What do we Palimpsesters make of this then?

[Wavid]

An article in the Guardian on Saturday:

A blind spot for books

Should we be enraged when public figures declare that reading is boring, asks Susan Hill

Saturday August 30, 2003
The Guardian

The engaging Jamie Oliver says he never reads books, not, of course, because he is too busy cooking, being televised, training the young jobless or helping to look after his babies, but because books are boring.

Tennis pro Tim Henman said the same.

TV hostess Carol Vorderman pronounced Shakespeare "dull as ditchwater" but she has aspirations as a role model for the clever young, advertises a mathematics teaching programme and fronts a TV challenge to find Britain's brightest youngster. If she has indeed given all of Shakespeare a fair trial and still finds the plays dull as ditchwater, well, my husband, Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, always says "liking Shakespeare is not obligatory". Even so it is better to keep quiet about one's serious blind spots.

But the comments of Oliver and Henman about books being boring set off a chain of reactions in me. Role models are role models and whether they are famous for cooking or playing a ball game, their comments about a lot of other matters are influential. Vast amounts of public money are spent on encouraging the young to read books; how much attention are they going to pay when two bright young men, who are famous, rich and successful, not only say they never read because reading's boring, but actually seem proud of the fact. There's the nub. If Oliver and Henman say reading books is for mutts, it only needs Becks to pipe up to confirm their total un-coolness.

The writer in me, the person who has earned her living from books for more than 40 years, yet another "child that books made", screams in rage at such comments. I have loved books, been enriched by them, formed by them, taught and guided and inspired by them all my life. I have, then, the most vested of interests. I want to defend books and reading against their detractors with the same passion as that with which I would defend anyone who attacked my children.

And yet, and yet ... "liking Shakespeare is not obligatory". There is always a role for the devil's advocate and I'm not so sure that he doesn't have some right on his side. The baby-care manual fashionable in the late 70s, when I had my first child, was by Dr Thomas Jolly and Dr Jolly was very down on teaching them to read too soon. His line was that it must be the real world from which a baby learns, that this world is stimulating, exciting, fun, educational - and frightening - enough, without their needing artificial fantasy worlds, and that to stick a child's head in a book too early was to deprive it of innumerable social benefits. He was right you know. An only child, my head was stuck in a book from the age of two and I did not manage to unwedge it - and then only partially - until I was in my late 20s. I was deprived of many social ben efits. Only children can become odd and awkward in human company, bookish only children infinitely more so and the real world and its ways and workings take a lot of learning about. Those complicated lessons are better learned early than late.

I wonder if Oliver would be, not a better chef, but a finer and better young man, if he read a novel a day? I wonder whether Henman would have won Wimbledon three times by now if he had enjoyed the Brontës and John Buchan, Dickens and Salinger, Hemingway and Chaucer and Winterson and Smollett?

Would either of them raise the profile of the Booker prize if they were to be judges next year? Are Oliver and Henman inferior fathers of daughters because they find books boring? Probably quite the opposite - they will throw endless tennis balls for them to hit and help them make chocolate truffle torte at the age of three and their girls will know them better, see more of them, like them and relate to them better as a result than I ever did to my father.

So, they find reading books boring. I find ballet boring. Horses for courses.

If books were never a refuge for them, neither were they an escape route, a means of avoiding the embarrassments and awkwardnesses of relationships and the pitfalls and miseries of growing up. It may not be a coincidence that both married young. How many bookish young men and women have there been who found it impossibly difficult to form easy friendships with their peers, let alone successful romantic liaisons and subsequent marriages? You don't have to penetrate very far into the case of the isolated, bookish Brontës to understand the miserable effects of too much reading and total immersion in fantasy worlds. Read the novels of Anita Brookner to find heroine after heroine who has taken refuge in literature to dull the pain of emotional crippledom.

A passing passion for Harry Potter books may be acceptable but, in general, children are unkind to those among them who are too bookish. Swots are unpopular and to those who never read, all forms of the activity, save of fanzines, comics and football mags, count as swotting. Wouldn't you give a lot to save your child from the derision, name-calling and unkindness heaped upon the keen reader?

