The book I was sent to read before orientation my freshman year was called My Sister's Keeper, and it sucked.
"This all feels like some awkward combination of a sci-fi novel and a movie on the Lifetime Channel," reads The New York Times review of the best-selling novel by Jodi Picoult. "In short order, the novel becomes a soap opera." I happened to agree; I have always preferred books with more depth than daytime TV, books with more nuance than hot-button-issue beach reads.
It's hard for me to sum up the amount of frustration its selection brought me, and from speaking to friends, I am not alone in thinking this. Let me put it this way: I have seen students burning a copy of this book, and I did not stop them.
The problem lies not in the fact that books like My Sister's Keeper exist. People are evidently buying it, and the Cameron Diaz-starring tear-jerker of a movie based on it must have touched at least some hearts. But when it comes to choosing a book that will be the primary intellectual bonding point for a new class of Duke students, it has to be something of serious merit.
There is no reason why the Summer Reading selection committee needs to condescend to students bright enough to get into Duke University by snatching a buzzed-about title off the best-seller lists, while skipping over the thousands of classics that would adequately mirror the caliber of education that Duke has to offer.
One of the problems with My Sister's Keeper and some of the other selections is that they tend to be books built on a charged issue, and less on character development or story craft. In Picoult's 2004 novel, the controversial topic that overwhelms the text relates to stem-cell research, and whether parents should have power over how this technology affects their children.
To give more plot summary wouldn't be relevant-judging by the limited content of the pause-heavy "discussion" that my FAC group attended three years ago, the characters served as little more than mouthpieces for provocative viewpoints.
Don't get me wrong. The issue of stem-cell research is a serious and engaging moral dilemma, and one that could, under the correct circumstances, provide for excellent novel fodder.
But when planning an activity that could act as the blueprint for future epiphany-birthing, off-the-wall, 4 a.m. dorm room conversations about favorite novels, it is the duty of the University to give its students a multidimensional work that can spark fruitful arguments based on the text itself, not just the issue it invokes.
In her article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Erin O'Connor, an associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, argues for quality control in freshman summer reading programs by mentioning the uproar that arose after the Univerity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chose Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed as its 2003 selection.
Those opposed to the book's liberal bend as it exposed the hardships of poverty cried foul, but O'Connor defended the selection-not because she agreed with it, but because of the book's overall merit. "More disturbing... is that the debates over such assignments expose a creeping illiteracy at the core of our educational system," she wrote.
Admittedly, it is no easy task to find a high-lit reading assignment that will capture the interest of a thousand 18 year olds. And as universities try to find such a project, they come up with a diverse array of approaches. The College of the Holy Cross had its Class of 2013 read the newspaper everyday and post in an online forum about their findings. Incoming freshmen at UPenn studied the painting "The Gross Clinic" by Thomas Eakins and were asked to respond to it. Students at Brown University have taken time out of their summers to write letters to their academic advisors about their assigned book.
And Duke can be innovative as well. It is possible to find great literature that can hold the attention of students across the academic landscape. There's nothing wrong with making an in-house pick; perhaps Reynolds Price could be convinced to speak, serving the dual purpose of engaging minds and showing off the fact that Duke has some superstar professors. Or it can make a radical shift like UPenn did and have students analyze a painting over the summer, and then see the real thing when they get to Duke.
The most recent orientation, however, might have been the best opportunity for an art-related assignment: The Nasher Museum of Art has an exhibit with paintings by this guy Picasso, and I hear he's pretty good.
Nathan Freeman is a Trinity senior. His column runs on Fridays.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.