Is There an Easy Way to Read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
When "Ivanhoe" was required reading
TalkReaders Over Sixty
Join LibraryThing to post.
When "Ivanhoe" was required reading
This topic is currently marked as "dormant"—the final bulletin is more than 90 days old. You can revive it by posting a reply.
1Meredy
Nov 2, 2013, ii:35am
One of my current reads happens to be Ivanhoe. This isn't especially weird for me. I read a lot of one-time stuff and a lot of British stuff. In the past couple of years I've read other Scott novels and enjoyed them. I'yard comfortable with both a nineteenth-century prose manner and a medieval setting. Primitive vocabulary does not trip me up, and I don't mind protracted descriptions, windy commentary, or and so-chosen writer intrusion.
And all the same--I'chiliad recalling with wonder and puzzlement: this was once required reading in public schools across the U.S. I got through it somehow, along with the rest of my 9th-grade grade, but I missed all the adventure in a body of water of confusing linguistic communication, lost context, and bewildering names. And I was an ace English educatee--top of my class, straight A's, 800 on the SAT, Advanced Placement, later an English major, later still a publications professional paid for my language skills.
If I wasn't up to it, who was?
What were they thinking? I can handle it at present, but how many 14-year-olds could have been expected to get much of anything out of this? All else bated, how much of the history of medieval England was any American highschooler expected to know? I'thousand amazed that there weren't dozens of more than recent, more than more often than not readable, and more than culturally apt choices that were considered to exist essential to the educational activity of American young people.
Here'southward one have on this question:
"Why did our elders estimate Ivanhoe to be suitable for 10th graders? The plot plods, the characters are unidimensional cliches, and there'due south a total want of suspense. The dialogue is ludicrous."
Here's another:
"His epic novels used to be required reading for generations of schoolchildren. But the works of the early 19th century author Sir Walter Scott take recently fallen out of favour, considered too ponderous and wordy for the tastes of modernistic readers."
What's yours?
2razzamajazz
Edited: Nov ii, 2013, five:53am
Give Ivanhoe past Sir Walter Scott, a listing in your reading agenda. Today's generation, the
'
youth have a short bridge of reading attending. Classics literature is actually a "lighthouse" to skillful
reading. I hated literature in schools, reading to pass examinations. Grasping very hard and
taking the incorrect means of understanding this field of study, English language Literature.As I grow older into the
retirement years of my life,I come to dear Literature very much, and searching for more than titles to
read. This is an evolution of my reading tastes, pulp fiction and all-time-sellers were things of the
past. I will go for titles by the winning writers - Nobel Prize Literature, Booker Prize, other book
awards.
Commentary:
world wide web.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9050321/Dont-chop-Ivanhoe-just-skip-the-boring-bits.html
Summary of Ivanhoe:
www.sparknotes.com/lit/ivanhoe/summary.html
3lilithcat
Nov 2, 2013, 10:28am
I read it in loftier school, and loved it! I loathe the concept of dumbing downward books to "brand them easier to read". One of my English teachers did that with Moby Dick*. "Skip the whaling chapters." Seriously. Years later on, when I re-read the entire book, I realized that skipping those vital parts of it were what ruined the initial experience.
*{rant}Oh, for cryin' out loud! Could someone delight do something about touchstones, and so the proper volume comes up somewhere on the list? {/rant }
4MarianV
Nov v, 2013, ii:29pm
I think reading Ivanhoe in the ninth form. Too Lady of the Lake My friends & I would go around with fake medieval English accents.
Nosotros also read Shakespeare in the original play form. Romeo and Juliet, which was like shooting fish in a barrel, the next year "Hamlet" our senior year it was "Macbeth" A film came out that year which starred Sir Alec Guiness. Our whole course (plus chaperones) rode the streetcar downtown to the "arts" cinema to sentinel it.
A few years afterwards that, starting in 1950, the whole curriculum for High School English was "Modernized" By that time I had graduated. If it were non compelled, I don't believe I or few of my friends would have read any of those classics. Movies were later made of most of them (some with a changed title) . That might take been an easier introduction to the classics.