Bookish children turn into misfits, and the universities of the world are littered with sad, Harold Skimpole figures, permanently disabled by their addiction to the printed word, to stories, people who are not merely unsophisticated and innocent, but vulnerable to the wiles of the world, laughable, pathetic, child-adults doomed to live alone for ever in make-believe, because they have never been able to unlock the door into the real world and adult human happiness and fulfilment.

So Oliver and Henman are right.

Is that it then?

I remember an incident from 40-odd years ago. There used to be an afternoon television programme from Manchester, chaired by the late Brian Redhead, called A Good Read. I was taking part in one edition, with Elizabeth Jane Howard, Katharine Whitehorn and Elizabeth David, one of whose classic cookery books was newly published. We all went for lunch and as I piled my plate with the usual canteen slops, David took only a slice of bread and butter and an apple. There was nothing else she could possibly have, she said, and looked in horror at my meal.

"Don't you care about good food?" she asked. "No." I said. To me, food was for satisfying hunger and the art of cooking "boring". "Then I am very sorry for you," David said, with real feeling. "Only think what you are missing."

[joy]

I agree with what I think is your conclusion - everything in moderation is best for most of us. Someone who spends all their teenage years learning to be a tennis star (God, how boring!) does miss out on wonderful reading, and learning to be a wonderful cook and learning to love food and so on. It would seem that the best route would be to indulge several interests to a moderate level. But for those who have an exceptional talent or passion, maybe that is what makes them different, and they have to miss out on some things along the way. It often is true you don't miss things you have never had and maybe they will discover them later in life when other things have been achieved.
I will always feel sorry for those who can't or don't read, but I bet Jamie Oliver doesn't spend much time wishing he was me!

[maxivida]

So, they find reading books boring. I find ballet boring. Horses for courses.

This is the most intelligent point she's made.

And of course, Oliver and Henman don't know what they are missing, that's true. But what she's criticising here is not their ignorance (or whatever you want to call it) but the fact that they expressed it in public, just like the woman who said Shakespeare was dull. She nominally agrees that not everyone has to like Shakespeare (but only after having read his entire opus :roll: ), and then she writes:

Even so it is better to keep quiet about one's serious blind spots.

I had a discussion about this with Nabokov and John Self a couple of weeks ago. I demanded that they show respect for Wuthering Heights even though they didn't like it. I now realise that I was wrong, just like she is wrong when she demands that public figures keep their mouth shut about their "serious blind spots". Thinking that Shakespeare is "dull" is not a serious blind spot! Although I am sure that Shakespeare was a genius and although I've greatly enjoyed most of his works (but haven't read them ALL :shock: ) for a modern reader he does remain an acquired taste because his dramas are esoteric. That is why I can absolutely understand that someone finds him "dull".

Enough with the intelectual snobbery! :!:

[Wavid]

I think the problem is that there seems to be an air of 'ignorance is cool' attitude around at the moment - where (frankly) talentless nobodies like Oliver and Vorderman sneer at those who can't do sums in their heads, or don't say 'geezer' a lot, because they read books instead. And for Tim Henman to say that anything is dull is laughable: the bloke's the dreariest man alive - and he's crap at tennis to boot!

The idea tht Shakespeare can be dull is a nonsense. Fair enough, you might not like to read the plays, but dull? Using such an adjective proves that rather than finding the work boring, not enough effort has been put in, or more likely, the reader simply didn't understand what they were reading.

[joy]

Are we seriously saying that there are some things well known people can say and some things they can't ( apart from those things against the law like inciting violence ). I might wish that Jamie Oliver didn't say that reading is dull because it might discourage some youngster ( though I don't think it would, if you wanted to read you would, perhaps in bed where your mates can't see!) but he has the right to say it. Just the same as if I ever become famous and decide to say in an interview that women singing opera makes my skin crawl.

[Wavid]

The problem is that in today's celebrity obsessed culture, the things that buffoons like Oliver say matter to a worryingly large percentage of the population. His attempts to make cooking seem exciting to young people should, I suppose, be lauded, but when he comes out with rubbish like saying reading is boring he should be smacked in his big-tounged gob.

What should happen is that Oliver and Vorderman should be publicly humilated for being so ignorant, and hello! magazine refuse to take their photos until they have read, and enjoyed, something worthy like, ooh, Ulysees.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to express their opinions, just that when those opinions are so witless and potentially damaging people would be better off keeping their mouths shut.

