Glass
5th December 2012, 03:48 PM
Oh really? But some beg to differ. VCE is the high school leaver/graduation exams here in Oz.
Love in the Time of Cholera should not be on a VCE course.
SHORTLY, students undertaking VCE literature will be receiving their books for next year. Some schools will be offering Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As a literature teacher, I have no issue with the quality of Marquez's writing. Indeed former US president Bill Clinton, no less, described Marquez as, ''The most important writer of fiction in any language.''
I do, however, have deep concerns over this book being on a VCE course. The reason? It explores an incestuous sexual relationship between a septuagenarian man and a 14-year-old girl. The girl is, so Marquez tells us: ''Still a child in every sense of the word, with braces on her teeth, and the scrapes of elementary school on her knees.'' If this wasn't enough, the girl's schooling declines and she commits suicide. She is merely a conquest.
It beggars belief that the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has allowed this book to be included on next year's VCE literature course. Moreover, the selection panel that chooses the books, has shown gross insensitivity to the potential readers of the book; all the more so at a time when the Catholic Church, rightly, is facing public scrutiny over paedophilic behaviour by priests. (me: along with Scouts and many many Government departments dealing with children like orphanages)
Teachers are supposed to be leaders in the community. They are supposed to endorse, if not moral values, then certainly not condone illegality and values that imply that sex with a child is acceptable.
It just doesn't wash that this book is included on its artistic, let alone doubtful literary merits. This is not a matter of censorship. It is a matter of what befits appropriate, edifying instruction in classrooms. By any measure, Love in the Time of Cholera promotes carnality, excuses illegal under-age sexual contact, describing it as Marquez says, as a ''restorative perversion''.
Surely teachers have a responsibility to say such a relationship is not acceptable. Sexual penetration of a child is not OK anywhere and because it is in literature at VCE level, this does not legitimise it. Any teacher abrogating their duty of care and who is misguided enough to teach the book will face this question from a student: ''What is your view on sex with a child?'' If they say it is unacceptable, then a student can surely ask, ''Why is the book on the course?'' There is no defence.
The public vilification photographer Bill Henson faced in 2008 over his images - subtly erotic for some, pornographic for others, artful for a few and things of beauty for fewer still - is a case in point. Henson was not explicit in his portrayal of under-age sex. (me: I have mentioned this sick f#$k before) It was in the mind of the viewer, if it was there at all. Yet, it seems there is clearly a double-standard at work here.
While Henson's work is in public galleries and by its nature is to be viewed by many collectively, Marquez's book is in the hands of a VCE student, often read alone and in private. It is clear that Marquez's book is explicitly sexual (''He won her affection; he led her by the hand, and with the gentle astuteness of a kind grandfather, towards his secret slaughterhouse.'').
What this and other passages from the text do is in effect say that this skilful septuagenarian grooms his target and once he wins her trust, begins a sexual relationship that results in a child's death. Hey, but that's life ain't it? Meanwhile he moves on to another, older woman.
Rest of article here (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sex-with-a-child-is-not-the-stuff-of-the-school-curriculum-20121205-2avl6.html)
I haven't read this book to be any the wiser about it. I'm reading the comments of people who say it's ok but then, I don't know them either. Perhaps they are like the grandpa in the book.
Love in the Time of Cholera should not be on a VCE course.
SHORTLY, students undertaking VCE literature will be receiving their books for next year. Some schools will be offering Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As a literature teacher, I have no issue with the quality of Marquez's writing. Indeed former US president Bill Clinton, no less, described Marquez as, ''The most important writer of fiction in any language.''
I do, however, have deep concerns over this book being on a VCE course. The reason? It explores an incestuous sexual relationship between a septuagenarian man and a 14-year-old girl. The girl is, so Marquez tells us: ''Still a child in every sense of the word, with braces on her teeth, and the scrapes of elementary school on her knees.'' If this wasn't enough, the girl's schooling declines and she commits suicide. She is merely a conquest.
It beggars belief that the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has allowed this book to be included on next year's VCE literature course. Moreover, the selection panel that chooses the books, has shown gross insensitivity to the potential readers of the book; all the more so at a time when the Catholic Church, rightly, is facing public scrutiny over paedophilic behaviour by priests. (me: along with Scouts and many many Government departments dealing with children like orphanages)
Teachers are supposed to be leaders in the community. They are supposed to endorse, if not moral values, then certainly not condone illegality and values that imply that sex with a child is acceptable.
It just doesn't wash that this book is included on its artistic, let alone doubtful literary merits. This is not a matter of censorship. It is a matter of what befits appropriate, edifying instruction in classrooms. By any measure, Love in the Time of Cholera promotes carnality, excuses illegal under-age sexual contact, describing it as Marquez says, as a ''restorative perversion''.
Surely teachers have a responsibility to say such a relationship is not acceptable. Sexual penetration of a child is not OK anywhere and because it is in literature at VCE level, this does not legitimise it. Any teacher abrogating their duty of care and who is misguided enough to teach the book will face this question from a student: ''What is your view on sex with a child?'' If they say it is unacceptable, then a student can surely ask, ''Why is the book on the course?'' There is no defence.
The public vilification photographer Bill Henson faced in 2008 over his images - subtly erotic for some, pornographic for others, artful for a few and things of beauty for fewer still - is a case in point. Henson was not explicit in his portrayal of under-age sex. (me: I have mentioned this sick f#$k before) It was in the mind of the viewer, if it was there at all. Yet, it seems there is clearly a double-standard at work here.
While Henson's work is in public galleries and by its nature is to be viewed by many collectively, Marquez's book is in the hands of a VCE student, often read alone and in private. It is clear that Marquez's book is explicitly sexual (''He won her affection; he led her by the hand, and with the gentle astuteness of a kind grandfather, towards his secret slaughterhouse.'').
What this and other passages from the text do is in effect say that this skilful septuagenarian grooms his target and once he wins her trust, begins a sexual relationship that results in a child's death. Hey, but that's life ain't it? Meanwhile he moves on to another, older woman.
Rest of article here (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sex-with-a-child-is-not-the-stuff-of-the-school-curriculum-20121205-2avl6.html)
I haven't read this book to be any the wiser about it. I'm reading the comments of people who say it's ok but then, I don't know them either. Perhaps they are like the grandpa in the book.