I love blogging, i love reading an opinion from any side.
I want to focus on one word of that sentence. That word is "reading", as you readers know i am uneducated and from a different background from some readers and followers on twitter, Yes i have had a rough time in my past, but my biggest regret is not being able to read ( and write) properly.
I have so many things i want to say to you but cannot express or explain, while my spelling has improved (thanks spell check) and i strive to learn even by asking what some of you see as silly/stupid questions, well they not silly or stupid to me. One tip i picked up was to always ask questions (even if you get no reply), if you don't ask the question then you have no chance of a reply.
Like i said i want to improve.
Some of you will know that for Christmas i was given two books, They are :
1: Animal farm by George Orwell
2: The original River Cottage cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
I wanted these so i could learn and improve my reading skills, However my wish to improve has been taken over by a touch of fear. To get into a book you must be able to understand properly ,quite quickly to keep up with flo of story etc.
Reading and understanding a words on a blog is ok, but try reading a book needing to use google to find out what the words mean is slightly different.
The two books i mention still sit their waiting for me to read them with me wanting the same, however fear is holding me back.
But i intend to overcome this, slowly but surely.
Have not commented much recently as I have been tied up with other things but I am always in the background.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe, Billy, that you have articulated above a truth that affects every one of the human race? The trouble is that even those with an excellent schooling often have a poor picture of life and truth. But even setting aside the Pollys, our perception system is rather rudimentary in some respects.
You talk about asking questions. That is an amazingly important thing to do. Often the best questions come from children who have yet to complete their education. Is that not strange? Why should that be?
So many people look for answers when they don't even understand how to formulate the question properly. But unless that is done well, how can any answer be useful?
I suggest you start thinking about your lack of education as an advantage because you have a strong self-belief system already. Read and read and read. That will help to test your beliefs. Be prepared that you feel inclined to change them where they do not stand up to examination. But otherwise hold to them as they are already quite coherent.
George Orwell made a point of writing plainly. Animal Farm is a fable, told very simply. Nothing to fear there.
ReplyDeleteWho else writes very plainly? Well, Ernest Hemingway, but he was a bit of a wanker. Ed McBain and Lee Child do plainness better, and are more fun. A snob would complain that their books aren't proper literature, but who cares?
I agree with Tachybaptus about Orwell (and also, of course, with the wise sentiments expfressed by SC)
ReplyDeleteYou shouldn't fear Animal Farm at all. If any questions arise, you can always blog about them anyway - as you rightly say, asking questions is the first step to knowledge.
You could also get hold of a "crib book" to go alongside your reading of Animal Farm - these are short books that look into the issues raised, and often have summaries of the plot to keep you up to speed. They're designed specifically for students to help them understand the text. I see that Amazon do a "York Notes" book on Animal Farm for £4.50 ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Animal-Farm-York-Notes-GCSE/dp/1408270021/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340399689&sr=8-1 ), but as it is (I think) still a pretty standard set text for GCSE English, you may well be able to find one in the library.
I really do hope you can overcome your fear and read and enjoy it. Keep us posted with how you get on, mate.
Billy, I can save you the trouble, Huge Fanny Twattingstall is, well, a twat, just look at the pictures. In Animal Farm the pigs take over, as thus it ever was.
ReplyDeleteThe Only Way is Essex, mate.
The whole point of Animal Farm, Billy, is that Orwell wanted to set out how an idealistic "revolution" gets hijacked by the spivs who, because they now run things, will let power go to their heads and create a society worse than that which they rebelled against. It's a fable and it was intended to be read by old and young alike, the adults understanding the references that the children might not. It was written with the thought that you could chart a logical progression, and so the exposition is of the form of "A, then B, then C..." and is not terribly complex. It's where the expression "Some are more equal than others" comes from. Most kids that can read Harry Potter could read Animal Farm without difficulty. Just don't be one of those people, as too many are, who think they're supposed to find reading a "classic" book to be rough going. It's not always so. And even in the unlikely event you wouldn't "get it" the first time, Animal Farm would bear re-reading. Actually, more adults should.
ReplyDelete