I am also not convinced of the 'everyone is entitled to their opinion' argument all the time either. It stifles debate, and effectively refutes the idea that standards exist, for example, in the arts.

[ono no komachi]

:oops: Actually, I do believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion; if only they would realise that it is just that, an opinion.

For example, I am perfectly entitled to say that there is nothing in what has been said about the Harry Potter volumes which would ever in a million years entice to me actually read one of the darn things. But to use words like 'tosh', 'pap' and 'derivative' would justifiably leave me open to accusations of holding forth on a topic about which I know absolutely nothing (and would like to keep it that way, thank you very much.)

I'd be more inclined to respect the opinions of Oliver and his ilk, were they only expressed from a personal point of view; not that books are not interesting, but that they hold no interest for them personally.

I'm possibly being an incurable optimist, but I do hope that Wavid is overestimating the power of b-list slebs to influence people. I don't think those who are tempted to pick up a good book will be dissuaded because their third favourite TV chef thinks books are borin' (I'm sure it was pronounced without the final 'g'); and if those who already thought that books were only for speccy twats who watch BBC2 all the time think 'yeah, I was right all along, books are crap', then so what?

I have to admit that there are people in the public eye whose opinions I respect. This does not mean that if they express an opinion directly contradictory to one of mine, I immediately junk my opinion in favour of theirs.

If there are people who do this, they are to be pitied rather than censured (please excuse use of cliche.)

[amner]

I'm possibly being an incurable optimist, but I do hope that Wavid is overestimating the power of b-list slebs to influence people

I think you're being incurably optimistic, unfortunately. My issues with Ms Vordermann aside (see my second Forum 101 (http://palimpsest.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=196) entry) the bottom line is, I fear, that ignorance is the new Medal of Honour. This is a world in which Seann William Scott has a highly paid career in motion pictures, remember. I can think of no other excuse for that than a general drop in standards.
.

[Colyngbourne]

These people are simply parading their ignorance as something worthy of note. Despite appearances they're not stupid, and of course their comments carry weight and influence. I'm afraid I'm obsessive about the way I feel books/reading is the main civilising tool we still have, and it should not be airily dismissed by anyone in the public eye. It's not like dissing opera or cookery skills on a more personal level. These people are basically saying that reading is not worth doing, and that stands as a high crime and misdemeanour.

[maxivida]

This is a world in which Seann William Scott has a highly paid career in motion pictures, remember.

I'm sure there were people saying the same thing about Jerry Lewis fifty years ago.

[amner]

Well, possibly, yes, although it would be prudent to mention at this point that Jerry Lewis (never to my taste, I admit) was pretty much an original and, lest we forget, bizarrely talented. That madcap and zany stuff was only one part of the man.

I cannot at present imagine Mr Scott ever being awarded the French Legion of Honor, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, writing/producing/acting in a film about Auschwitz or getting a BAFTA or a Golden Globe. Unless it's the award for Playing The Same Slacker In Yet Another Slacker Generation Piece Of Cinematic Kak Ten Years In a Row award, which of course is a grand possibility.
.

[maxivida]

I cannot at present imagine Mr Scott ever being awarded the French Legion of Honor, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, writing/producing/acting in a film about Auschwitz or getting a BAFTA or a Golden Globe.

Oh, you never know... Stranger things have happened.

[amner]

That horse becoming Pope, for instance.
.

[maxivida]

Exactly.

[idioteque]

This is all assuming that we are at an all time low in interest in books; is that really the case?

I can't remember any greater clamour from the young for books than there has been for Harry Potter in my lifetime time (eclipsing even the chase for the 'new' Roald Dahl). Endless quiz shows tend to show a good grounding in popular and classic literature among contestants and Waterstones has been a huge success; would that have been the case 30 years ago?

'New lad' and 'chick lit' fashions have an army of books supporting them; as did the 'slacker' generation, punks (The boy looked at Johnny) and.. well, most 'tribal identity' lifestyles for teens and upwards.

I think we're looking at a false picture here.

[Colyngbourne]

We're certainly not at an all-time low but I think the clamour and the popularising of book-reading is very much on a surface level. It is still moreorless the same people who are reading the books - it's just that there is far more publicity and writers (well, certain writers) have become stars in their own right. Sales of children's books have not increased with the advent of JKR - they have simply been redistributed away from other (more worthy) authors, and many sales have been down to adults buying them anyway.

