took the mystery out of the embarrassing stuff. She made us feel normal. She made us feel understood.”
Yet when her adorers in the media bring up the actual quality of Blume’s writing, it’s usually in a rather sheepish way. Even writer Susan Jensen, who thinks Blume’s books are popular enough to be considered “contemporary classics”—as if popularity were all it took to make a classic—admits that “Blume has received criticism for stereotypical characters [and] flat writing.” Another admirer, Ellen Barry, conceded, “You’d be hard pressed to find a paragraph of description in any of Blume’s books.”
The medal Blume won from the National Book Foundation is for writers who have “enriched our literary heritage.” Given her monotonous prose, it’s hard to argue that Blume has done that. But Foundation member Jessica Hagedorn tried anyway, telling a reporter, “For young people, [Blume] is as literary a writer as you can ask for.” Really? As literary as Robert Louis Stevenson? As Mark Twain? C. S. Lewis? Harper Lee? E. B. White? Madeleine L’Engle?
While Blume got a generation thinking about their bodily functions, Madeleine L’Engle was transporting them to other galaxies and centuries with imaginative, beautifully written tales like A Wrinkle in Time. There are those who argue that Blume’s kind of realism is better for kids than L’Engle’s fantasy. I happen to think there’s room for both genres, but that’s not really the point. The point is that L’Engle’s fantasies, with their exploration of love, God, family, suffering, death, and other timeless themes, reach emotional and literary heights that Blume’s work can’t even begin to climb.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Blume received her award, not for literary merit, but for something else—promoting a worldview. By sympathetically portraying adolescent sexual relationships that are free of values (except the avoidance of pregnancy and disease), Blume did as much as anyone else to help bring the sexual revolution to the younger generation.
Ironic, isn’t it? Most conservatives, according to popular stereotypes, would not know a good book if they bumped into it on the street. Yet it’s the National Endowment for the Humanities, part of the Bush administration, that honored one of the truly great fiction writers of our time, who wrote of God and timeless truths—while the allegedly sophisticated literary set, the National Book Foundation, awarded an honor to an author who is mediocre at best. It makes you wonder who’s really interested in literary merit and who’s only interested in promoting teen sexual activity and a debased worldview.
A funny moment in TV was Andy Richter on the old Conan O'Brien show telling how much he loved her book and identified with the main character, until someone explained to him that he'd gotten it wrong, and much of what Blume was writing about he couldn't actually have experienced. He had a priceless look of confusion, pain, and finally understanding. But that's probably what a boy would have gone through reading that book.
She wrote Rumblefish & TEX, which I think were both made into movies in the early '80s.
When I was a young boy, I used to think that Freckle Juice was the coolest book.
Blume is a talented writer for children (and not just little girls), and she deserves her awards. Somebody is definately overanalyzing Blume's career to fit their own agenda (which happens too much nowadays), and I don't like it one damn bit.
SuperFudge and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, which were her more popular stuff, had little to do with the 'lessons' of her other books. And considering its subject matter, I think her writing is just as good as L'Engle's. It's just not 'arty' enough to please the author.
I just read "Tollbooth" to my boys last month! They loved it.
I LOVED that book when I was a kid. Can't wait for mine to be old enough to read it (oldest one is only a year away, I figure).
Regards,
PS: Thought Blume's books were awful, though I speak only of her teen books, as I've not read the stuff written for the younger kids (I was too old for them when they came out.)
I hated Hinton books then, I hate them more now as a parent.
Didn't Hinton also write "Ordinary People?"
Regards,
PS: Wouldn't be surprised if I was mistaken.
When I was a kid, I read all of Beverly Cleary's books because ... well, maybe because the pictures were cool or they were somewhat intereting, I don't know. At the time I thought the stories a bit bland and ordinary.
Later, all grown up as a college student and with some time to kill in the library, I found myself in the children's section and on a whim, pulled out one of the Cleary books and started to read. They almost had to kick me out of the library because I was laughing loud enough to disturb others, and couldn't stop.
