Classics for Tots on the Way Up

Townhall.com ^ | November 1, 2013 | Suzanne Fields

[lentulusgracchus]

Yeah, the kids are all supposed to get off on Jhumpa Lahiri now .... my half-Indian distaff junior relatives read her as de rigeur .... Lahiri and V.S. Naipaul.

Wish to hell they'd read Jack London and Stephen Crane in those schools.

[lentulusgracchus]

Kipling nearly became a U.S. citizen .... he was living in Brattleboro in 1894, but some half-assed diplomatic rumpus between the U.S. and Britain led to some things being said, and then some other things being said, and he went home to England. His writing changed, btw, it is said, and he was never quite the same again. Somewhat dispirited, we are told, as if he'd been deflected from his life's trajectory.

He'd have made a hell of an addition to New England letters.

[FrdmLvr]

Excellent! It’s never too early. She’ll love it. I read Animal Farm in 4th grade. It was in our school library. It set my political course, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I just knew that some governments could be very unfair and mean, and the people who ran those countries were called dictators. My dad probably told me what a dictator was. By the time I was in sixth grade, our teacher told us how evil and ruthless the Soviet Union was and what the hammer and sickle stood for. I remember asking her if Khrushchev was a dictator.

[lentulusgracchus]

Oh, and his return to England eventually delivered his son to the meatgrinder of Flanders ..... something he never got over, ever.

[lentulusgracchus]

Animal Farm is a foundational read, I agree. Even the VHS animated film version if nothing else -- like the old Classics Illustrated, or the Cliff Notes Version of everything.

Orwell's rock-bottom message to us was a warning about the intellectual and moral vacuity of totalitarian ideologues. They almost killed him in Spain. Before, he was a happy left-wing English fellow-traveler. After the Communists turned on the French syndicalists and everyone else in sight, Orwell had to flee for his life. That's when he smelled the coffee.

[TalBlack]

“He’d have made a hell of an addition to New England letters.”

Twain absolutely loved Kipling and late in his own career when one might expect an old hand to snipe at the rising talent. That right there backs your position (it also says a hell of a lot about Kipling’s power of expression).

[TalBlack]

“..... something he never got over, ever.”

Man do I get that. As the first time, 55 year old father of a 3 and a half year old boy, hearing such things as this affects me terribly. I had no idea during the previous 52 years of life how easily I just breezed along through the days. Whenever I read or hear of Kipling I’ll think of this. Sad and frightening what people must bear.

[jocon307]

“Apparently, his study of the classics taught him nothing about courage.”

Thank you for pointing that out. Talking the talk, that is all.

These books sounds cute, maybe I’ll get some for my grandson. My daughter won’t read a lick, but his dad is a good reader, so there is some hope!

[FateAmenableToChange]

I’ll admit that I had never read Service before. I pulled a few selections off Amazon for my kindle, and it’s really good stuff. Kipling is, and always will be, the top of the heap for me, but thanks for turning me on to Service’s writings.

[FateAmenableToChange]

And then abandoned post haste for suggesting that the impacts of British colonialism were not universally bad.