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stories for boys
Aug. 25th, 2004 08:32 amWhen I was at Hewitt, "character education" was not part of our national vocabulary -- or maybe it was and I just didn't notice because I was lost in the bizarre little vortex that was Hewitt. Certainly, it was a phrase not used explicitly, although everything at Hewitt was really about this on some level.
A lot of those levels were good. Certainly community service was very actively encouraged (and there's a story about that, a trophy and the girl who cried too much to be told at a later date) and we worked hard -- classes only met two or three times a week but we did masses more than we did in the theoretically equivalent specialized public school I went to later.
Of course Hewitt was Hewitt, and there was also an emphasis on being ladylike, gracious and charming. For not only must we succeed in this life, but we must protect the standards of these things in our homes and drawingrooms! It's difficult for me to convey the utterly surreal nature of the Hewitt experience, because it draws on such a multitude of cliches and yet always managed to be much weirder and somewhat unpredictable in the process.
At any rate, one of the features of Hewitt was summer reading lists. There was a short list, of maybe six boks, from which you had to read say four, and then a long list of about 100 books from which you had to read say two, and be prepared for essay examinations on the lot of them when you returned to school in the fall. A Hewitt girl must always show dedication to the Hewitt way of life.
As a child I was a voracious reader, much more so than I am now (my ability to function amongst humans and the Internet being the chief culprits of the day), but I hated this. I resented the book lists, mainly because of the contents. The longer list I did not mind so much, as the choices always left enough room for me to find something I wanted to read. But that short list? It was always awful. Stories for girls. Not from a family in good social standing -- plucky, pretty and perky, she persevered, could be the plot summary of every one of these things. All the books invariably had some overly obvious moral that was hammered home so hard it compromised the integrity of the storytelling, and the messages were ultimately mixed (say: Jane Eyre, which granted is a classic of literature I suppose we must all be subjected too, but I resent it being amongst the how to be a girl cannon).
During the school year, our classroom selections were not dissimilar, although were ocassioanlly broken up with what we all called stories for boys. White Fang and such like. Many of these selections were equally interrupted in their narrative glee by "and here, young lads is the moral of our tale," but it was such a change of pace, I never really minded, and rather thought these must be from the summer reading list they got at our brother school, or in boy scouts or something. Stories for boys generally involved nature being unpleasant and animals being dangerous, which was much better than stories for girls which involved people being unpleasant and staring gloomily at the weather from inside some sort of shelter while waiting to see if your father, brother or husband was still alive.
At any rate, it was all a set of simplistic descriptions and horror that amused me vastly when I was younger.
So now I'm reading the Horatio Hornblower stories, and the first thing that popped out at me is how easy the reading level is. I could have easily gotten through them before fifth grade, while I can also tell that many people would have masses of problems with them because the language is not modern in style and is filled with all sorts of words that are unfamiliar and boat related (also, let us not get into the three page description of a card game I don't know how to play -- and I know how to play a lot of card games). It, like the books of my childhood, does stop to inform us of Mr. Hornblower's sense of honor and dignity, and how he does not brag when he does not feel he has been a complete success. These little asides both charm and appall me, and the whole thing is in such the mold of the Hewitt reading list, I cannot help picture the boys at Browning (our brother school) toting these about dutifully at the end of the summer so they could write their essays on how to be a good fellow. This amuses me vastly.
The books themselves are charming, and they are specific and vague in an odd combination. It's a type of storytelling I've not been exposed too in ages, and it interests me quite a bit. I'm also quite taken with our hero -- good at cards, good at math, shy, awkward, clever as hell, but not detail oriented in a way that will ever save his ass, mortally afraid of heights, bullied, but able to fake his way through any number of circumstances, and with an inclination towards self-punishment, mainly to head other people off from doing it for him? Hi... I think I know that girl, if you know what I mean.
