Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
That's awfully long to be assigned reading. And unless I'm forgetting one, this is the least realistic Brontė book. I found it pretty much a page turner, but inferior to other Brontė novels.
As for not liking DEPRESSING books: This is, like every other book preference I read about here, highly individual. Some people read murder mysteries exclusively. Can't get much more depressing than that! Personally, I have read a lot of books with happy endings, but don't find them superior. One of our kids, when small, loved being read Frank Baum, a master of long children's books with loads of happy party scenes and uniformly happy endings. Let's say I had mixed feelings reading these 
Obviously there are lots of people around here who are not particularly looking for realism in their novels. When much younger, I read lots of sci fi, so I have not always been a lover of realism. People differ, and people change.
Teachers should be teaching skills, especially expository writing. The purpose of assigning books should be to generate discussion and provide the raw material for well-argued papers, not to convince students they like books. The latter is a hopeless task, although I do want students literate enough to be able to read whatever they want. |
Maybe so, but SURELY there are some books that can teach whatever point necessary that are NOT depressing. I was an avid reader so the selections weren't going to make or break my reading habits, but the one thing that stands out to this day is that not a ONE was an uplifting read. Not a one. Even the poetry I was exposed to was all depressing.
Yes, I get that there are "great life lessons" in literature, but surely. SURELY, they cannot all be of the variety that includes death and destruction of the human will.
Wuthering Heights is extremely long. Somewhere around 400 pages too long.