The Next Generation?

Posted by Jules Ritter on June 12th, 2008

There are two things I can’t stand in this world: One is a wine snob and the other a book snob. This month Sophie-G. eldest daughter going on fifteen, had to write a one thousand word book appraisal for school.  We at home were eager to see how she – who only reads words if presented to her as an SMS or MSN - would go about this task.  After much deliberation she chose one of Sue Townsend’s brilliant Adrian Mole books and has suffered greatly at the mirth of her classmates and teachers ever since. When I asked her what the other students were reading she replied:

“ Obama’s book, some other business thingy, something about A Tree in Africa, Anne Frank, of course. AND when I said The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole the teacher replied “oh is anyone reading Noddy Goes to Toy Town? ” How bad is that?”

Very bad indeed.  Adrian Mole is a hero.  He is a boy growing up in England in the 1980s under Maggie Thatcher’s government.  He is working class and thinks of himself as an intellectual - an undiscovered poet forever harrassing the BBC -  who suffers under his lazy, out of work parents who get drunk on their homemade wine and he has to put them to bed.  He is embarrassed by these fag smoking, boozing  parents.  His mother wears clothes befitting a seventeen year old girl and is constantly trying to get him to wear “trendy” clothes but Adrian likes smart jumpers and irons creases in his jeans.  Then there is the fantastic character of old man Bert who spits and curses and lives with his Alsation dog in a run down bungalow, through whom Sue Townsend the author, portrays the loneliness and poverty of many old people.  And last but not least there is posh Pandora (representing the middle classes) with all her airs and graces who Adrian, of course ever the kamakazi, falls madly in love with.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole can be read on many levels.  As a simple story about a boy growing up with all the usual angst, or as a social satire about class, education, ambition and politics in Britain in the 1980s.  So there Class 3, year 9!  oh and just as an aside, just as an aside!  It is also hilariously funny and the truest reflection of working class Britain I have ever read, beloved of all us Ritters.

Writers should read as much as they write which has never been a hardship for me as even when growing up I would happily spend the whole day in my room (no friends Jules) or under a tree, reading. (A time when I did a lot of sighing.)  Thus it is with surprise and a tad dismay that I find I have a progeniture who couldn’t give a twaddle about the written word.  I have tried bribing her to read classics but she gives up after a few sentences claiming she has no idea  “what they are going on about”.  I tried Henry James and gave her the slim 88 page Daisy Miller then Forster’s  Room with a View, which I cried over at her age.  As a last resort I presented her with my favourite ever book as if I were one of the three kings and she was baby Jesus -  Jane Hamilton’s The Short History of a Prince.  She looked at me askance and with a tolerance way beyond her years.  It is still sitting by her bedside table under her PC, Ipod and phone.

Sophie-G. and I had a long wait together in the Doctor’s Office yesterday and she started talking AGAIN about the book appraisal.

“Some of the books chosen are so long, Mum. Some are 500 pages!  I looked at one of them and read the first page which was SOOOOOO boring.  The first sentence was something about a girl not being pretty.  I gave it back and said it was over-rated.”

“What was it called?”

“Erm, Gone with…the Wind?”

Sophie has many, many qualities; she is a beautiful dancer, has a quirky artistic skill, is a wizz on her Mac and has a social life that any teenager would envy.   But, I can put my hand on my heart and safely say here and now, that she will never be a reader.

Copyright JulesRitter June 2008 

My Swiss Family 7 Comments

Sophie-G. said,

June 12, 2008 @ 7:07 pm

Ok,ok,ok. Excuse. NOTE TO ALL READERS: I am not a bimbo. I get good grades AND I read books (no really. I do.) Yes, I agree sometimes I abuse my computer, BUT I don’t text that much, it annoys me.
I am currently reading Apocalypse by Tim Bowler, which has 341 pages(small print.)

And I am sorry, but I do not hate myself enough to condem myself to such boredom and reading Gone With The Wind. It just doesn’t capture me.

And whaat I think is unfair, is when teachers roll their eyes at me and completely dwell on the students that spend their days reading Obama’s book…

My conclusion: I have more going on in my life then to sit on my bum and read something that isn’t even interesting…

X

Sophie-G. said,

June 12, 2008 @ 7:08 pm

P.S: I’m better looking in real life than on that picture (hint hint MUM.)

Nadia said,

June 12, 2008 @ 7:40 pm

My daughter’s always been a reader, too, but my son had trouble getting through a whole book.

