Calling H.G. Wells… your students are waiting
After watching Steven Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds a couple weeks ago, I then proceeded to watch the 1958 version, and then to read the 1898 original by H.G. Wells. It is a powerfully written and thought-provoking book, and must have electrified the reading public when it was first published. I cannot help thinking of the book’s utility in a writing class. Here is a sample from the epilogue:
“…At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of mankind…
That last sentence is 66 words, tying together multiple conceptual threads with a haunting grace that belies its depth. A mind reared on such writing will be accustomed to following complex lines of thought, and to the extent we do not present such literature to our children we maroon them in the poverty of dumbed-down, politically correct ‘happy-thinking’ utterly inadequate to the future they will inhabit.
War is what I would call a ‘real book’ in that it is the words of a single author, and its social message, if any, belongs to that same author as the choice to accept or reject it is the sole privilege of the reader. School children today are subjected to what I would call ‘fake books’; written to carefully scripted guidelines of inoffensiveness and grade appropriateness, and committee-chosen for an overriding social message that may have little to do with the purpose of the class in which it is presented. Small wonder, then, that our children find it so difficult to imagine reading for pleasure, and display so few of the fruits of easy commnication that follow.
Notes:
- Literature ‘may’ be even more important than having classroom internet connections
but if you want to read the book online (or download it for your Palm Pilot or pocket PC), here it is: Entire text of original War Of The Worlds
- I have pitched Diane Ravitch’s The Language Police before but it is worth mentioning again – providing you have a strong stomach and want to know how school books are created and chosen today.