Literacy is a national problem, says Bryan, not just with the poor but with the middle class. We have a relationship to TV that diminishes our capacity for critical thinking. I ask my students how many books they ve read for pleasure this month. You should see the look of panic on their faces. But even if I had read a book, I sometimes had to go back to it.
Metamorphosis is one.
Everybody assumes Samsa turned into a cockroach, but it never actually says that. And I had to research indigenous trees for Coming of Age in Samoa. As you might expect, Bryan flares a nostril at the shifting line drawn between illustration and fine art. Look at Toulouse-Lautrec, Daumier, the Gruenwald Altarpiece. What they were doing was commercial art.