Love in the Time of Cholera- should it be banned?

[ggxoxo]

Did anyone else read Love in The Time of Cholera for Lit this year???

If you have, you can understand my anger when my teacher e-mailed me these links today:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/famous-novels-place-on-vce-list-to-be-reviewed-20121206-2ayro.html

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sex-with-a-child-is-not-the-stuff-of-the-school-curriculum-20121205-2avl6.html

The problem that the complainant raises is that the novel features sexual relations between a minor and a guy, named Florentino, who is in his 70s

While I can understand where the teacher is coming from (seeing that I cringed when I first read the signs of pedophilia in the novel) , I do not think that this alone is sufficient to ban Marquez's novel from the curriculum. The text does not, in any way, even condone the act. It uses Florentino's relationship with the girl to highlight the dangerous nature of love- that is, it warns the readership that love can cause us to do crazy things.

In any case, if we ban Marquez's novel we might as well ban T.S Eliot's poems which heavily features prostitutes and Davis' play, No Sugar, which displays acts of violence against women. Or what about Wilde's play, Lady Windermere's fan, which shows Lord Darlington trying to steal a married woman from her husband? I think Mr Bantick needs to understand that just because we see pedophilia in a text does not mean that we would emulate the act- that's just too naive of an opinion, especially for a teacher. I think his claim was too biased, in that he discusses the pedophilia in the novel but fails to explore the underlying message that Marquez was trying to impart as a result of it.

I will, of course, be writing a more formal letter to The Age or maybe even to VCAA to try to, at least, offer them a student's perspective into this matter. We're Literature students, for god's sake! I think we have the moral capacity to discern between right and wrong...

But, enough of me; what do you guys think about this??? Even if you haven't read the text, just because it has pedophilia (it's like one short section of the novel as well; it's not like it dominates the whole text) in it, should we remove the novel from the Literature curriculum next year?

[dilks]

Even if you haven't read the text, just because it has pedophilia (it's like one short section of the novel as well; it's not like it dominates the whole text) in it, should we remove the novel from the Literature curriculum next year?

I haven't read the text, but since you asked for an opinion on whether or not having pedophilia should automatically invalidate a book as a work of literature. No, certainly not. Lolita (which I have read) also deals with pedophilia, and yet I can attest that it is nevertheless an absolutely brilliant piece of literature.

[brenden]

Someone would have to be pretty fucking horrific for it to warrant a ban IMO. Something about banning books just doesn't sit well with me, even if it is only from a schooling curriculum.

[Eriny]

Love in the Time of Cholera is an awesome book, and I think that high schoolers can deal with the concept of underage sex. I had actually forgotten the 'paedophilia' part actually (it isn't even central to the novel) until it was brought up in this thread. Lolita, on the other hand, is completely centred on pedophilia (but is still a great work of literature).

[achre]

Of course not, that's just silly.
If they were that concerned with the text content, they should've started complaining last year when the text was first introduced.

[mark_alec]

Nobody bats an eyelid that Juliet is 13 and Romeo 22...

[brenden]

Nobody bats an eyelid that Juliet is 13 and Romeo 22...

Wow, you should've been in our English class and I was going on about how it's a shit love.

[Eriny]

I wonder if by the writer's reasoning, he thinks that Oedipus would encourage students to kill their father and have an incestuous relationship with their mother?

[Truck]

How the writer became a Literature teacher is beyond me... I feel sorry for his students.

[Lasercookie]

I guess just as an update

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/schools-to-keep-controversial-book-20121219-2bnbw.html