[John Self]

To return to an earlier point, someone said that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. True, but that doesn't mean that all opinions are worthy of the same consideration. Reasons help, which is why a one-line upper-case rant of a review on Amazon will be less convincing, and on the basis of that alone be an opinion less worthy of consideration, than a detailed review which gives evidence for its views.

Douglas Adams put it well in an interview with American Atheist magazine.

I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me "Well, you haven't been there, have you? You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid"- then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all.

[idioteque]

But surely the children are reading other things in between releases? One of my nephews who admittedly, was not much of a reader pre Potter recently asked to borrow Robinson Crusoe and a couple of other books. He's now an active reader because it has entertained him in a different way to that which his playstation, pc or multi channel cable tv can.

I'd argue that each new generation is finding its literary homeland; as I mentioned often encouraged by contemporary writing aimed at itself. I don't see the shoppers in Waterstones being of one generation so clearly writing is enduring.

In the face of the onslaught of easy, avilable, instant, short attention span entertainment, I'd say books are holding their own as well as can be expected.

And back to the original premise, do Oliver or Voordman generally act as role models to the young who are the ones we need to be exposed to literature? I'd say the likes of Beckham are a more likely influence; and he (plus wife) must now be responsible for the contents of a shelf or two by now and therefore presenting a new doorway to attract 'new readers'. My little 'un loves Story Makers and loves books; I'm sure that programme is as responsible as my wife and I for making her go and pick a book up from the shelf and bring it across so that she can be read to. If that is happening in houses up and down the land, then its a good sign.

I'm struggling to think of a group or class of people who would see Oliver and Voordman as a major cultural influence. Except Oliver and Voordman, of course :wink:

[Wavid]

To return to an earlier point, someone said that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. True, but that doesn't mean that all opinions are worthy of the same consideration.

That's exactly what I have been trying to work out how to say. Cheers!

[amner]

Endless quiz shows tend to show a good grounding in popular and classic literature among contestants

:lol:

very funny. Wait, you're not being serious are you?

I'm struggling to think of a group or class of people who would see Oliver ... as a major cultural influence

blimey, the man's as rich as Croesus and he sells shedloads of books, so I think someone is listening.

Top marks for championing Story Makers, though. The only Under 5's kiddies' prog which I reckon actively utilises imagination for its own sake (and not some godawful pre-school sub-syllabus school curriculum Level 8 points 1-through-37 DofE requisite learning scheme tick box nonsense). I mean, Blue Cow, how cool and startling and freaky (inna Clangers stylee) is that? Plus it has Shelley Wordsworth on it once every four episodes, which I'm more than happy with.
.

[idioteque]

I'm not doubting Jamie Oliver's popularity as a chef and author of cook books; just don't accept that impressionable young folk would actively give up reading because "Jamie Oliver says it's dull". Whereas if David Beckham said that he wished he'd read more / less then I could well imagine some children being suffciently influenced to change their behaviour.

Blue Cow is indeed class; the whole basis of the programme in making up attention grabbing stories from just about anything and everything is a powerful message. Knocks the unbearable Balamory for six in my book.

[amner]

I'm not doubting Jamie Oliver's popularity as a chef and author of cook books; just don't accept that impressionable young folk would actively give up reading because "Jamie Oliver says it's dull". Whereas if David Beckham said that he wished he'd read more / less then I could well imagine some children being suffciently influenced to change their behaviour.

I hope you're right. I'm sure you are re: Beckham.

Blue Cow is indeed class; the whole basis of the programme in making up attention grabbing stories from just about anything and everything is a powerful message. Knocks the unbearable Balamory for six in my book.

Very true.

"I'm a television icon," said Blue Cow.

"Everybody knooooows cows can't become television icons."

But we know differently. Don't we?
.

