Q&A Volume 1

Vampires, Mysteries, and Industrial Education

Photo by Ranurte on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

A few of you sent me some questions related to literature and education. In what follows, I attempt to answer them. If you enjoy this sort of content, please let me know in the comments. Or better yet, send me your own question for Volume 2 (thehazelnut@protonmail.com).

QUESTION: I would love to see you deep dive into the school format system all public and most private schools rely on today. We both know it's designed based on the factory system of the industrial revolution--what about this system is still working? What's not?

Great question. I’ll respond with another question: did the system ever work? I don’t mean that facetiously. I think it’s a genuinely important question. The answer depends on what the industrial system was supposed to achieve. An industrial process is aimed primarily at efficiency and the mass-production of a product that will be identical in all its iterations. In that sense, the industrial educational model has worked, I suppose, for things like teaching a large number of people how to read in a relatively efficient process. Because industrial education aims at and is governed by the quantifiable, I think it tends to do better at teaching subjects that are quantifiable, i.e., math and sciences. In those subjects, we’re more often aiming at a single, uniform answer, unlike the humanities where answers are not cut and dried and where demanding the exact same answer from every student would be absurd and counterproductive.

But since the primary goal of education in my mind is not the efficient mass-production of identical outputs, I think the model leaves a lot to be desired.

On the humanities side of things, at least, the results are pretty abysmal. See here, here, and here, for instance. Because the humanities are about the human soul and by definition, not quantifiable, the industrial/mathematical mindset really doesn’t know what to make of them. The human soul isn’t quantifiable. So what the industrial model often tries to do is turn the humanities into something that can be quantified, into something “productive,” either by politicizing them or reducing them to “career training” (because dollars, are, at least, measurable).

I think schools that follow the “poetic mode” of teaching and learning, which is much less structured, have a much better chance at educating students well in non-scientific subjects.

Short answer: our educational system doesn’t seem to be working too well right now, as I’ve discussed in the articles linked below:

QUESTION: I really enjoy reading mysteries, but it’s not always easy to find mysteries that have both compelling stories and good writing. Can you recommend authors who write great mysteries while maintaining high literary standards? I think it could also be interesting to discuss why mysteries have such a perennial appeal to readers.

ANSWER: The first writer who comes to mind is Dostoevsky. His books often deal with murder and detection, but are also among the greatest works of literature in the world. Crime and Punishment is an exciting detective story (albeit, told from the perspective of the killer) and also a deep dive into the human soul and the nature of evil.

Graham Greene’s prose is lovely and of a high literary quality, and many of his books are mystery/thrillers with a philosophical edge.

Some of Cormac McCarthy’s novels are mysteries/crime novels. I haven’t read a lot of them, but what I have read has been beautifully written.

As to why mysteries are so enduringly popular, that’s a good question. There must be something inherent in human nature that is attracted to the genre. For one thing, the human mind detests an “open loop,” and we derive great satisfaction from seeing a loop closed, an explanation reached, a solution found. The anticipation of the answer to a seemingly insoluble problem draws us like a magnet.

Every mystery writer engages in a kind of game with the reader too: can we solve the mystery before the detective character does? It’s an addicting game to play. It’s also fundamental to good writing to have high stakes, and mysteries typically involve life and death stakes.

QUESTION: In the literature world, a topic I'd be very curious about would be the origins of the rise of the "not a villain, just misunderstood" trope of postmodern plots. The closest I have noted is Shelley's Frankenstein and several of Edgar Allen Poe's works, or maybe even Maurier's book Rebecca, but obviously historical literature is not my strong suit. Where and when did this explain-villainy-away start in Western literature? What pushed it to the fore?

ANSWER: Yes, this is a trend that has disturbed me as well. In regard to it, I often think of Gandalf’s words to Frodo, “There is such a thing as malice and revenge!” That idea—that sometimes people are just plain evil and bad-willed—has become very distasteful in a world that wants to explain everything away by means of chemistry or bad childhoods or bad environment or temporary insanity etc. etc. etc. Ultimately, I think it’s a denial of sin. Of course, there are times when people really are misunderstood or when circumstances mitigate guilt, but the mystery of iniquity remains very real and literature ought to reflect that.

As far as how this trope of the “misunderstood villain” arose, I actually wrote a whole article on that general subject (focusing on vampires), which you may find helpful. Click below:

QUESTION: What is the best way to read poetry? Are there habits you have to keep poetry a steady part of your reading life? Is it important to know and how does one understand the rhyming schemes?

Great literary figures like C.S. Lewis, Mortimer Adler, and John Senior have often advised that the first step with any work of poetry (or fiction) is to open yourself up to it in an uncritical way and just let it act upon you. Let it move you. At first, anyway, that’s the best way to read poetry—let it work its magic, let it transport you. Read the poem aloud and slowly, savoring the words. Poetry is meant to be heard, like music. A good poem will do a lot of the work for you, and we just have to be humble and receptive.

Once you’ve read the poem in that way, then, and only then, might it be worthwhile to analyze it in a more formal way. Yes, I think understanding the rhyme scheme, meter, devices, etc. can enhance the experience of a poem, although they are not themselves the experience and we don’t want a hyperattention on the technique to a forgetfulness of what the poem is about or the raw joy of the poetic experience. Let technique guide you to a deeper appreciation of the whole. Analyzing technique is an aid to reading and enjoying poetry, not a substitute for it. The key to remember when analyzing technical aspects of a poem is that “form matches content.” In other words, how the poet says things is almost as important as what he says. Very often, if you look, you will find that the meter, rhyme, metaphors, sounds, etc. reflect what the poem is saying. There’s a fittingness to them. For instance, in Shakespeare’s lines

“Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before”

The repeated “oh” sounds literally sound like/enact the moaning that the poet is describing.

QUESTION: What are some of your favorite poets? What were the first pieces that made you love poetry?

My favorite poets are Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Keats, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. There are many others I love and appreciate, of course, but I’m trying to give a succinct answer, and if I had to pick three, it’d be those three.

The collection of poems that first made me love poetry was The Classic Hundred Poems edited by somebody Harmon. That collection—along with the class in which I read it, a class taught by my father—first made me really love poetry and realize its depths. As far as specific poems, probably “On My First Son” by Ben Jonson, “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron, “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats, “Ulysses” by Lord Tennyson, “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy, “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” by A.E. Housman, and Shakespeare’s sonnets.

You can find articles on most of those poems here on The Hazelnut.

Thanks, everyone, for the questions!

Questions for the next edition can be sent to thehazelnut@protonmail.com.