The tragedy at Columbine occurred when my oldest child was just under three years old. At the time, I thought that living in a nice neighborhood and sending your children to a good suburban school meant that your kids would be safe during the school day. The tragedy shattered my belief. Home schooling was discussed. I was, and still am, profoundly troubled by this tragedy. What led two boys to do this horrible act? Could it have been prevented? Where were the parents? Where was law enforcement?
Knowledge is power, and after doing some research regarding the author and learning about the research he undertook for the book, I wanted to read Columbine. Author Dave Cullen spent 10 years covering the story (yes, the story still lives).
No spoilers here as to specifically what you will learn by reading this book. The book will dispel many of the myths you associate with the tragedy. As I was reading the book, for example, I saw a procedural police show which offhandedly blamed the tragedy on "violent video games." Not even remotely true. Trench coat mafia? Not true. Most of what you think you know about the two boys is, likewise, probably not true. (I'M NOT TELLING YOU WHAT YOU KNOW!!)
The book explores how this happened, studying the two boys responsible. Will you feel "better" after reading the book? Will you feel like the tragedy was the product of innumerable causes and that "it can't possibly happen" where you live? I leave that to you. I did not feel "better," but I didn't revisit home schooling either.
You will note that I do not refer to the two boys by name above because I do not want them to be recognized for a deplorable act. You will also note that I do not refer to the "event" as "Columbine." Students who were there, you will learn in reading the book, feel very strongly about their school--their school is "Columbine," and they do not like when people refer to the event by that name.
I highly recommend this book if you are interested in learning about the tragedy and, in particular, the two boys at its core.
Live long, read and prosper. We'll leave the lights on for you.
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I thought Cullen's Columbine was a great book until I started reading a few other books on the same subject, in particular Ralph Larkin's Comprehending Columbine. Larkin's book, in my opinion, does a much better job at analyzing why the attack at Columbine High School happened. Larkin spent a great deal of time interviewing past and present students of that high school and seems to have gotten their honest opinions on what some of them referred to as a "toxic" atmosphere at their high school. Larkin also makes some good points on how this "toxic" atmosphere may have contributed to why the attack happened.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast Cullen seems to have spent little to no time at all interviewing former friends and classmates of the two shooters. Cullen fell in love and went with the whole psychopathy angle early on and that hurt his book, in my opinion. Larkin makes a very good case for the psychopathy diagnosis of one of the shooters being a misdiagnosis.
Also troubling to me is the fact that Cullen relied on faulty statements given by someone (Brenda Parker) who claimed to have inside information on the attack and who later was found by law enforcement to have made up the whole story. I also found his attempts to write in teenage boy speak, that is, to write how he thought the two shooters would think and speak, to be particularly unconvincing and irritating.
If you can stand to read one more book on the subject then I urge you to read Ralph Larkin's Comprehending Columbine. It's a much more straightforward and, in my opinion, honest look at what really happened at Columbine High School.
Lisa: Thanks. I will pick up Larkin's book. Mark
ReplyDeleteCullen , who first reported on the story for the online magazine Salon, acknowledges in the book's source notes that thoughts he attributes to Klebold and Harris are conjecture gleaned from the record the pair left behind.
ReplyDeleteJeff Kass takes a more straightforward approach in "Columbine: A True Crime Story," working backward from the events of the fateful day.
The Denver Post
Mr. Cullen insists that the killers enjoyed "far more friends than the average adolescent," with Harris in particular being a regular Casanova who "on the ultimate high school scorecard . . . outscored much of the football team." The author's footnotes do not reveal how he knows this; when I asked him about it while preparing this review, Mr. Cullen said he did not necessarily mean to imply that Harris was sexually active. But what else would such words mean?
"Eric and Dylan never had any girlfriends," the more sober Mr. Kass writes, and were "probably virgins upon death."
Wall Street Journal
Oh, that's great Mark. When you read Larkin's book I hope you'll post your review of that one too. I'd really be interested in your opinion of it.
ReplyDeleteIf you're a New York Yankee fans, a NY sports fan, a baseball fan, a sports fan in general, or just want to read the humorous and crazy happenings of the New York Yankees under George M. Steinbrenner, this book is a must read. In fact, when you consider the impact today in sports on ticket prices, free agency and player movements, and cable TV and network contracts, the impact that the Yankees and Steinbrenner have had is not to be underestimated.
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