Michael Gove's Book Club

I told you Gove is dangerous. Now he's banning books. That last sentence should feel like hyperbole, or at best parody. Sadly it isn't. The new English Literature GCSE syllabus will no longer contain any American literature. Shelving John Steinbeck's poignant and heartbreaking Of Mice and Men and Arthur Miller's magnificent and devastating The Crucible - both dangerously political works - is bad enough, but to throw out Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird too is just shocking.

Although I could do without it, it's certainly not the nationalistic element of this that bothers me the most. And clearly that's part of the motive inherent in Gove's meddling dictacts. I can imagine a lot of parents, ones who read very little beyond the Daily Mail, applauding this 'championing' of literature from Great Britain. And why not? If this syllabus only contained Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens - the cornerstones of Gove's latest move - it would still be formidable. No, what galls me is Harper Lee being shown the door.

  

To Kill A Mockingbird is unique. Its breadth of subject matter and range of readership are unparalleled. I've met people who actually dislike reading but have still managed to find time for this book. That it was trending on Twitter yesterday morning - shoving Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, and Union J down the list at one point - tells you that this book matters. It is a story that contains injustice, racial inequality, violence, class, and ingrained prejudices, all seen through the eyes of Scout Finch, a ten year old girl. Even though the story is being told from the perspective of the adult Scout, it still takes in all of that young girl's experience, learning and growing too quickly as the injustices of the adult world begin to take hold and impose themselves. This book sits on the delicate cusp of childhood and the beginning of the slope downwards towards adulthood - and that's what makes it perfect for the GCSE syllabus. It is not a children's book, but it is one that children can read. It is an adult's book, but it is one that adults must read through the prism of their own childhoods. Therein lies its importance on the GCSE syllabus. Therein lies the idiocy of Gove and his under-secretary monkeys.       

I cannot think of a single book that spans the worlds of childhood and adulthood like To Kill A Mockingbird does. There are books that occupy this muddled area, but they don't quite do what this one does. The Catcher in the Rye's genius lies in what happens when you re-read it. I enjoyed it when I first read it as a teenager, largely because of Holden Caulfield. Reading it again at the age of twenty - not a particularly bright twenty, mind - found me still loving it, but loathing Holden. And then reading it for a third time, suddenly aware of Salinger's breathtaking tightrope walk of ventriloquism, I could only gasp at the genius behind it. In fact I rate Salinger's novel above To Kill A Mockingbird as a piece of literature, but it's because of these shifting perspectives revealed through generational re-reading that makes me think that it isn't as deserving of a place on the curriculum as Harper Lee's novel. For every teenager who recognises themselves in Holden and takes him to their hearts, there will be one who rejects his self-pity and lack of self-awareness.     

So, just what will Gove be replacing To Kill A Mockingbird with? I would not be too surprised to see William Golding's Lord Of The Flies make an appearance. Let's fill those young empty vessels with a tale about what happens when children have no adults to run the show. Inculcate them with the idea that the young cannot think for themselves or be left alone for a single minute without descending into an anarchic hell. In fact, he probably wouldn't be all that discouraged if a larger theme was drawn by some bright young fifteen year old: that this Tory Government, particularly his own Ministry, cannot leave teachers to think for themselves lest they encourage our kids to do something as horrific as unleashing their imaginations.

He has, of course, found the space for Dickens - no problem there, I love Dickens - but I suggest he sits a paper himself, and answers the following question: 

"In Hard Times, how does Mr Gradgrind's model of education destroy the joy and imagination that children can find in words and the world of books?"

I would answer this myself with a bit of paraphrasing, apologising to Charles Dickens in the process:

"Michael Gove, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Michael Gove, sir — peremptorily Michael — Michael Gove. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gove, or Augustus Gove, or John Gove, or Joseph Gove (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Michael Gove - no, sir!"

Anyway, I thought about ending with a clever line about how Gove has killed a mockingbird. But then I turned again to some of Harper Lee's most famous lines.

"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."  

It is a sin to try and kill a book. But, if Twitter is anything to go by, Gove won't even come close to killing this mockingbird. It's far bigger than he is. It's a magical story that will not yield to this tiresome Gradgrind, lost in his own temporary classroom preaching his stilted and unimaginative ideology.