For Christmas over a year ago I asked for and received a DVD collection of BBC productions of Dickens novels. I started
Martin Chuzzlewit around that time, but for whatever reason never finished. I guess I wasn't engrossed by the story, or maybe I was too tired when I started it, so it never gripped me. Anyway, this last week I watched
Hard Times, and was interested in it, though I wasn't greatly impressed. Last night I started
Our Mutual Friend, and was ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED by it! It's almost 6 hours long, so I had to pull myself away from it last night and go to bed. But I finished it today, and was greatly pleased by it! The story is very moving and engaging, and the acting is decent enough. Though it's not quite as good as the BBC, Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version of
Pride and Prejudice, or another BBC production,
Wives and Daugthers, it is definitely close. But for a 20 second segment that most readers would probably want to skip, I would give my unqualified recommendation for it! So if anyone has 6 hours to spend sometime, give it a shot (and if you live close enough to me, I'll even lend it! And if you want to know what you might want to skip, e-mail me and I'll fill you in...)
I know I have "cheated" by not reading the book first, but unfortunately I'm at a point in my life where the 10 hours or so, maybe more (I'm a slow reader) that it would take to read it is not going to happen anytime soon. So I figure it's better to be somewhat cultured by getting a taste of the story (and it's long enough that it has to be somewhat close to the book!) than to be totally ignorant of this Dickens classic.
Relating to the theme of total ignorance over classics, a very sad thought recently occurred to me. If I were to survey my students, I can almost guarantee that less than 5 percent of them have ever read Pride and Prejudice, or any Dickens novel, or any of a number of classics. How SAD is that? I am so grateful for the background I have in reading some of the literary greats when I was a young un. Or at least younger. I have to credit my Dad for much of this. The summer between 9th and 10th grade, or thereabouts, he initiated a competition among us siblings. He gave us a list of great classics, American and others, and said the person who reads the most pages from them wins some prize. I think it might have been something as lucrative as 50 dollars, but I can't remember now. Anyway, what I do remember is really getting into that competition, and devouring books like Pride and Prejudice, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Sherlock Holmes, and many others. I also did a lot of literature reading for English as a homeschooled youth, so which books were read for what all blur together. However, I credit much of my eventual success in the intricacies of mastering the English language, at least as a writer, to this reading I did. And I believe I am much more attuned to many allusions as another result.
In short, this reading was a GREAT investment in my education! But how many young people, especially in public schools, have the same background? I think very few read for pleasure. And when they do, it is certainly not Twain, Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy or Hugo. This is surely a sign of the impending death of traditional culture. Maybe there will be a revival sometime soon. But for now, blank stares are the common result of a mention of many great books.
I also know that most students would think me weird for having read most everything Austen or A. Conan Doyle has written, or that I have waded through an unabridged version of
Les Miserables . Why is this? I think it's because current mainstream culture does not promote reading. And it stifles diversity in literary tastes. I find this second fact very ironic. In an age where everyone is supposed to be tolerant of everyone else, few guys are reading great works of literature. I think it's because many of them are perceived as too "girly." And because guys as teenagers are developing their identities, and are very afraid to be seen as "girly," they shy away from being stereotyped as "girly" or, worse yet, "gay," because of their tastes. Of course, this shying away from certain books only happens if a guy is reading much for pleasure in the first place, which is rarely the case.
In contrast to the mainstream, because I grew up sheltered from it, I was able to branch out into reading whatever works were interesting, unlimited by the fear of being called "gay" by my ignorant and uncultured peers. So I read. And read. And read some more. Oh, and I played plenty of Nintendo too, but that didn't seem to hurt me too much. Except, of course, I didn't read as much Dickens back then as I might have, so maybe it did! And the result is that I don't mind reading some classic works, even if their "girly," and I don't mind and even enjoy watching some "girly" movies! And I believe I am a better person for it.
Maybe this is all to say that I hope parents will be encouraged to push the reading of great classic literature among their kids. Some sort of lucrative reward might help (at least it did for me!) The long term benefit is worth it. And now I really want to poll my students to confirm my theory about their cultural ignorance...
