(no subject)
The almighty BBC says this today:
Leading Charles Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin has said children are not being taught to read with the attention span necessary to appreciate the novelist's works.
Tomalin said Dickens's depiction of an unequal society was still "amazingly relevant", ahead of nationwide celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Children were now unable to appreciate this due to "being reared on dreadful television programmes", she said in an interview with the Press Association.
"Children are not being educated to have prolonged attention spans and you have to be prepared to read steadily for a Dickens novel and I think that's a pity."
So, it has nothing to do with the fact that his work is mind numbingly boring?
Stick me on a computer and I can happily concentrate on nothing but that for hours on end. Give me a GOOD book and I can probably read it cover to cover in a couple of hours. The reason I cant read a Dickens novel is not because I cant concentrate on it, its because they're all boring as hell.
They're all the same. Bleak, boring, dirty, poverty stricken tales, constantly manipulated by the educated uppercrust, all rendered in shades of gray.
Maybe if you got kids reading something that was actually good (or even in a new media), rather than something some people THINK is good, you might actually grip the kids attention more.
Same goes for the massively overrated Shakespear. There are other writers in that period OTHER than him. Maybe one that makes more sense...
Im not saying that neither of them have had a huge impact on british culture or literature. They have, obviously. I just hate the amount of emphasis people place on them and their insistance that it should be rammed down all school childrens throats.