Moronic textbooks (and Hot Gay Love, a.k.a. Gilgamesh…)

Okay, so as I’m reading Gilgamesh [which, by the way, I left at a movie theatre- and so had to go find another identical copy tonight of the Penguin edition and try to re-annotate the whole thing!   ], and this was the passage that stuck out to me, as Gilgamesh questions Utnapishtim why he cannot have unlimited life:

Utnapishtim said, ‘There is no permanence.  Do we build a house to stand forever, do we seal a contract to hold for all time?  Do brothers divide an inheritance to keep for ever, does the flood-time of rivers endure?  it is only the nymph of the dragon-fly who sheds her larva and sees the sun in his glory.  From the days of old there is no permanence…’ (p.106-107)

Beautiful passage.  Poor Gilgamesh now faces the fact that he must eventually die.   It plays into a lot of the anglo-saxon stuff that I do so enjoy.  

So here’s the issue, and it’s not with the passage, but rather the textbook I am teaching out of:  The textbook stresses the importance of Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality.   Three quotes from the background information on page 12; emphasis is mine:

Its concerns, however, are timeless and universal:  how to become known and respected, how to cope with the loss of a dear friend, and how to accept one’s own inevitable death…

Most important, [the writers of Gilgamesh] gave the narrative its central theme: the search for immortality…

Gilgamesh seeks immortality, but instead he learns that, for him, there is no permanence. 

And now, the “Connecting to the Literature” preview on page 13:

You may have tried to imagine what it would mean to live forever.  The hero of Gilgamesh can think of nothing else.  He is desperate to find the one man who has the secret to everlasting life.

Finally, from the review on page 29:

Question 3: (a) What does the outcome of Gilgamesh’s quest suggest about human limitations?  (b) How might the tale he brings home to Uruk eventually grant Gilgamesh the immortality he seeks?

Question 9: Cultural Connection: What personal goals set by people today might be considered quests for immortality?  Explain.

All the quotes from the textbook seem to fit nicely with the actual passage from the poem.  Here’s the kicker:  the passage quoted above isn’t in the textbook at all.  In fact, there is neither an excerpt from nor even a synopsis of any part of the chapter (incidentally, ‘Chapter 4:  The Search for Everlasting Life’) the editors seem to find so important.

Is it too much to ask that Prentice Hall could have the editors preparing the secondary and primary material for their textbook work together?  I mean, if the secondary source stresses Gilgamesh’s search for everlasting life as the most important section of the work, then shouldn’t that section be included in the primary excerpts?   Gah!

This is just another reason I should leave teaching and go into the textbook business. 

No, not really. 

But still.