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I'm genuinely tweaking bc why is it so IMPOSSIBLE to draw digitally UGHHHH

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im not even an english major im just reading it for fun bro academia is cooked

Y'all, I really recommend reading this study on the reading comprehension skills of MOSTLY UPPER-YEAR UNIVERSITY ENGLISH MAJORS. The task is to read the first few paragraphs of Bleak House by Charles Dickens and "translate" what's going on into their own words while doing so. Most of them could not successfully understand what was going on, many not even understanding the setting. I found this a relatively easy study to read; it's organized into sections which make sense, although I understand reading studies in general is hard and kinda different to reading most other things. I'd also like to say that Dickens isn't particularly easy to read if you aren't familiar with the time period and his works, but English majors really should be. A lot of these people are going to teach similar texts to high schoolers, but without knowing (and therefore not being able to teach) the kind of skills to make that reading successful.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/They-Don%E2%80%99t-Read-Very-Well%3A-A-Study-of-the-Reading-Carlson-Jayawardhana/d3e994bc55944800ff5782d6ce7ac9585d886e1f

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Edmond Dantès and Jean Valjean are like opposite ends of a spectrum of "how does this 19th century French prison escapee who likes to wear disguises and fake identities a lot deal with his trauma?". And neither of them are doing it well, but they're still doing it in opposite ways.

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he just like me fr

more Pip

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I forgot to link the quiz LOL

Which Charles Dickens character are you?

(Please I spent too much time on this ;-;)

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SOMEONE ON MY UQUIZ SAID THEYRE WRITING A GRAPHIC NOVEL RETELLING OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS

PLEASE REVEAL YOURSELF SO I CAN FOLLOW

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Which Charles Dickens character are you?

(Please I spent too much time on this ;-;)

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"We have a new AI feature!" "With the power of AI..." "Our AI..."

I am going to abandon technology and start only inscribing things on clay tablets

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Yet again, more proof that capitalism was never about "freedom" or "small government".

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I'm so tired of talking to my friends and them yapping about how great AI is and how they use chat gpt for everything and how great it is when genuinely every time I see ai slop a little piece of my soul dies

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You're completely right imo. I started reading Dickens with Oliver Twist and I really liked the writing style so I kept reading his books. Oliver Twist is one of the worst books Dickens wrote, even though it is still a great book. But I can't overlook the antisemitism and I dont think anyone should. I mean it's kind of impossible. Anyways I don't wanna yap too much bc the og post was spot on but genuinely the more Dickens I've read, the worse I perceive Oliver Twist as being.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Poor Fagin. He has a name, but he's usually referred to as The Jew, to the point where it starts to sound synonymous with villain. Dickens couldn't just make him a regular old predator, he had to also make him an antisemitic caricature. It's a shame-- in and of itself, obviously-- but also because Fagin is one of the more enjoyable characters to read about if you can get past the offensiveness of it all. Dickens has a habit of portraying wrongness with humour and goodness with saccharine religiosity, so that I want to leave Rose's pastoral idyll as soon as possible and go back to the den of thieves. I have much more affection for Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and Charlie Bates (or Master Bates, as Dickens unfortunately insists) than I do for Brownlow or the Maylies (though I do love the servants). Mr. Bumble's marriage surprised me whereas Rose's marriage felt requisite. And Oliver's mystery is more intriguing from Monk's perspective (maybe his father didn't want to love him and maybe that's partly why he turned out the way he did). Monks is on a revenge mission, so he always has something to do. But as long as there are kind adults around to shelter Oliver from the action, then that's what happens. If this were a children's book, Oliver would get to participate the whole time (and it would be even darker). As it is, Dickens isn't trying to empower children to fight for themselves, he's trying to encourage adults to fight for children-- all children, not just their own. Which is fine. I just think I'd like the safe haven scenes better if he'd maintained a satirical tone throughout.

Although, Dickens so earnestly champions the angel in the house, the tireless homemaker who perfectly anticipates everybody's needs, always smiling, breathes life into everything she touches, that you could read those scenes as satire. It is kind of laughable. I don't want to disparage Rose at all; it's Dickens that I'm laughing at. I think there's a scene in Tale of Two Cities where Lucy is described similarly and Charles asks her, "How do you do it?" And I thought, Miss Pross. Miss Pross is how she does it. Same with Oliver Twist. The Maylies don't keep the staff on for nothing. I realise this is a little unfair, since I mainly remember the butler for shooting Oliver and I remember Rose for wanting to help Oliver even while thinking he was a burglar, and for wanting to help Nancy. She is first and foremost compassionate, as we're urged to be throughout the story, and not just the magical fairy that is the Victorian feminine ideal.

Final observation- he's very wordy in this one. Every sentence is twice the length it needs to be. I don't blame him if he was getting paid by the word, but it reads more like showing off. I don't remember A Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations or A Christmas Carol having this problem. The author of the introduction (can't remember his name) to the edition that I read said something like, "Oliver Twist is a cultural staple because it's memorable, not because it's good," which is refreshing to hear about a classic. I mean, I think it's good, if markedly flawed, but we can't help but compare. And as per this blog's description, I'm basing my opinions off my memory of the opinions I had when finishing the book three or four weeks ago, so maybe I'm just wrong.

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The most unserious thing about hyperfixating on classic literature is that I live in fear of spoilers for a book written 200 years ago

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Pip matches my level of delusion I love him

deeply unserious book

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I love the 21st century bc what do you MEAN the only great expectations fanart i can find is based on,,,,,south park?????

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- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations