Mr. Brown and the Vicious Fifth-Graders
Written: Jul 13 '00 (Updated Oct 05 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: I wanted to be Dorothy Parker when I grew up.
Cons: There can only be one Dorothy Parker.
|
|
|
| kchowell's Full Review: Parker, Dorothy |
I owe my lifelong appreciation for Dorothy Parker to my fifth grade English teacher, Mr. Brown. This is not because he was a teacher who encouraged me to expand my horizons and challenge myself to read things outside of the children’s section. In fact, he did quite the opposite. Mr. Brown was the first and last teacher that I ever went to war against, and Dorothy Parker became my support and inspiration.
I had always been a good student, and a child who truly enjoyed school, so I was initially very upset when Mr. Brown and I began the year on the wrong foot. However, before long, I was engaged in full-scale classroom guerilla warfare, with many of my classmates joining the rebel cause.
The event that started the conflict occurred early in the school year, and its core was my selection of a free reading book. Mr. Brown required that all students in his English class bring a book to be read for free reading time, which was typically the last ten minutes of the hour. Fifth grade was a transitional period for me; I had grown bored of most selections that could be found in the children’s section of the public library, but I had no desire to read the sappy teen romance of the young adult section. I found myself choosing more of my reading materials from the fiction section of the library, and often read books that were in my parents’ shelves. The book that started the Howell – Brown War was Peter Benchley’s Jaws. One of my parents had read it, I had been curious about it, and I began reading it with my parents’ permission.
That is, until Mr. Brown noticed me reading it during free time and confiscated it, claiming it was not age appropriate, and also too difficult for a fifth-grader to follow. He snatched it from my hands in mid-sentence, and proceeded to make quite a deal of it in front of the class. I told him that I was reading it with my parents’ permission; he scoffed, and told me that he’d be discussing this with my parents later that evening. I continued protesting; he became irate and turned the color of a ripe tomato. I was sent to sit in the bad kid of the day desk in the back of the room until the bell rang. The class was struck silent; we had never known a teacher to forbid any book from the classroom. Magazines were often confiscated, but no one had ever had a book taken from them before. Many of us were reading adult novels with our parents’ approval, and Mr. Brown’s reaction to Jaws went against everything that we had been hearing from our teachers and parents about seeking out books that would challenge us.
In retrospect, I believe that Mr. Brown had intended this display to send a clear message to his advanced reading students about who was the boss of the classroom. However, it taught our class a lesson of an entirely different sort. Mr. Brown could get really angry over something that we knew wouldn’t upset our parents. By forbidding Peter Benchley, he had given us a powerful tool. Our free reading books were capable of turning our teacher into an amusing, ridiculous, unreasonable ball of hate. It would have been dangerous information in the hands of any class, but to have this bit of knowledge fall into the hands of the most advanced fifth-grade English class in the school, a room full of bored-with-children’s-book aspiring smartasses, well, this was just a recipe for disaster.
While in his rattled, post-book confiscation state, Mr. Brown revealed additional hot buttons that were just waiting to be pushed. He frequently made spelling mistakes while writing on the blackboard, and he would fume if anyone brought these errors to his attention. He made other mistakes, too; confusing characters in a story, mixing up Greek and Roman deities, and became silently but obviously enraged when a student would point this out. He had made a tactical error, and a classroom of know-it-all high achievers was going to make him pay for the rest of the year.
Although my parents allowed me to continue reading Jaws at home, I was no longer allowed to bring it to school. Before long, however, other members of my English class began bringing Stephen King novels, which were confiscated one by one. A particularly smart-alecky boy brought in a Harold Robbins novel. Confiscated. A prissy rich girl brought in a biography of Hugh Hefner. Confiscated. Soon, Mr. Brown was confiscating twenty books a day, and the classroom atmosphere degenerated to near anarchy. It became a contest to see whose reading selection could bring Mr. Brown closest to an aneurysm. I began bringing Dr. Seuss books for my free reading time, and found them to be particularly effective.
When the Dr. Seuss books became tedious, I began polling my family for reading selections that would annoy Mr. Brown. A family member (who shall remain nameless to protect his guilt) handed me a beat up collection of Dorothy Parker. “Mr. Brown will love this. She writes about drinking and smoking and infidelity.” I had never heard of Dorothy Parker, but if she could annoy Mr. Brown, I was going to give her a try.