[pandop]

I remember something similar happening with needlework (another passion of mine) - it was revealed <shock horror> that some actresses and models (I forget who, these people don't generally interest me) have taken up needlework and knitting as an easliy portable (they obviously steer clear of large projects - my current work is definitely not portable!) hobby to do on set/shoot

for some reason this was seen as demeaning to their reputation, and I imagine there would have been the same reaction if it had been revealed that they read books to strive off the boredom

I think it is as much the media, and the much fabled dumbing down, that is anti-book, as much as the general population

I do think Harry Potter helps though, as might a certain someone's autobiography - the key is to get people to start reading something they like, and then suggest other things they might like

Hazel

[joy]

I can remember when they said that computers would be the end of reading, but I believe that more books are published and bought now than ever before. :D

[Colyngbourne]

I agree with Hazel, that the thing is to get people reading and for that Harry Potter is a boon. My other half never read fiction since his univ. years until I made him read Harry Potter 1. It was Philip Pullman's trilogy after that and then he was springboarded into reading all the time (and still enjoyed HP 5).

[D-Bear]

Forgive my late post--in Florida, we're so far behind the British. And then there's the time difference :lol: So I wind up missing all the live fun...

I agree with Wavid and Mr. Self. To paraphrase Orwell, everyone may be equally entitled to have an opinion, but some opinions are more equal than others. And as for opinions themselves, there is a popular saying over here, "Opinions are like lawyers: everybody has one". Or something like that...(we are supposed to avoid nasty words, aren't we?)

Listen, celebrities--actors, chefs-du-jour, basketball stars, etc.--make their monstrous fortunes partly because they're talented (though not always) but largely because they are famous, because the public supports them. If the public didn't, they couldn't command those salaries (which are even more obscene over here, Becks' recent coup notwithstanding). So yeah, I believe there should be some measure of responsibility that goes along with that. If one is so shallow, so dull-witted, and so dismally informed that one cannot deign to find a single book that speaks to one's soul or at least strikes one's interest (and look how many divergent tastes there are among the members of this discussion group alone), one should relegate that perversity to Private Things Not To Be Mentioned To The Media. Because it isn't cool or hip to endorse illiteracy, which is, in effect, what some of these buffoons wind up doing.

Hmmmm...when Mr. Oliver says books are boring, I wonder if he's exempting his own cookbooks, the trendy voice-over-ish text of which must be grimly plowed through if one is to get to the necessary quantities of sweeties required to make Maltezer Ice Cream, for example?

[bakunin_the_cat]

maybe I'm missing the point but what's all the fuss about? So JO and CV don't like books. It's their loss. And we probably won't hear them in a pointed argument about whether Jane Austen is better than the Bront'e's.
Ah well.

And the idea that all those kids are going to be put off reading because it's not seen as cool. Excuse me! When was it ever cool? The cool kids could play football and got to kiss girls while we stood around awkwardly in the playground, waiting to go home so we could read the next part of Treasure Island (or whatever).

There will always be people who read books, who know they're not cool but don't care anyway.

Also to be honest, the idea that no-one reads any more is such bullshit. Take any train, tube or bus and you can hardly stand up without being jostled by countless Smiths, Tolkeins, Waters and Potters. OK, Maybe they're not all reading Ulysses but so what?

[pandop]

[pandop]

I tried to reply to this earlier, but my pc wasnt having any of it :roll: lets see if this pc behaves any better <fingers crossed>

I am beginning to think that these 'attacks' on reading from certain sections of the media, and the professed horror from others is another aspect of this desire to see our culture as being 'dumbed down' or to associate class with everything :roll:

There is also a very snobbish attitude to books from certain sections of the media/society, and I do not think this helps. What someone likes to read is a very personal thing, I would not criticise anyone for reading Chick Lit anymore than I would accept criticism for liking Graphic Novels. There are room for us all out there :wink:

Hazel

[Colyngbourne]

Hazel,
does your avatar mean you're a Mononoke fan too?

[John Self]

What I want to know is whether Amner is actually a fan of the antichrist that is Natasha "Barbara Wintergreen" Kathingy... a woman who must be hounded from our screens without further delay! That amount of lipgloss in the morning is not natural. Frankly bring back Sophie and Jeremy, or Sophie and Dermot, or anyone but that CNN bimboid... :evil:

I feel better now.

[pandop]

Colyngbourne

yes - and I *so* want a little clicky thing - a friend of mine (who introduced me to mononoke) told me he saw them on sale in Japan when he was there, this was before I knew him though ....

H

[Colyngbourne]

And Spirited Away is released at last next Friday :D . I think the clicky things are called 'okudama' (well, it sounds like that :wink: )