So I'm bemused, and remember being about 7 years old and fascinated by the story of Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, and telling my parents how disappointed I was that we didn't live in America like everyone else where they had tree houses, and my father could build me a little fort that I could hide in with my little Davy Crockett hat and pretend I was brave.
Stories for boys indeed.
A lot of those levels were good. Certainly community service was very actively encouraged (and there's a story about that, a trophy and the girl who cried too much to be told at a later date) and we worked hard -- classes only met two or three times a week but we did masses more than we did in the theoretically equivalent specialized public school I went to later.
Of course Hewitt was Hewitt, and there was also an emphasis on being ladylike, gracious and charming. For not only must we succeed in this life, but we must protect the standards of these things in our homes and drawingrooms! It's difficult for me to convey the utterly surreal nature of the Hewitt experience, because it draws on such a multitude of cliches and yet always managed to be much weirder and somewhat unpredictable in the process.
At any rate, one of the features of Hewitt was summer reading lists. There was a short list, of maybe six boks, from which you had to read say four, and then a long list of about 100 books from which you had to read say two, and be prepared for essay examinations on the lot of them when you returned to school in the fall. A Hewitt girl must always show dedication to the Hewitt way of life.
As a child I was a voracious reader, much more so than I am now (my ability to function amongst humans and the Internet being the chief culprits of the day), but I hated this. I resented the book lists, mainly because of the contents. The longer list I did not mind so much, as the choices always left enough room for me to find something I wanted to read. But that short list? It was always awful. Stories for girls. Not from a family in good social standing -- plucky, pretty and perky, she persevered, could be the plot summary of every one of these things. All the books invariably had some overly obvious moral that was hammered home so hard it compromised the integrity of the storytelling, and the messages were ultimately mixed (say: Jane Eyre, which granted is a classic of literature I suppose we must all be subjected too, but I resent it being amongst the how to be a girl cannon).
During the school year, our classroom selections were not dissimilar, although were ocassioanlly broken up with what we all called stories for boys. White Fang and such like. Many of these selections were equally interrupted in their narrative glee by "and here, young lads is the moral of our tale," but it was such a change of pace, I never really minded, and rather thought these must be from the summer reading list they got at our brother school, or in boy scouts or something. Stories for boys generally involved nature being unpleasant and animals being dangerous, which was much better than stories for girls which involved people being unpleasant and staring gloomily at the weather from inside some sort of shelter while waiting to see if your father, brother or husband was still alive.
At any rate, it was all a set of simplistic descriptions and horror that amused me vastly when I was younger.
So now I'm reading the Horatio Hornblower stories, and the first thing that popped out at me is how easy the reading level is. I could have easily gotten through them before fifth grade, while I can also tell that many people would have masses of problems with them because the language is not modern in style and is filled with all sorts of words that are unfamiliar and boat related (also, let us not get into the three page description of a card game I don't know how to play -- and I know how to play a lot of card games). It, like the books of my childhood, does stop to inform us of Mr. Hornblower's sense of honor and dignity, and how he does not brag when he does not feel he has been a complete success. These little asides both charm and appall me, and the whole thing is in such the mold of the Hewitt reading list, I cannot help picture the boys at Browning (our brother school) toting these about dutifully at the end of the summer so they could write their essays on how to be a good fellow. This amuses me vastly.
The books themselves are charming, and they are specific and vague in an odd combination. It's a type of storytelling I've not been exposed too in ages, and it interests me quite a bit. I'm also quite taken with our hero -- good at cards, good at math, shy, awkward, clever as hell, but not detail oriented in a way that will ever save his ass, mortally afraid of heights, bullied, but able to fake his way through any number of circumstances, and with an inclination towards self-punishment, mainly to head other people off from doing it for him? Hi... I think I know that girl, if you know what I mean.
So I'm bemused, and remember being about 7 years old and fascinated by the story of Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, and telling my parents how disappointed I was that we didn't live in America like everyone else where they had tree houses, and my father could build me a little fort that I could hide in with my little Davy Crockett hat and pretend I was brave.
Stories for boys indeed.
