LITERATURE ABUSE: AMERICA'S HIDDEN PROBLEM
Once a relatively rare disorder, Literature Abuse, or LA, has risen to new levels due to the accessibility of higher education and increased college enrollment since the end of the Second World War. The number of literature abusers is currently at record levels.
SOCIAL COSTS OF LITERARY ABUSE
Abusers become withdrawn, uninterested in society or normal relationships. They fantasize, creating alternative worlds to occupy, to the neglect of friends and family. In severe cases they develop bad posture from reading in awkward positions or carrying heavy book bags. In the worst instances, they become cranky reference librarians in small towns.
SELF-TEST FOR LITERATURE ABUSE
How many of these apply to you?
1. I have read fiction when I was depressed, or to cheer myself up.
2. I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day.
3. I read rapidly, often "gulping" chapters.
4. I have sometimes read early in the morning, or before work.
5. Sometimes I avoid friends or family obligations in order to read novels.
6. Sometimes I re-write film or television dialog as the characters speak.
7. I am unable to enjoy myself with others unless there is a book nearby.
8. At a party, I will often slip off unnoticed to read.
9. Reading has made me seek haunts and companions, which I would otherwise avoid.
10. I have neglected personal hygiene or household chores until I had finished a novel.
11. I have spent money meant for necessities on books instead.
12. I have attempted to check out more library books than permitted.
13. Most of my friends are heavy fiction readers.
14. I have sometimes passed out from a night of heavy reading.
15. I have suffered "blackouts" or memory loss from a bout of reading.
16. I have wept, become angry or irrational because of something I read.
17. I have sometimes wished I did not read so much.
18. Sometimes I think my fiction reading is out of control.
If you answered "yes" to three or more of these questions, you may be a literature abuser.
Affirmative responses to five or more indicate a serious problem.
DECLINE AND FALL: THE ENGLISH MAJOR
Within the sordid world of literature abuse, the lowest circle belongs to those sufferers who have thrown their lives and hopes away to study literature in our colleges. Parents should look for signs that their children are taking the wrong path -- don't expect your
teenager to approach you and say, "I can't stop reading Spencer." By the time you visit her dorm room and find the secret stash of the Paris Review, it may already be too late.
What to Do If You Suspect Your Child is Becoming an English Major:
1. Talk to your child in a loving way. Show your concern. Let her know you won't abandon her -- but that you aren't spending a hundred grand to put her through Stanford so she can clerk at Waldenbooks, either. But remember that she may not be able to make a decision without help; perhaps she has just finished Madame Bovary and is dying of arsenic poisoning.
2. Face the issue. Tell her what you know, and how: "I found this book in your purse How long has this been going on?" Ask the hard question -- "Who is this Count Vronsky?"
3. Show her another way. Move the television set into her room. Praise her brother, the engineer. Introduce her to frat boys.
4. Do what you have to do. Tear up her library card. Make her stop signing her letters as "Emma." Force her to take an economics class, or Minor in Spanish. Transfer her to a Florida community college.
You may be dealing with a life-threatening problem if one or more of the following
applies:
1. She can tell you how and when Thomas Chatterton died.
2. She names one or more of her cats after a Romantic poet.
3. Next to her bed is a picture of: Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, or any scene from the Lake District.
Most important, remember, you are not alone. To seek help for yourself or someone you love, contact the nearest chapter of the American Literature Abuse Society, or look under ALAS in your telephone directory.
From the Washington Post Invitational contest, which calls them
Merge-Matic Books. Readers were asked to combine the works of two
authors, and to provide a suitable blurb:
Second Runner-Up:
"Machiavelli's The Little Prince" - Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature is embodied in many delightful and intriguing characters, all of whom are executed.
(Erik Anderson, Tempe, Ariz.)
First Runner-Up:
"Green Eggs and Hamlet" -
Would you kill him in his bed?
Thrust a dagger through his head?
I would not, could not, kill the King.
I could not do that evil thing.
I would not wed this girl, you see.
Now get her to a nunnery.
(Robin Parry, Arlington VA)
And the Winner of the Dancing Critter:
"Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities" -
An '80s yuppie is denied books. He does not object, or even notice.
(Mike Long, Burke)
extras:
"The Maltese Faulkner" - Is the black bird a tortured symbol of Sam's struggles with race and family? Does it signify his decay of soul along with the soul of the Old South? Is it merely a crow, mocking his attempts to understand? Or is it worth a cool mil?
(Thad Humphries, Warrenton)
"Lorna Dune" - An English farmer, Paul Atreides, falls for the daughter of a notorious rival clan, the Harkonnens, and pursues a career as a giant worm jockey in order to impress her.
"The Invisible Man of La Mancha"- Don Quixote discovers a mysterious elixir which renders him invisible. He proceeds to go on a mad rampage of corruption and terror, attacking innocent people in the streets and all the while singing "To fight the Invisible Man!" until he is finally stopped by a windmill.
"Planet of the Grapes of Wrath" - Astronaut lands on mysterious planet, only to discover that it is his very own home planet of Earth, which has been taken over by the Joads, a race of dirt-poor corn farmers who miraculously developed rudimentary technology and evolved the ability to speak after exposure to nuclear radiation.
"Paradise Lost in Space" - Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist, and 2 annoying children.
"Gone With the Shining" - Bed and breakfast owners discover that the Southern Antebellum mansion they own is haunted by the Ghost of Scarlett O'Nicholson.
(Lynn Abbey)
"The Sun Also Rises Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - A petty criminal seeking to evade jail enters the funny farm, where he and fellow inmates commandeer a bus and escape, panhandle enough money to forge passports and go to Spain. McMurphy and the Chief run with the bulls in Pamplona, and McMurphy sustains permanent injury to his manhood. Undaunted, he hooks up Billy Bibbit, who has learned to stutter in Spanish, with a sexually liberated nurse, who runs off with an abusive bullfighter. McMurphy shares Sangria with the Chief, who surprisingly says his first words in 20 years, "Muchos gracias! Uno mas, por favor!"
(John Burnett)
