Saturday, 5 July 2014

Learning from Charles Dickens

I'm reading "Hard Times" at present.

I have to confess I haven't read much Dickens. At school we had to read Dickens as a "home reader", and I found it a struggle then.

As I read "Hard Times" I'm surprised at how this novel seems to be directed at changing people's thinking rather than just being an entertaining story.

 I hadn't realised just how "radical" Dicken's writing was. For example this quote
 "in to the relations between employers and employed ... there must enter something of feeling and sentiment; something of mutual explanation, forbearance, and consideration; something ... not exactly stateable in figures; otherwise these relations are wrong and rotten at the core and will never bear sound fruit."

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