Darkness Everywhere
Meghan Cox Gurdon is at it again. On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal published her lament on the growing trend of "darkness" in young adult fiction. Not only did she object to the more fanciful forms of darkness, such as is found in dystopian novels like The Hunger Games, she also singled out so-called "issues" novels like Scars and Shine, which deal with self-cutting and sexual abuse respectively.She wrote:
it is also possible—indeed, likely—that books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures.
Oddly, while she was anxious to assume that reading about self-harm might encourage a teenager to experiment with the behavior, she was quick to point out that the same cause and effect relationship does not apply to murder or cheating.She wrote:
Reading about homicide doesn't turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won't make a kid break the honor code.
So, according to her logic, it's only those newfangled horrors like self-harm and sexual abuse that are problematic to read about. Old fashioned murder and cheating are okay. Which is a good thing, because when I was in high school, I was assigned to read about the following old-timey horrors:Suicide (Romeo and Juliet)Racism (Huckleberry Finn)Prostitution (The Catcher in the Rye)Not surprisingly, Ms. Cox Gurdon's article resulted in a storm of objections from people who actually read, write, edit and otherwise engage with young adult fiction. For a sampling, check out the twitter hashtag #YASaves.Now Cox Gurdon is back with a defense of her original argument, claiming that she was unfairly accused of endorsing censorship. For the record, she did not endorse censorship. I don't recall anyone claiming she did endorse censorship but it's a convenient way for her to portray herself as a misunderstood victim as opposed to someone who doesn't understand thing one about fiction.Let me state for the record that I think it's a good idea for parents to know what their children are reading. If you're concerned about it, crack open the book. If you think it's too dark, too sexual, too violent, too sweary, too scary, too stupid, or too anything, talk to them about it. Take it away if it makes you feel better. But understand this: your child's English teacher is going to be assigning even darker stuff. If your child is lucky, as I was, she'll be reading books like The Iceman Cometh (drunks and whores), The Canterbury Tales (adultery, etc.), and Brave New World (kinky promiscuity). Heck, when I was in high school, we spent two classes watching Franco Zeffirelli's film version of Romeo and Juliet, which had actual nudity in it!I survived. Also, I cried, because it's a really sad story.Which brings me back to my main point. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about young adult fiction, adult fiction, literary fiction, or what have you, darkness is always going to be an essential ingredient. There is no such thing as a story where nothing bad happens. What Cox Gurdon is saying, without having the sufficient self-knowledge to actually come out and say it, is that the only darkness we should expose teens to in fiction is the darkness they can dismiss as irrelevant to their lives. That's why Romeo and Juliet is okay and Scars is not.But the brilliant thing about young adult fiction today is the fact that it is relevant to teens' lives now. That's why they read it. It's also, incidentally, why they rose in huge numbers to defend it against Cox Gurdon's accusations.