So I'm teaching Middlemarch today -- and it went pretty well, it's one of the sessions I do on class issues, and what Eliot's saying about class issues in the book, how Caleb Garth is the moral center of the book and he's pro-working class and about the dignity of work, and have they noticed that almost no one in the book who is rich does a fucking thing, for anyone, and what do they think about that, huh? Do they think that's a good idea? What do they think about a system which endorses the notion that working people are evil, simply because they're poor, and rich people -- who don't do a thing for anyone -- are good simply because they're rich? Huh? What do they think about that? Huh?
And does this remind them, oh, of anything that's been happening lately?
Oh, my, I'm so subtle.
Anyway, the class went well enough, but.
As we're walking out of class.
One of my students begins singing, quite idly and nicely, "Yellow Submarine." He has a nice voice. He sings it very well. I'm enjoying it.
Another student asks him, and no, I'm not kidding, "What's that song?"
"I dunno," he says. "Some stupid song my mother used to play for me."
AAARGH!
2 hours ago
3 comments:
Bang, now shoot me back!
um......... the little kid here doesn't know anything about the song 'cept the words ;0) shoot ya selves again.
Middlemarch is perfect for the times - you are so right!
I find Bulstrode to be the most reprehensible character. He thought that "it may be held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning is but a measure for the depth of forgiveness, and clenching proof that we are peculiar instruments of the divine intention." Reading this made me immediately think of Bush and his pirates who seem to believe that the sinning is good, but the forgiveness is so much better!
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