Cleary was a superb writer. Her prose was exquisitely lean, concise, and visual. She never condescended to her readers and always respected the dignity of her characters. As a kid, reading about kid things, to me at the time it seemed almost like straight reporting, and not particularly comical. Later, her clean and understated writing style and objective way of chronicling the antics of kids made for very, very funny reading from an adult perspective.
She wrote a scene about Ramona being in class and not feeling well. She happened to look over at the jars of fruit flies in blue oatmeal that the class had set up to study. The sight of the flies and the oatmeal was too much for Ramona and she finally threw up.
Even as a 7 year-old kid I remember that being such a well described scene that I could actually feel myself getting nauseous at the thought of the blue oatmeal. "Beezus and Ramona" was one of my favorite books at that age.
I have my own little Ramona at home now....honest, she is just like the character and we have finished the series once again,
It is ageless.
Judy Blume leaves me cold.
I really liked the Ramona books when I was little. Beverly Cleary was a great writer for school aged kids. The blue oatmeal brings back memories! I also LOVED the Bobbsey Twins books by Laura Lee Hope. Good writing, somewhat dated but still entertaining reading for a child.
I read Judy Blume's "teen" novels and thought they were trashy and stupid. Her characters were quite wooden and I couldn't relate to them, even as a pre-teen and teenager.
I loved Madeline L'Engle. She wrote some fabulous books. I particularly enjoyed "Many Waters" and "A Ring of Endless Light" as a teenager, and "A Wrinkle In Time" is great for younger readers.
Part of the problem is that I began reading at the age of 3, and by Kindergarten was reading at the 6th grade level. During elementary school my teachers gave me various books to try to keep me interested, even if the subject matter was somewhat questionable for a young child (as in Blume's teen books). Plus I read very quickly. It must sound pathetic but in late elementary school I was so bored I resorted to reading the encyclopedia!
I eventually read my father's Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffen novels around the age of 13, and there were definitely some mature themes in those books. He let me read "The Hunt for Red October" when I was in 4th grade, but the others had to wait until I was older. ;-)
I was and still am a L'Engle fan. She had such a wonderful imagination and worked so many concepts into her writing. You really had to think. Like when they try to land on the two dimentional planet. Humans are three dimentional. We can't do that.
Blume...she liked controversy in just about everything she wrote and most of it was written badly. It was social propaganda for pre-teens if you ask me.
S.E. Hinton? YAWN! I'll take Phanton Tollbooth over Outsiders anyday. Though it might be because I was forced to read Outsiders in school and I read Tollbooth because I wanted to.
RE: "Blume...she liked controversy in just about everything she wrote and most of it was written badly. It was social propaganda for pre-teens if you ask me."
"Social propoganda"? Does it make you feel good to drag your (misplaced and wrongheaded) politics into the discussion of a great children's writer? Blume's only "agenda" was to speak to children, and later, pre-teens 1) On their own level 2) about subjects that interest them 3) about challenges they face (especially young women here) and 4) without talking down to them or shoving a bunch of "life lessons" down their throats.
Blume was funny when she needed to be (Tales from a Fourth Grade Nothing is outstanding) and serious when the subject at hand was serious (as the older brother of a sister who is on the verge of puberty, I thank God my local library has a copy of "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" to help me out of some tough conversational jams).
What's your major malfunction?
I hated every Judy Blume book I ever read. I don't even remember the titles other than "Iggy's House" and I really hated that one living where I do.
L'Engle, OTOH, wrote pure fantasy - and more morally. Her writing is much more lyrical and does meet pre-teens at their level.
RE: "L'Engle, OTOH, wrote pure fantasy - and more morally"
The "morality" of Judy Blume's writing is a matter of opinion, subjective in the highest. And, pardon my French, I don't give a rat's a** about your "moral" opinions.
It wasn't moral - that was the problem. I was, what 10, and I knew that.
And I really don't care what people think of my morality. After all, I am the one who has to live with it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.