Ap Status: Does it Make the Cut?

This question is a difficult one to answer. What really constitutes an “AP-level” book? And how can one tell? Well, considering that I am, in fact, not a Collegeboard employee, nor an English teacher of any kind, I’ll do my best to answer this question using what I’ve learned so far in this course.

To even begin answering this question, one must have some sort of guideline for what an AP-level book is like, and fortunately, I happen to have read a couple. So far in AP English we’ve read three books deemed by our resident literary scholar Mrs. LaClair worthy of the honorable title. From Huxley to Atwood to Morrison we delved into the rich and intricate plotlines, packed with allusions and motifs galore.

For me, the best template to use out of the three is also the book that we most recently read: Song of Solomon. SoS was packed from start to finish with literary devices that only the most careful readers could pick up on, all elegantly woven into Morrison’s journey myth guideline. So genteel were the sentences that we often spent tens of minutes breaking down the meaning of each word, leaving me in awe of the precision with which Morrison composed her symphony of syllables. The other two book we read were similar, combining gripping plot with social importance and literary exquisiteness.

So… How does All The Light We Cannot See stack up?

Anthony Doerr’s masterpiece has received almost nothing but praise. The important and brand-new take on this monumental event in our world’s history offered in the novel is by any standard pure genius. Through it Doerr gives us a fresh angle on the war that I have never before experienced, and it certainly has opened my eyes to what life was like in Nazi Europe. Furthermore, the book is good! Probably even great. The fast-paced plot and barrage of details make All The Light We Cannot See a page turner, and almost makes me feel guilty about how deeply I enjoy reading it as an assignment. But don’t take my word for it--the novel comes widely recommended and highly accredited. The book was an instant New York Times bestseller, and the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. As if that wasn’t enough recognition, it was even dubbed worthy of this project by Mrs. LaClair herself.

But there is an important distinction to be made between a good book--or even an important good book, and an AP book. Copies sold, or awards won mean nothing in the eyes of the alarmingly profitable non-profit that constructs the AP tests (this “nonprofit” yields tens of millions in profit per year and compensates its executives upwards of 300K annually, but I won’t get into that now). Although I love this book, and find it to be a hugely important and interesting one, I don’t think that it is merits AP-level status. The book is principally plot driven, with a only few motifs that act almost as an afterthought. For example, the Sea of Flames and radios are commonly recurring motifs that seem to have purely plot-related importance, as they connect the various characters to one another, but lack much deeper meaning. While there are also many historical allusions, the novel takes place in the past and they serve simply to increase our understanding of the setting. Another driving factor in the book is the character foil between Werner and Marie-Laure, however it too seems not to present much in the form of meaning. No matter how much I like the book, I can’t seem to overlook the fact that it’s missing something. It lacks the artful use of the journey myth in Song of Solomon, or the bold statement made through Offred’s relationship with Gilead in Handmaid’s Tale.

While adding this book the the AP English curriculum would act as an exciting break from the dense, difficult-to-read books over twenty years old we’ve read so far, I don’t think that it would contribute anything to the course itself. One could almost argue that it would be better suited in a history class’s curriculum than in ours. I can’t imagine it being useful in the context of an AP test, and I’m sure if I were to try to use this book to answer one of its questions, I would quickly revert to summarizing plot, and grasping at straws to address a relationship to the “meaning of the work as a whole”.

But, the book isn’t yet finished, and with the final quarter of the book left I remain optimistic that some sort of greater meaning or theme will present itself, making this blog post irrelevant.