Wednesday. Eighth period.
We were reading chapter three of The Great Gatsby. Or, rather, I had put on audio of the book while they followed along with the narrator. And every so often I'd pause the reading to comment on something that I thought they'd miss otherwise.
Some things I know they didn't know, like when a character mentions that the pages of some books weren't cut. I didn't know that people would cut open pages while reading books back in the day, so I knew they didn't know that.
And then there was the car accident scene.
It's pretty clear on the page what is happening. A very drunk driver hit a wall and his car was so badly damaged a wheel was sheared from the car. No longer drivable. But the driver was so drunk that no one could get him to understand this.
I mean, terrible scene and all, but the way it's written I find extremely funny. I assume that was the intent.
But, the way it was written, one has to be paying attention, and one has to infer some things that aren't explicitly on the page. And teenagers? Yeah, most aren't following that closely.
Every period I made sure to stop and point out what was happening. I know they weren't getting it as I heard no chuckles. No snorts. No intimation that anyone was laughing. I mean, these kiddos don't react much at all, but even correcting for this, there was still no way they were getting it.
Then, eighth period, my fourth time through the scene, I broke. We read through...
"Wha's matter?" he inquired calmly. "Did we run outa gas?"
"Look!"
Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel—he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.
"It came off," some one explained.
He nodded.
"At first I din' notice we'd stopped."
A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarked in a determined voice:
"Wonder'ff tell me where there's a gas'line station?"
At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.
"Back out," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse."
"But the wheel's off!"
He hesitated.
"No harm in trying," he said.
And it was the "wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond" that got me. I was explaining, and I couldn't hold it any longer. I began to laugh. And then the laughter just took over. I couldn't stop.
I've had moments where something struck me as so funny I couldn't stop laughing. Usually I'm alone. Sometimes I'm with others who find it just as funny. This time? Yeah, all of them looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
So, I hit play on the audio while I got the giggles out. A joke explained is a joke lost. Even if they didn't find it funny, at least I was able to convey that the guy was so drunk he didn't understand what was going on. I hope.
At least I'm enjoying the book. They aren't. I mean, they're really too young. So many of the nuances of the story you can't really get until you've lived a bit.
You'd get it. You might be surprised at how much better the book is when you've experienced more of life than a teenager has.