The Book Look
Reading can be a pleasant escape, an imaginary journey that takes you down far away roads — but it can also be illuminating, a light for the path you’re already on. It’s a rare book that allows a reader to do both at the same time. For teacher and writer Cindy McCain, the classic novel Wuthering Heights is such a work. Written in 1847 by Emily Brontë, this tale of passion and obligation may be most familiar as one of those old books you had to read in high school. Is it any wonder that a young adult just starting out in life might find the doomed romance of Catherine and Heathcliff old-fashioned? For adults who have experienced love and longing and loss, however, this tragic tale can mean much more.
“I think a lot of people are afraid of the classics,” McCain says, “but each one addresses a different adult issue that everybody has to deal with, whether they recognize it or not. Not that these authors have all the answers, but they certainly raise all the questions.”
McCain cites the Arthur Miller play “Death of a Salesman” as a prime example. “It speaks so much to what we do about career, which is more pertinent than ever with the economy the way it is,” she says. “People can relate more now than in the past to Willie Loman [the down-on-his-luck main character].”
If the thought of revisiting Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter fills you with dread, take heart: McCain is here to help. Her love for literature is something she enjoys sharing not only with her high-school students in Nashville, but with people everywhere. She writes regularly about interpreting literature and understanding the classics at classiccoup.blogspot.com, where visitors can also learn about her latest literary initiative — T-shirts.
Getting the Word Out
Born out of a conversation with former student and current designer Angela Muir, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Classic Coup, Inc., sells T-shirts with the aim of literally putting the word about literature on the street. From the text message-style “Party at Gatsby’s” to an imaginary Facebook page for the character Laura from Tennessee Williams’ play “The Glass Menagerie,” these stylish shirts bring the classics into modern, everyday life.
“‘Classic Coup’ might almost seem to be an oxymoron,” says McCain, “because when you think of ‘coup,’ you think of people who are subversive and rebellious, and when you think of ‘classic’ you think of traditional. But really, writers were all pretty much subversive. That’s what makes us still read them — that they went against the time period in most cases, or against the norm. Authors are often social critics; they see ahead to what’s to come.”
One of the most popular T-shirt designs, which says simply “Atticus Finch for Chief Justice,” is inspired by the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. “People just love that character [attorney Atticus Finch],” McCain says, “but also, it is set in a time in the South when a white man would not defend a black man. That was a very groundbreaking book in a lot of ways, especially to be written by a Southern writer.”
Another popular T-shirt advises, “Be Subversive. Read a Banned Book.” The latest design, inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, bemoans the fact that there are “So Many Elizabeths. So Few Darcys.” Special tags on each shirt explain the story or theme of the book that inspired it.
A newfound interest in the decidedly unbookish area of salsa dancing (a subject McCain writes about for Examiner.com) combined with the desire to help others led McCain and Classic Coup to a collaboration with Kaleo Kids, a nonprofit organization that provides supplies to orphanages in Ecuador. A percentage of Classic Coup profits goes to Kaleo Kids. “Working with them is perfect, because I have a real love now for Latin American culture and people,” McCain says. “This is something that will hopefully bring education and good things to children there.” She has also become more interested in classic works by Latino authors, such as The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez — an interest she intends to share with students and blog readers alike.
The ultimate goal, McCain says, is “to make the most of the time that we’re here. The whole purpose of reading the classics is not just to entertain you with a good story — though that’s great — but it works out your brain, it’s critical thinking, and you’ll find that it relates to your world. As human beings, we are the same as we were back then. Times change, but what really matters to us, our struggles and our joys, stays the same.” And unlike in Catherine and Heathcliff’s time, we can now wear our hearts on a T-shirt.
