Let literature live a little

Charles Stuart is reported to have said when he returned to England after decades of exile, to restore the British monarchy, "Hey, y'all! It's good to be back."         

That is the introduction that I used on one of my papers last semester, but chickened out at the last moment. A little tongue and cheek playfulness is one of my healthier outlets, but not one that would've been accepted. So, I went through the editorial equivalent of purgatory and I rewrote my paper less than two hours before it was due. My brain turned into Jell-O and later I had to clean the floor from where it dribbled down my leg and formed a stagnant, toxic pool on the floor. This illuminates the issue of the almost universal lack of humor in academic literature today.

Thousands of books have passed the counters of bookstores across the United States and have taken their rightful place collecting dust on underappreciated shelves in America's dens. I have read hundreds of books and articles since I learned how to read and grew an almost godlike admiration for those crusty pages. Yet I have come to realize that none seems to have any humor. One book I recently rediscovered on my bookshelf, "Popery in England," is the same. I recall that I had to read it twice, because I couldn't remember reading it the first time only days before. It really was that bad.

A friend of mine tried to convince me that this dry, toast-like reading was vital to understanding the world of the late 1600s. One would think with the way she talked about it, had I not read it, I may have remained the same kid who was upset about street crime and ultimately believed the homeless should simply invest in summer properties to get them out of the city. Admittedly both healthy instincts and sound conclusions, they were clearly missing the clean- cut philosophical and cultural understanding that this book provided. Spoiler alert: the book was a snore, my disdain and verbal beating of it is more interesting.

You know who likes books like this? The same people who liked Ayn Rand (another literary comedian from way back). You know those people, those who are convinced that they owe nothing to their ancestors or tradition; those that believe that the world owes them for existing. In fact, I think I've had class with several of them. I will say this much, something must be done to bring a renaissance to the assigned scholastic literary cesspool we are forced to draw from, I just wonder if I will live to see it.

While I'm not willing to face the realization just yet, I will read anything to get my degree and to glean the most out of college and I am not alone. However, I want something that is interesting, something written with some care and not merely recited facts. Simply put, I want something that turns me on. There are a few basic amenities that are crucial to survival: reproduction, quality food and quality entertaining reading materials; things scholasticism frequently lacks.