Animorphs deserve spot in classic literature section

Back in the early 1990s, a guy by the name of Mike Godwin came up with a law — Godwin’s… Back in the early 1990s, a guy by the name of Mike Godwin came up with a law — Godwin’s Law, funny enough — which states that, “as an online discussion gets longer, the probability of a comparison to Hitler of the Nazis approaches one.” This is a perceptive statement, no doubt, but by no means limited to chat rooms and forums. To fill the void, I developed the Pandit Protocol, which states that, “as any discussion increases in length, the probability of reference to sports or Star Wars is pretty damn certain.” I’m an exception, however, and any conversation with me can have only one ending: Animorphs.

K.A. Applegate’s “Animorphs” series, briefly summarized, is about a bunch of kids who turned into animals in order to fight brain-invading aliens. It really isn’t as stupid as it sounds. Really.

As a kid, I collected the books obsessively and read each one from cover to cover, practically memorizing them. If I was sad, happy or upset, I’d just pull out one that I hadn’t read in a while and read it again, even though I knew all the words by heart. I still read them today every once in a while, and I can still regurgitate the name of every Animorph, the details of their lives, their morphs and their battles.

I have yet to read a different book or series that had such a profound effect on me that I can still relate and refer to it more than a decade after I first started reading it.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the definition of a good book.

Like most of you, I’ve taken my fair share of English classes where I was forced to read books that, quite honestly, should have never been published in the first place: “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. I’ve also read some novels — if you can even call them that — which dealt with the most idiotic, most inane topics: “Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams. Nevertheless, they were “the classics,” so we weren’t supposed to question their validity. We never really understood them, but passed the class by, well, fluffing our essays with empty words about universality, creative passion and all sorts of good stuff.

Well, now I’m calling the classics out. Nothing is a classic by default and certainly the appeal of a certain work will not apply to everyone. For some, “Oliver Twist” may be the epitome of literature, and that’s fine. But it is irresponsible and downright ignorant to force that upon other students or pretend that the classics are in some way superior to other books. Reading them does not make you smarter, it does not give you an advantage in life and it certainly doesn’t somehow magically turn you into a complete human being. It’s just a list.

I’m not saying that these books are all useless, but the good ones are good of their own merit, not because an English teacher said so. George Orwell’s “1984” is appealing to me because it contains themes and aspects to which I can relate and jives with my view of the world. “Heart of Darkness” and “Glass Menagerie” don’t, though someone else might find them deeply relevant and inspiring.

I’m not an English major, though I love reading and writing mainly because of this fact. I don’t like being told what kind of books would enrich my life. Most students don’t, either.

This mentality, however, extends far beyond academia into pop culture: movies and music. I saw “Lord of the Rings” — all three, unfortunately — and hated them. I then decided to give the books a shot, and found them tedious and boring. But I usually keep that kind of information to myself, so people don’t look at me like I’m abnormal.

Which is why, when people ask me my favorite book, I don’t feel compelled to spout out safe books like “Catcher in the Rye” or “The DaVinci Code.” It’s all about the “Animorphs,” baby.

Ravi has recently rediscovered his long lost “Animorphs” collection, so you can e-mail him at rrp10@pitt.edu, but he probably won’t reply.