Terry Eagleton - How to Read Literature, Young People, and Voting

If I find a book that's clever and witty and tells me something new I am so happy. Or even a book that's shown me something I know from another point of view. I want to share it with someone I love. (If you've received a book from me, and you didn't like it - I am philosophical. I still think it's better to try to share than give up hope.) I loved sharing books with the children when I had children, and we still go back to the old ways when we stumble upon a Dr Seuss, (as we did in the Youth Hostel) or a Mairi Hedderwick.

I really like the cover art too.

Anyhow, here is Terry Eagleton explaining how to appreciate literature, and I'm finding it really helpful. I always suspected, when I did my degree, that I didn't quite understand  how the writers had mixed form and content to create meaning, and this book is very helpful with understanding that, giving plenty of examples from classic literature to consider.

But this is Terry Eagleton and rejoice with me, for Terry Eagleton is witty. He is so un-pompous.

On stereotypes:

A type is not necessarily a stereotype. .... Stereotypes reduce men and women to general categories, whereas types preserve their individuality but lend it some broader context. A cynic might take this to mean that Irishmen are forever engaged in drunken brawling, but that each does so in his own unique way.

We can identify objects only by language, and language is general by nature. If it were not, we would need a different word for every rubber duck and stick of rhubarb in the world. ... there is no special word for my particular pair of eyebrows or fits of sulkiness. .... In fact, there is nothing that does not resemble something else in some respect. The Great Wall of China resembles the concept of heartache in that neither can peel a banana.

Character:

It is not that Aristotle thought Character unimportant in general. On the contrary, he regarded it as supremely important, as another of his books the Nicomachean Ethics, makes clear. this work is all about moral values, qualities of character, the difference between virtuous and vicious individuals, and so on. Aristotle's view of character in the real-life sense, however, differs from some modern versions of it. Here too, he sees action as primary. It is what men and women do, the way they realise or fail to realise their creative powers in the public arena, that matters most from a moral viewpoint. You could not be virtuous simply on your own... Ancient thinkers were less likely than modern modern ones to view individuals as existing in splendid isolation. They would no doubt have had some trouble in understanding Hamlet, not to speak of being utterly bemused by the work of Marcel Proust or Henry James....

Actually, I think you can still divide people into ancients, who naturally fulfill themselves in the public sphere, (e.g. my husband) and the moderns, who are interested in their own consciousness and the way their own perceptions of the world add up to what they know. I guess we are readers. There are fewer of us now, as Will Self wrote in the Guardian not long ago, young people don't read novels.

But you can't say they don't like a good story! Look at "Game of Thrones". I am not able to comment on this work because I haven't read it. I know S gave up on it but F's friends discuss it excitedly and she says she is going to read the whole multi-volume saga as a post-exam chillout.

But they don't want to have to work at anything. I saw on the news yesterday clips of young people explaining why they hadn't voted, and they said: we don't know enough about it. Well, I felt the same so I went and searched for info on the web, the way that's so easy and natural these days. then I was able to brief my daughter while walking to the polling station (her first time voting, we insisted that she vote for something, - anything!) But if the young people feel that they can't make important decisions for themselves, it's as though they are saying; "We are children, please decide for us, because you know best." They are passengers, and modernists, with their headphones on blocking out everything but their own consciousness, and they need a more Aristotelian point of view.

In the end I voted Green in the hope that there would be enough Green people acting in concert in Europe to protect the fish. Yup, I voted to save the fish.

My two German girls don't want to continue English lessons with me. I think that's because I kept wanting them to discuss things they have no ideas or opinions about. It is amazing that these intelligent young women (20+) have no ideas or opinions, and I'm not sure I will really miss them. But I said I would. Of course, they gave other reasons for not continuing, :- their plans had changed and they were returning to Germany earlier and they had decided not to take the Advanced exam after all.