>earlier today, talking to my 17 year old nephew
>he's a complete neckbeard STEMlord but to facilitate conversation I ask him what he's been doing in English class
>he says he's been reading a bunch of cool essays and even listened to a speech from an author whose name he couldn't remember
>ask to see what he's, extremely excited that I may be able to connect with him
>he ruffles through his stuff and hands me a packet that looks like it was photocopied from a magazine
>It's "Consider the Lobster"
>mfw there are fucking high school teachers assigning DFW to teenagers RIGHT NOW
>dfw appeals to stem autists
not surprising 2bh
>tfw got to read Walden for high school English
>tfw got to read The Birth of Tragedy for high school English
>tfw high school English inspired me to pursue and stay in academia
>tfw now expanding high schoolers' minds like my own was expanded
>>7636309
>tfw got to read Walden for high school English
is that supposed to be good
>>7636309
>tfw got to read The Birth of Tragedy for high school English
How'd that go? I remember the kids in my high school english class were pretty retarded, def couldn't handle Nietzsche
>>7636309
>Walden
>inspired me to stay in academia
Top neckbeard. Thoreau's work is pretty much exclusively about Thoreau's sense of aesthetics at the time of writing. I don't see how it could inspire anyone to do anything but set their own inane ramblings down on paper.
>>7636417
isn't it about nature and trees hows that make far good YA readin when yar supposed to be readin about the death of god and ubermenchems and strangers and absurdity
>>7636292
i'm so sorry, OP, your lil neph neph is becoming a sperg tumblr tier juvenile memer. i hope some day that you'll have the bravery to strangle him to death.
>>7636423
>Why, given Thoreau’s hypocrisy, his sanctimony, his dour asceticism, and his scorn, do we continue to cherish “Walden”? One answer is that we read him early. “Walden” is a staple of the high-school curriculum, and you could scarcely write a book more appealing to teen-agers: Thoreau endorses rebellion against societal norms, champions idleness over work, and gives his readers permission to ignore their elders. (“Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures.”) “Walden” is also fundamentally adolescent in tone: Thoreau shares the conviction, far more developmentally appropriate and forgivable in teens, that everyone else’s certainties are wrong while one’s own are unassailable. Moreover, he presents adulthood not as it is but as kids wishfully imagine it: an idyll of autonomy, unfettered by any civic or familial responsibilities.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum
>>7636343
But you could eh? I bet you're special!
>>7636292
