Pynchon, Rand, school reading lists

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Should have mentioned also that it's _The Hobbit_ that gets taught in 
schools, and for many years, not _Lord of the Rings_.

best

On 27/03/2006:

>>  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/education/14175174.htm
>>
>> "Not surprisingly, the College Board's 101 Great Books, suggested for 
>> college-bound students, include very few of the contemporary works 
>> that populate district lists. Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, James 
>> Agee, Herman Melville and Thomas Pynchon all make the cut, but not 
>> the perennial favorites of school districts like Amy Tan, J.R.R. 
>> Tolkien
>> and Ayn Rand."
>
> Rand's _We, The Living_ gets taught quite a bit in schools. It's 
> semi-autobiographical and quite readable, if soap operatic and not 
> particularly well written, and is actually a pretty interesting 
> (however biased) primary source depicting ignorance, corruption and 
> oppression under the Soviets into the 1920s. _The Fountainhead_ and 
> _Atlas Shrugged_ are worse (because longer), but Rand is still hugely 
> popular and very influential, particularly in the U.S. Her novels are 
> Harold Robbins-ish in plot and heft, but with an insidious 
> capitalistic, elitist, "egoism and selfishness are virtues" propaganda 
> message which Americans in particular seem to find appealing.
>
> Howard Roark in _The Fountainhead_ is supposedly loosely based on 
> Frank Lloyd Wright. The 1949 film version was big budget, and Rand 
> wrote the screenplay. Shee was also one of the driving forces of the 
> HUAC communist witchhunts in Hollywood.
>
> Pynchon's Mafia Winsome in _V._ is an obvious parody of Rand, and that 
> and other bits and pieces in the novel suggest that he had read at 
> least some of her work.
>
> (I suspect that the only Pynchon that gets taught in secondary schools 
> over there is _The Crying of Lot 49_, though I've long said that 'The 
> Secret Integration' would be a great addition to any high school 
> English Lit. syllabus.)
>
> best
>