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Letter: Defeated by Dickens
DO YEP readers have an un-favourite book?
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We are currently being invited to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.
For me, celebrations will be somewhat muted as one of his works, David Copperfield, almost killed off my reading enjoyment early in life. As one wit said of another book, “Once put down it’s very hard to pick up again.”
Unfortunately, it was a set book we had to study at school. To the 12-year old me it was a tedious, mind-numbing trudge of a book. A journey in leaden boots to an ending never reached while the hands of the clock on the wall crawled toward home time at the speed of Continental Drift.
Our dedicated teacher, Miss Gascoigne, fought a losing battle to interest her class full of resentful, glum-faced brats in the lives of such characters as Peggotty, Barkis and others. Characters whose bizarre names alone prevented me, for one, from engaging at any level with their stories and alienated me from the start.
I survived the curse of Copperfield and became a dedicated addict of the printed word. Not even the ingredients list on a sauce bottle can escape my wandering gaze (anchovies and tamarind extract anyone?).
I wonder if any other YEP readers have an un-favourite book from their schooldays that almost killed their interest in reading?
Mr T Crawford, by email
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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