...when I was a kid, I used to read anything I could get my hands on. Somewhere along the line, I lost the interest in reading works of fiction. By the time I graduated high school, outside of science fiction, I couldn't be bothered to read anything, and especially the "classics". At the time, I didn't care how that happened, nor was I particularly aware that it had.
Since then, I've tried to pinpoint why I, and for that matter, so many others, might have lost interest in it. To deny that we aren't a nation of avid readers would be silly, and I believe that is a relatively recent change.
English instruction, at least when I was going through school, was exclusively what we often call "classic" literature. Shakespeare, Melville, Twain, Crane, Salinger, etc. While this is often regarded as the "best of the best" and as such, and the logic to teach these over "lesser" work would be obvious to any English instructor, we must address the singular flaw in this reasoning. The classics are old, done in old style, and address topics and events which no modern person is even remotely familiar. They say their stories are timeless, but are they really? Can a person in their teens in the modern age really relate to something like Othello? Are we confronted daily with life on the Ole Miss that Twain wrote about? Can they relate to the opulence and social climbing machinations of Gatsby's '20's? Why do you think that a person who thought Apocalypse Now was a great movie would see Heart of Darkness as a plodding chore, considering that the former was inspired by the latter? Topicality, relevance, and modern storytelling style. If you aren't willing to accept the idea that most of these writers are three or four generations out of date at least, can you expect a modern teen to see its timelessness without having to fight through the dusty, historical impediments that make up its plot, setting, and style?
Probably not. In fact, there is so little that most teens find personally relevant in these novels that it is remarkable they manage to read each to its completion, as a matter of their coursework.
Now, coursework is an operative word here. During the course of my modern English instruction, book reports were a fact of life. In fact, I can remember only a few scant weeks between grade 6 and grade 12 where I was not reading a book for the purpose of presenting a paper which essentially amounted to proof that I'd read and understood it. Most of these were the classics, and lacking relevance, I found myself lacking interest. I can't count how many of them had I waited until the night before the paper was due to shove my way through the book, then hastily slapped together a synopsis and whatever else the assignment called for and got at least a B+ on it.
So eventually, I started to associate reading with stodginess and boredom, because the classics had been associated not with "literature worth reading" but with "literature worth anything from the standpoint of an English/Literature curriculum". And going fast was the reading for pleasure aspect. I began to associate picking up a book with somehow being required to contribute to academic work on the matter.
In many ways, people do not think reading is FUNdamental. By the time you get through 12 years of school and then maybe 4 or more years of college, one thing becomes obvious: reading is WORKdamental.
People don't read, not because they're ignorant, but because their experience with their literature education takes the joy out of it. And given that, is it any wonder we lack writing that compares with the classics today?
Yes, a side effect of this is that the message is sent to aspiring writers that they'll never be able to be as profound as classic writers. We put these works on such a pedestal that us mere mortals could never hope to compete. Maybe it would be better to serve up some of this "lesser" work. Maybe an aspiring writer would be encouraged by the fact that they think they could do better than what they just read? Maybe part of the issue is that English instruction sees the past as the fertile ground that somehow managed to spawn all of this great writing, and that somehow, this example will serve to inspire. The trouble is, I would wager no one ever shoved Shakespeare in front of Twain's face and said, "here, this is the mark. If you aren't going to be at least this good, don't even bother."
English/lit curricula would do well to re-evaluate classic literature and acknowledge that to encourage people to read, you actually have to choose things that ARE relevant and enjoyable to the people you're trying to encourage. Trust me, if they develop the love of reading they should if you are successful, they'll FIND the classics on their own. And moreover, they'll interpret them and gauge them on their own merits, rather than being furnished with decades of academic nattering about their meaning, purpose, and relevance to guide their appreciation of it.
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