The Six Books You Read In College

            So I walk into my bio class and the TA asks if anyone has questions about the lecture. I raise my hand. “I skipped lecture because I was busy doing the homework I’d forgotten. So what was it about?”

            The TA stared at me. “There’ll be a handout posted on Blackboard.”

            “That was supposed to be funny,” I mutter, and sink into my seat.

           

            A girl next to me asks what happens when there’s more animals in the environment than it can support. Whaddya think, chick? They all go out for ice cream? So the TA takes the next ten minutes to explain that, when there’s not enough food for all the animals, lots of them die. “Start two penguins in generation 1. Then in the next three generations—”

Underneath the snow, he has three feet. Three adorable little penguin feet.

            “You get a lot of inbred penguins?” I say. Everyone stares at me again. Joke, people, it’s a joke! Premeds don’t really have a sense of humor, do they?

            Late February. Between exams, study groups, and searching for an apartment, I’ve barely had time to work on my blog and for this, I apologize. I’ve carved out fifty minutes of an English lecture for which I haven’t done the reading. Not that it matters, because the professor only ever lectures on the first ten pages. Sometimes, this makes me wonder just how much of the assigned reading she’s done herself.

            “Today, we’ll be discussing the difference between what it is to be ‘un’ something and ‘not’ something.” The professor pauses. “Seriously.” You know a lecture’s going to be fluffy when even the professor thinks the topic is ridiculous. “Here’s a cartoon of Darwin’s head on an ape’s body. It’s supposed to be satire.” No duh.

            There’s an empty can of Red Bull at my feet and the girl in front of me is dangling her hair over my computer. Here’s some of the books you read in college.

The Ancient Philosophical Rant

           

            Much like Plato’s Republic or Utopia, this book was written hundreds of years ago and is mostly complaining about their society. No matter what the professor says about its impact on society or the historical value of the text, you have a sneaking sensation it was just as boring back when it was published. Since it was written before the invention of hygiene, movies, or editors, it is extremely long and nothing much happens. People publish hundreds of philosophical rants on the internet every day. It’s a little disturbing to think that, six hundred years from now, ktxbits228 might be considered the greatest writer of our time, and future college students will discuss why 21st century humans worshiped anthropomorphic cats.

The Depressing Modern Novel

            One of my friends took a class last semester entitled, ‘Reading the 9/11 Novel’. Fun! Nothing spells education like reading about the horrible deaths of thousands of people. The Holocaust, the sinking of the Titanic, Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . . A surefire way to add gravitas to a boring novel is linking it to one of histories’ great tragedies. I once read a novel about six college students who got superpowers when a radioactive meteor crashed into their apartment. They don colorful costumes and set out to stop crimes. Then 9/11 happens and they’re powerless to prevent it. Seriously? Stop getting your tragic in my light-hearted sci-fi!

The Token Good Book Added to Fill the Class

You can read this! After spending a semester reading incomprehensible first-hand reports of the real War of the Roses.

            In my English class, we’ll be reading Snow Crash . . . eventually. First, we have to get through Utopia, New Atlantis, and Brave New World. My roommate gets to read Watchmen at the end of her class, after The Road, a book of obscure short stories, a book of more obscure poems, and a graphic novel about a woman discovering her sexuality (because it doesn’t count as pornography if it’s literature. Even if you do see many, many pictures of oral sex). Other classes get to read The Hunger Games. Lots of students take these classes and push through weeks and weeks of boring discussion for a chance to read their favorites . . . only to find that analyzing actual good books takes all the fun out of them.

The Obscure Book of Poetry

            In order to help Ithaca’s independent bookstore to stay in business, my friend’s professor has ordered an obscure book of poetry from it and has forced every student in the class to walk all the way to town to buy the obscure book from the obscure author, published by an obscure university press. The poems are all about a teenager’s lesbian relationship with her adult music teacher. This is the second book about lesbians in the syllabus of that class which is taught by a male in his mid-twenties.

The Graphic Novel

            The Holocaust. Suicide. AIDS. Hundreds of books have been written about these very, very, very depressing topics. How will you make your book different? You’ll write it in pictures! A cheap gimmick intended to sell books to people far too lazy to read an actual book (and some nerds who don’t bother checking what this manga is about), The Graphic Novel is quick to read and will leave you feeling slightly depressed on the inside, like one more fun, innocent thing has become corrupted and tragic.  

Postmodern Book Seeking Attention

The girl in the middle lives in my dorm. She's the one with quotation marks tattooed on her wrists.

            Lots of people I know love The Road. I read parts of it. Good enough. But, seriously, what does the author have against quotation marks? Or naming characters? What does a book gain from being deliberately hard to understand? I promise you, there will be one book on every syllabus where the characters don’t have names, or everything is WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, or the author plays with FONTS to make a stupid point. Written by English majors for English majors, these are the books you carry around when you want to look smart. Warning: you will look like a hipster instead.