Much to my dismay, Mr. Brown did not forbid the book on the first day that I brought it. Or the second day. In fact, he never did take it away from me, even though I am quite certain that much of her preferred subject matter should have put her on his bad list. As a result, I read through the biographical section in the front of the book. What I read changed my life. I glossed over the parts about her rocky finances, suicide attempts, and failed marriages and focused instead on the thing that she remains most famous for: her scathing wit. Dorothy Parker was the adult embodiment of everything that my class was aspiring to in our campaign against Mr. Brown. She was a grown-up that wasn’t afraid to call a person on being ridiculous. She was a woman who had mastered the art of talking back.
I loved Dorothy Parker before I ever read any of her poems or short stories. I fell head over heels for her snappy one-liners, which filled the opening section of the book. Here was a woman who had made a name for herself based on being caustic and witty. She was famous for being an especially intelligent smart aleck. I didn’t just want to read Dorothy Parker…I wanted to be Dorothy Parker.
Although it would take me a few years before I would appreciate the humor behind her short stories and some of her poems, Dorothy taught me some things that I was able implement immediately. The key to being intelligently sassy was to be a good listener, and to think about different ways of interpreting the same phrase. One of my earliest favorites among her witty retorts is the way she responded to a tedious young man who told her that he “simply can’t bear fools.” Her response was, “How odd. Apparently your mother could.” From Parker, I learned that the best one-liners needed to be specific to the conversation; they could not be stored up and saved for the correct occasion. I honed my ear, and did my best to craft a well-timed zinger whenever possible. Although I never reached the Dorothy Parker pinnacle of smart-mouthed excellence (and how many people ever can get there?), it was not for lack of trying.
By the time I arrived at high school, I had more Dorothy Parker memorized than I would ever need. Faced with the swirling mass of hormones that permeated the high school halls, I appreciated her short stories and poems even more. Although her view of male-female relationships was quite pessimistic, it was more palatable to me than the cornball romance that was being sold to me in the teen films of the day. It was during this time that I learned to appreciate her poem “Men”:
They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They’ll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They’d make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They’d alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.
Although it’s tempting to dismiss this piece and a bitter piece of man bashing, I would argue that it carries a valuable lesson for any person, beyond any romantic implications. As a teen, while trying to establish my identity as an emerging adult, this was a powerful reminder of the value of being myself, and not letting myself be unduly influenced by anyone around me. It’s a reminder to beware of anyone who wants to mold you into something that you’re not.
As an avid fan of short stories, Dorothy Parker’s are amongst my favorites. Her early career, writing magazine photograph captions, honed her skill at being concise, and successfully creating atmosphere with remarkably few words. Her stories are sad, funny, and all to easy to relate to. Telephone Call recounts the agony of waiting for a crush to ring you up, and the mental games that one plays while waiting in vain for the phone to ring. You Were Perfectly Fine is a masterful depiction of what a manipulative description of alcohol-induced behavior can do to the psyche of an individual with a wretched hangover. Many of her stories deal with the underhanded way that people manipulate each other, particularly in romantic involvements. Dorothy Parker’s stories are not best read when you’re head over heels in love; save Dorothy for those blue periods when you’ve just been dumped.
Choosing a favorite author is a daunting task; I have so many favorites that I can’t begin to choose just one. But Dorothy Parker was the first writer of works not aimed at children that I truly loved. I wanted to possess her wit and charm; I read her biographies and picked up different versions of collections of her work whenever I stumbled upon them. When an independent film about her life called Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle appeared at my local theater in 1994, I saw the film on its opening night, even though it had received poor reviews and would probably disappoint (It did…but I still was glad that I went). I would have certainly found Parker later in life on my own, but the fact that I discovered her when I did has given her a special place in my heart.
It just infuriates me that I have the oppressive Mr. Brown to thank for it.
This review is part of a write-off hosted by mshawpyle, on his age-undisclosed birthday, in which several Epinions members are writing about their favorite authors. Please visit the wonderful reviews of these participating members:
andy
arazim
buffoonery
caconti
caravan70
conradd
cornelia
curtisedmonds
emlin
endora60
ergopropterhoc
erik_kosberg
expono
forkids
grouch
halfsweet
happy2000usa
jasonkirk
jrk
jmb623
kcfoxy
kimmiko
lambira
leah
kurt_messick
mgreber
stonehousellc
stract
sweeper
sweetpaulie
and tomgray
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
kchowell
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Location: Surrounded by books somewhere in Texas
Reviews written: 132
Trusted by: 324 members
About Me:
I have a toddler and an infant. I'm too sleep-deprived to write much of anything.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.