Reading the book today with the Behavior Disorders class
I've been their substitute teacher for three days. They like the book. I came home and found the movie online. Great cast. Fun to see so many famous actors in youthful roles.
shareOne of my favorite books when I was younger.
shareIt was a fine book and a great story
The movie was pitch-perfect
Glad you liked it so much...im a bit out of sorts as to why its not treated as a classic these days
LOL I know this is necroposting -- three years between your post and my reply! But I also know you're very active on these boards and will see this.
Either last night or the night before, The Outsiders was used as a clue on Jeopardy. That reminded me of the book and my own reaction to it. I came here, saw that this thread had been started by a teacher, and intended to respond to that person. My intent was to ask, "good God, why would you choose that book?" Unfortunately I can't; the OP wasn't made here on MC but was archived from IMDB.
You're a bright guy and entitled to your opinion. It's difficult to impossible for one person to know another merely from posts on the Internet, but we've interacted a fair amount on here. To the extent that I do know you, I'm quite surprised you like this book, which is another reason I'm necroposting my response.
We'll just have to agree to disagree about the book. IMO it's amateurishly written and has several basic writing errors. Two of the characters, Dallas and Darrell, go by truncated nicknames which are almost identical, Dally and Darry. Way to go, S. E. Hinton, make it difficult for your readers to keep your characters straight. One of the gangs is named the Socs. I didn't realize until I saw the movie that "Soc" is pronounced "soesh," rhyming with "roach," which I suppose is short for "socialite" or something similar; "Socs" reads as being pronounced like "socks," and "soeshes" does not roll off the tongue naturally and so is not something kids would come up with IMO. At times the prose is hilariously bad. When one of the narrator's friends dies, his reaction is little more than "I was sad."
The setting lacks credibility. Here are these two groups of kids who, quite frankly, seem to have at most a moderate dislike of each other and at times do get along, and yet they regularly go at each other with knives and baseball bats? Stupid. When I was that age my school had a pretty intense rivalry with the neighboring school, there was probably more real animosity there than between Hinton's characters, yet I was only attacked once, ever, the encounter lasted about five seconds, and it was not with lethal weapons. (I won. When I defended myself the attacker immediately backed off.)
I know Hinton was a teenager when she wrote The Outsiders, and many are awed by that. A teenager actually wrote a novel! To me, reading The Outsiders is like watching a moose dance. The moose doesn't hoof it like Fred Astaire, nor does anyone expect him to. If there's anything to be amazed at, it's that the moose is able to dance at all. Yes, a teenager wrote a novel. A bad one.
I don't know why teachers push this book. I've always suspected that when The Outsiders was published in the 1960s, a bunch of little old lady school librarians, of the sort who hadn't been laid since Herbert Hoover was president, reacted "Wow, a book about kids' problems, written by a kid who would understand their problems. Students must read this!" -- then pushed the book without considering its actual merits, it got onto "recommended books" lists promulgated by the NEA and other such organizations, and the educational system's been stuck with it ever since.
Sorry for laying this rant on you. I respect you and your opinion, and I'm sure you have good reasons for considering it a classic. I just think it's one of the worst books I have ever read.
Shogun is a regular contributor and I also like reading his posts, and figure he won't be offended by your rant.
I kind of agree with a lot of what you say about The Outsiders. This book was on my reading list in HS as well, and always winced at some of the writing. As an adult, I wince more. I seem to recall that "soc" was explained as sort of socialite so as I read it, I read it in my head as sowsh, as dumb as it is. But wait- there's more! What about "Soda Pop" for a name, or Ponyboy?
But I've read far more boring things in HS. The story was fairly interesting enough for me to overlook the cheesy writing.
He's a great guy, and I have exchanged many posts. I know he won't be offended. And I'm honestly surprised by his reaction to The Outsiders.
I had forgotten about the nicknames. My reaction when I read those was, WTF? Every self-respecting teenage male I knew, myself included, would have taken severe umbrage had someone attempted to saddle us with cognomens like those. "Soda Pop" would be bad enough, but "Ponyboy?" To the adolescent male mind, that's only slightly short of "Eunuch." That would be a matter to be handled under Code Duello!
My sole, violent encounter happened when tensions between our schools had become particularly hot. Imminent fights were rumored. I was in our school's band and we were playing at an event at the other school, in enemy territory. After the event I was alone in the parking lot, walking to my car, carrying my instrument, a tenor saxophone, in its case. The thing was the size of a small suitcase and weighed maybe ten pounds. I heard footsteps, someone running toward me. I waited until he was almost upon me then grabbed the case's handle in both hands and swung it around, at arm's length, with all my not-quite-manly strength. It would have struck him in the pelvis except he was able to react quick enough to prevent that -- he slammed on the brakes and bowed over, yanking his hips backward. The sax would have been a poor weapon, too big and heavy to be used effectively, but he hadn't considered that it could be used that way at all. He saw that I had an improvised weapon and he had none, so he was outmatched, and he ran away.
That was the way violence went at my school. Chains and knives?! That would have been stupid.
By contrast, did you ever read the Tripods trilogy, books written for kids by Samuel Youd under the pen name John Christopher? It's set in the future, and aliens have invaded and conquered humanity. They've implemented mind control technology which forces humans back to a feudal era existence and keeps them in happy, willing slavery. Almost all of the humans, that is. They're are a few who attempt to revolt against the aliens, but the odds are nearly impossible -- a handful of people against a force which can conquer an entire planet. As is usual with children's books, the main characters are teenagers.
I read those when I was in grade school. I've reread them a couple of times as an adult and enjoyed them. My pleasure is not from nostalgia, they're very well written and it's a good story. I can't anticipate how any adult who had not read a particular such book when young would react to it if reading it for the first time, but if you've never read them I recommend them.
Youd also wrote other, conventional fiction for adults, including The Death Of Grass, a novel about a plague which wipes out grasses, including all wheat, rye, and other such grains. Essentially it's a post-apocalyptic story with Earth's food supply now radically reduced. It's a fine novel which was made into a sometimes bizarre movie, No Blade Of Grass (1970).