But Harry Potter worked for me… especially the movie version of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”

My son saw the movie. He loved it. I told him that, what a shame, the book had soooo much more in it – especially the dragon scenes, “Oh yes,” I said, “They’re described in DETAIL, all of them, not just Harry’s!”

As years before the kids had got ME hooked on Harry Potter (they were in a French school, and they asked, “Please buy them in English, Mom, so we’ll read them before anyone else in our class!” They then didn’t touch them, and one day I just happened to open book 1 page 1… Bam! Hooked on Harry!), so I did have the entire series at home, up to book 6 at that point.

My son read book 5 in a week, went on to 6, then went backwards and read the lot. We were both in downtown Geneva at 7:30 am on July 21 last year, at the opening of the bookstore for Deathly Hallows. He got the kid’s version, I got the adult one (different covers!).

He now calls me from bookstores, “Have you read this? What did you think of that?” and reads almost as much as I used to.

I will forever be grateful to Harry.

Martin said,

June 13, 2008 @ 5:42 am

What turned me into a regular bookworm? Would you believe T. S. Eliot : Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Excellent !

I’m not even sure that my 17 year old daughter (heading for 25 rapidly) reads anything other than school work (but like Sophie-G is a whiz with text messages and Messenger) whilst my 19 year old son reads tomes relating to internet security and programming – although, to be fair, that probably has more to do with work and University.

Whatever happened to Romeo & Juliet or Julius Caesar or Alice in Wonderland (which mushrooms had Lewis Carroll been eating?). Thinking of Shakespeare, has anyone else seen that a satirical writer – Martin Baum – has written a “yoof guide to Shakespeare” which apparently features such literary classics as “Romeo and his fit bitch Jools”, “Much Ado About Sod All” and “Two Geezas Of Verona” and delights in telling us in “Amlet” that “Dere was somefing minging in de State of Denmark”.

French I can translate, but this? Well wicked!

Sharyn G said,

June 13, 2008 @ 1:27 pm

Sophie,

You don’t have to like everything that everone else reads. I too cannot sit still if it is a book I find boring. That would include “Gone With the Wind” and all of the Bronte’s. The worst book I had to read when I was your age was “The Scarlet Letter” Boring…..Get real! What counts is that you do read something. I prefer history and mysteries. Find what you like and stick to your guns. Stick to your guns kid!

Adam said,

June 24, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

I hated reading as a child, and still don’t read. But I have written a couple of books. Sophie – do what you like and what you’re good at and don’t worry about anything else. IF you find reading boring, don’t read. Your mind is no less because of it and in fact has many other ways of receiving information, just as you have many other forms of perception than intellectual input. If you are blind, you are no less a human than someone who can see. You just experience the world differently. Anyone can see that you are a smart girl – whether you went with the wind or without it.

jules said,

June 29, 2008 @ 8:23 pm

The following sent be Graham in an email, he’s being shy again.

My grandfather was a self-employed illegal bookmaker, so he knew
> something about books. He was also a dab hand with saw and chisel. On
> Christmas Day 1955, he proudly presented my father with a hand made
> set of mahogany library steps. We only had a small bookshelf so having
> climbed the steps, one would have to bend down to pick up the book.
> You’ll notice I say “the” book. Because there was only one book in our
> house, Arsenal Forward, A Story of Football.
>
> Apart from the Daily Express, reading was never encouraged in our
> house. And I don’t think we suffered from not having had dreamy
> summer’s afternoons enjoying a fragrant browse under the apple tree at
> the end of our garden. We had footballs to kick and catapults to aim
> and rivers to fall in. I do like Adrian Mole for all the reasons you
> mention (I saw the televised series). I like to think of my childhood
> as Just William; which I never read either.
>
> And as for doing book appraisals for school, what a waste of time.
> You can find all the appraisals you need on the web. Why write an
> appraisal? Is it punishment for reading a dreary book published a
> hundred years ago?
>
> I’ll give you a challenge: Write a 1000 word appraisal of the Virginia
> Wolff novel of your choice. Virginia is household name where fine
> literary folk gather, but can anybody honestly say they have read her?
> My dear, she is unreadable.
>
> I’m absolutely certain that Sophie-G will decide if and when and what
> she wants to read. But it won’t hurt her intellectual development if
> she doesn’t because she obviously has a bright and enquiring mind.
> Gone with the Wind won’t embellish that.
>
> From the House of One Book, my brother and I went off into the world.
> He, an English honours graduate and now one of the most successful
> newspaper and magazine publishers in Australia. Me? Well, you know me.
> A bellicose old advertising copywriter who has had a lot of fun and
> success in the business.
>
>
> G.
>
>

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