Because the book tells you?
To my shame I've never read Dickens, but I did read the Romanian canonical authors (I am Romanian), and a lot of them, the ones I liked, gave you a very real sense of the life of the people at the time.
Ion, for example, is basically a tragedy about the titular character scheming to marry a woman whom he doesn't love (but who loves him) because he's poor and she's "rich" (owns land). And the book really shows you how important and spiritually so it is for the main character (and therein, for the average farmer at the time) to work his own land, to sweat and toil over his land. How he collapses to his knees and kisses the dirt when he finally gets it etc.
High schoolers can get most books with adult themes, and most books require very little context, since they are filled with passages upon passages upon passages of description.
> How would you know what the characters in Pride and Prejudice are worried about if you don't know how that society is?
Because they literally say it!
“Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people’s remarks.”
“How can I promise to be wiser … if I am tempted?”
“My father’s opinion of me does me the greatest honour; and I should be miserable to forfeit it.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“To Elizabeth it appeared, that had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer success.”
I don't think waiting 20 years to acquire a much vaguer and much less correct understanding of the context from YouTube/TikTok/TV cultural diffusion is very wise.
Oh, such a day, a talk about Ion on HN.
I get your point, and the book does say that. It's just... For a teenager, it rarely lands. And connecting context is super important. I mean, sure Ion wanted land, but you really can't contextualize that kind of desire when your needs and desires are completely different.
Maybe you were more capable of empathy or better at contextualizing what you were reading. I sure as hell was not. And only now later in like I think I am able to read and understand books. And really get them at a much deeper level. I do wonder though if without going through the motions of reading stuff you contextualize poorly if you ever gain the capability to understand. Or if it just makes no sens to engage with certain material until mature enough, in the right frame of mind and, importantly, _interested in it_.
> I get your point, and the book does say that. It's just... For a teenager, it rarely lands.
Basic education is weird because it has two conflicting goals. One is to get everyone to the same basic level needed to function in a society. And that's where all the incentives are - that's what you and the teachers are graded on. But another goal is to give you a taste of what's out there, so that some of the more talented kids can decide they like literature or math or physics or whatever.
That second part really requires the teacher and the student to care, but the first part conspires to make that outcome unlikely. My memories from public school are that everything I'm interested in today, I'm interested in despite the efforts of the school system to make the topics appear painful and dull.
So on some level, I don't think the problem is with the literature itself, or with the student's age. It's just that the setting often sucks and you kinda start with the assumption that if the teachers are making you read a book or learn some dates, it won't be a fun experience. And so it isn't.
I don't see the conflict between the two. I think you can do both. But, yes, the quality of the teachers matters a whole lot. And, sometimes, how well they relate to the kids. Because I can imagine that some people just won't click well together. Thinking back on the poor professors, I kinds of am sorry for all the crap they had to put up with.
And I do believe the student has part of the blame here. Or at least, the culture the student is living in. Because if there is an air of "pff, school, who needs it?" it rubs on kids and they end up believing school is stupid, knowing things is dumb, and they just don't care about it. At least in my country, I just feel such an air of disdain for education, that, to me, just feels a problem of perception or cultural framing. Competency is cool. Knowing things is _actually_ cool.
You have 20 kids in a classroom. Fifteen of them want to know what's going to be on the state-mandated test. Five, if you're lucky, may have some interest in the subject you're teaching.
So, do you design the class for the five gifted kids and risk failing the other 15, or do you get everyone over the finish line through rote repetition until they can all recite the names of the Founding Fathers for the test, knowing full well that you can't make them care about history (or, in some cases, even keep them off drugs and street crime)?
Sure, there are exceptional teachers who can keep the entire classroom engaged, but it's so rare that we make films about them. In most cases, in public schools, it's a choice that needs to be made.
You can indeed do both. That's what separates a good teacher from a great teacher.
But I think we also all now understand that public teaching is one of the worst ROI careers financially and how the few carrpts on the stick (tenure, fairly strong job security) have been stripped away over the decades. The way schools are funded literally rely on real estste value in that area. It's all made so maybe some rich areas get great teachers, but the hopes of using education to crawl out of poverty gets harder and harder. Unsurprising that great teachers leave before their prime or never come in to begin with.
And nope. They do not teach you that in 12th grade econ/government class.
> in the right frame of mind and, importantly, _interested in it_
Very much so! I'm not saying the way school approaches books is good, I'd wish there would have been be a lot more time dedicated to reading the darn things. :)
My point is that, if you find reading enjoyable and do it as sort of a hobby instead of a chore (I did, and a bunch of my friends did too, so this wasn't just a me thing), you can get a lot out of the books even at that age.
Of course you understand them more later, but it also goes both ways, you also understand life situations a bit better because you've seen them before in books.
> "To my shame I've never read Dickens"
I suggest dropping the shame; you're not missing much. IMHO Dickens is hugely overrated. Paid by the word and it shows.
Go for "Great Expectations", "David Copperfield" and "Bleak House". If they are not great novels, I don't know what are.
"A Christmas Carol" will never be a great novel, but there is a reason it is beloved the world over for what it is.
Dickens is full of extremely theatrical scenes. The characters are often a caricature, but the caricature is so finely drawn that it is tremendous fun.
(Nobody should be ashamed for having read or not read some work though, or for having enjoyed or not enjoyed one.)
To each his own. I love Dickens, though I haven't read that much.
Dumas was also paid by the word. Still fun to read.
You're making a good point. I was also of the opinion that these books don't land well, because I'm missing the context. And I'm actually still thinking that about quite a lot of these classics. But what I believe I'm also concluding from your comment, is that these books aren't good hooks to get people, especially teenagers, interested in the context and in the society of the time. And that is where YouTube/TikTok/TV might shine. Or a well written and narrated podcast.
Telling you about the great depression in Steinbeck's work is a lot different from living a few years out in the world and struggling to pay rent. Even if that's still a far cry from what actually happened 80-90 years ago. I think those are the key sensations that are missing that made me resonate with a lot more classic literature post-college rather than bumbling through English class in high school.
I think you really need to spend a few years fighting your politics to really capture the politics depicted in literature. And many US grade schoolers simply don't do that.