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 LEngle received a medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Though both authors are best known for their books for teenagers, they couldnt 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 Blumes writing, its usually in a rather sheepish way. Even writer Susan Jensen, who thinks Blumes books are popular enough to be considered contemporary classicsas if popularity were all it took to make a classicadmits that Blume has received criticism for stereotypical characters [and] flat writing. Another admirer, Ellen Barry, conceded, Youd be hard pressed to find a paragraph of description in any of Blumes books.
The medal Blume won from the National Book Foundation is for writers who have enriched our literary heritage. Given her monotonous prose, its 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 LEngle?
While Blume got a generation thinking about their bodily functions, Madeleine LEngle was transporting them to other galaxies and centuries with imaginative, beautifully written tales like A Wrinkle in Time. There are those who argue that Blumes kind of realism is better for kids than LEngles fantasy. I happen to think theres room for both genres, but thats not really the point. The point is that LEngles fantasies, with their exploration of love, God, family, suffering, death, and other timeless themes, reach emotional and literary heights that Blumes work cant even begin to climb.
Its hard to avoid the conclusion that Blume received her award, not for literary merit, but for something elsepromoting 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, isnt it? Most conservatives, according to popular stereotypes, would not know a good book if they bumped into it on the street. Yet its 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 truthswhile the allegedly sophisticated literary set, the National Book Foundation, awarded an honor to an author who is mediocre at best. It makes you wonder whos really interested in literary merit and whos only interested in promoting teen sexual activity and a debased worldview.
RE: "And I really don't care what people think of my morality. After all, I am the one who has to live with it."
We are finally in agreement on something here (though we shall never, alas, agree on Blume or her brand of writing). Morality is a personal thing, and mine is a little different than yours. This is what I meant by "I don't give a rat's a** about yours"; it's not personal because it's philisophical.
Good night and no hard feelings.
I remember reading Blume's Superfudge when I was in 4th grade. From what I can recall it was pretty lame. Makes me wish I discoverd Ayn Rand in elementary school rather than high school.
Colson's a grandad, I really don't think he'd confuse masturbation with menses.
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