5PossMan
Nov 5, 2013, ii:54pm
In the 1970s I was teaching at a girls' boarding schoolhouse in Gloucestershire (UK) and the works of Walter Scott were a favourite of the headmistress. And I remember reading Ivanhoe and some of his other historical novels as a teenager and enjoying them. Only I wouldn't savor them now. As a teenager I lived not for from Pendle Wood in Lancashire Britain and a book I really enjoyed was "Pendle Witches" by William Harrison Ainsworth who in some means was England's answer to Walter Scott. He wrote a good number of historical novels. I don't recall they would go down well with modern readers (or modern me). I can't explain information technology but whereas I would concur with lilithcat (#3) almost not dumbing down Shakespeare or perhaps Chaucer or John Donne I'chiliad not sure either Scott or Harrison are worth the struggle. Their style is quondam-fashioned and irritating.
6geneg
Edited: Dec 19, 2013, 5:36pm
I'm currently reading The Heart of Midlothian by Scott as role of a long term, simply-for-the-helluvit projection of reading all of Scott. I love the fashion, merely then I so despise most modernistic (within the last thirty years or so) writing that I simply don't read fiction from this menses. By squeezing out all of the problems with 19th cent. writing they've squeezed the life out of their prose. I like long wordy sentences that pigment more consummate images. After having read six or vii of Scott's before novels I'chiliad pretty used to the vernacular language so that doesn't bother me much or slow me downwardly. I feel similar I've learned a practiced deal about the Scottish/English wars of the seventeenth - eighteenth centuries and a good bit about religious intolerance, the subject of most of his early novels. I see the ascension of American Chritianism in the fundamentalist religious beliefs of the Scots.
I've read lots of Henry James and Edith Wharton this by twelvemonth, along with a Twain that left me convinced in my assessment that he was only one rung higher up a hack.
Anyway, over the past year I've read a lot of Scott and really like it.
7Maleva
Edited: October 17, 2015, 6:37pm
Way back in the 1960s, when I was in 10th course and living in a small mountain boondocks in western Pennsylvania, nosotros were assigned the following books to read and discuss: The Grapes of Wrath, A Goodbye to Arms, Equally I Lay Dying, and In Cold Blood. I hated them all -- retrieve, this was tenth grade -- and the Capote book scared the hell out of me. Today, I beloved all those books, except In Cold Claret, which I haven't been able to pick upward since. I've however to try Sir Walter Scott, but I am intrigued by his books and his reputation, and I wish I had sampled him in high school. My wife & I plan to visit Scotland sometime within the side by side three years, and I wonder which of Scott'south books would I do good from the most.
Whatsoever suggestions?
8Meredy
Oct 17, 2015, vii:20pm
>vii Maleva: Well, you tin can actually visit the Center of Midlothian almost St. Giles on the Royal Mile (High Street) in Edinburgh.
I wish I'd read the novel before going in that location.
I've read only a few of Scott'southward novels so far, and I remember any of them would take added to my experience of visiting Scotland. I'd desire to put Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped on the list too.
9Maleva
Oct 17, 2015, ix:25pm
First-class suggestions. Back in the early 70s, when I was in the USN, I had visited Edinburgh and walked the Royal Mile, only I missed the neat image you show in your photograph.
I will select a few of Scott's novels, and Stevenson, for my TBR pile, which is in danger of toppling.
10Meredy
Oct 17, 2015, ix:37pm
>9 Maleva: Not my photo, I'chiliad agape, just ane I picked out of Google Images considering it gives some idea of calibration and context instead of just beingness a eye-shaped mosaic. The photo I took has my feet in it.
If your TBR pile isn't in danger of toppling, you're non doing it correct.
Be sure to read some Burns, too, while you're at information technology.
