Jon Stewart mentioned the old novel A Separate Peace on The Daily Show last night. I had just recently seen the book again, lying around my parents’ house, so it was funny to hear him mention it. For those of you who don’t know, A Separate Peace is some book about some prep school boy who hurts some other boy, and then he feels guilty about it or whatever. (Wimp!) I guess it’s like a watered-down, teen-angst-y version of Crime and Punishment. And I suppose it’s also a revenge-of-the-nerds type story too, what with some dork ruining a jock’s life, leading to the jock’s death. (This stuff only happens in fiction, by the way. In real life, the jocks just give nerds wedgies and stuff.) But it just doesn’t have the razzmatazz and salaciousness required for today’s young readers.
That’s why I think it should be rewritten and re-released as A Separate Piece, where they replace that friendship and “accident” stuff with some super-smutty and lasciviously libidinous literary love story between Gene and some horny nerdy girl from off-campus. And since she’s not part of the school community, it’s called: A Separate Piece. That would be a story today’s kids could relate to: one where the underdog gets to hump some legs! And after all those hair-metal and rap videos they’ve grown up being exposed to, they’ll be riveted by it! They just have to make it naughty and explicit enough for parents and teachers (and especially churches) to condemn and protest it, and it’s a can’t-miss mega-hit with kids!
See? I’m just trying to help solve the problem of figuring out how to make kids want to read more! What are you doing about it?