11John5918
October 18, 2015, iii:35am
I think reading Ivanhoe as a callow youth, simply probably not as a fix book at schoolhouse. Information technology must have made an impression on me as in later life I accept reread it many times and thoroughly enjoyed information technology. Possibly English schoolchildren of that era would identify with it more than in the USA, equally nosotros would have been more familiar with some of the history, myths, places and characters. Whether modern youth are withal equally familiar is a different question.
Like >6 geneg:, I find myself enjoying a lot of older novels these days, upward to nigh the 1950s, with a lot from the late 19th and early on 20th centuries. Different way, dissimilar stride, different vocabulary, dissimilar sense of humor, etc than the more contempo ones. Those written around the 1950s awaken nostalgia, every bit they remind me of an era which I can but near recall but which soon changed.
I share the dislike for dumbing down expressed by some posters, and I think >ii razzamajazz: is probably right in saying that attention spans are getting much shorter. But I fear it'll be a existent uphill struggle to effort to reverse or even boring down that process.
12MarthaJeanne
Oct 18, 2015, five:07am
To this day, the only author I was forced to read in loftier school English language grade that I will touch is Shakespeare. Every other book I had to read was such torture that I can't face them. A lot of this was probably the enforced slow pace. Even and then I was reading several books a week. More than was the dissection of everything. I read Ivanhoe two years ago and enjoyed it.
One thing I really like are the Shakespeare editions my kids brought dwelling house from schoolhouse. Large - slap-up big - paperbacks with the text on the top inner quadrants surrounded past definitions, $.25 of history, pictures... If you are going to accept kids read these books, something similar this is a big assist.
13geneg
October 18, 2015, x:27am
I've been on a long term walk through Sir Walter Scott. Got bogged down after reading the outset ten novels or and so in chronological sequence beginning with Waverley, his offset novel up to The Abbott. His Waverley novels are historic novels regarding the Border Wars of the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth centuries. One of the most interesting aspects of these works is the function religious differences played in these wars, often a greater part than bug of sovereignty, especially among the lower classes. These represented Albion's contribution to the religious wars that drove so many out of Europe to America. I can learn two things from these stories: religion, misused, as it almost always is, is poison and can weaken countries and destroy societies, and that the refugees from Europe brought their religious intolerances to this country where, from time to fourth dimension they heighten their ugly heads, at present being one of those times. If people had some idea of the destruction religious intolerance brings maybe nosotros wouldn't be so quick to engage in its wars. The first vi or then of his novels examine all sides of these four manner conflicts between the Kirk, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and a particularly virulent, nasty brand of murderous fundamentalism skilful past the nigh ignorant of the lot, only like today, but with violence, the Covenenters. I discover this aspect of Scott the nigh interesting. The stories themselves I would call typical romantic adventure, except that Scott was inventing the genre as he wrote them. As information technology turns out, the novel I'm currently hung upwards on is something of a ghost story. Spirits figure prominently in the story. At some point I will option upwardly The Abbott again and plunge forward.
Ivanhoe picks upwardly the theme of religious intolerance through its depiction of the life of Isaac of York and the view of his daughter as beautiful just forbidden fruit. At that place is, as well, the backdrop of Richard Cour de Leon fighting the mighty Saladin during the Crusades.
If romantic adventure is not your matter, Scott may be a slog, only if, in the spirit of graphic symbol driven novels yous savour the deep dive into historical stories of the Borderlands, a trip into the grapheme of the Borderlands and the people they bred, yous can't beat them.
I recommend the Scott novice brainstorm with Waverley and motion forward from there.
14Maleva
Oct xviii, 2015, 11:27am
This is much more than guidance than I ever expected, and it is very appreciated. I am a novice, where Scott is concerned. I've downloaded some of his novels onto my Kindle terminal night, but I will be visiting my local B&N on Tuesday, and I'll meet what I can detect there. I always prefer the actual physical book in my hand, as opposed to the electronic one. Now I just have to rearrange my lodge of championship priorities, which seems to shift every few hours.
I demand more infinite for a bigger bedside table. Possibly I should only eliminate the bed.
15PhaedraB
Oct 18, 2015, 1:45pm
>14 Maleva: My bedside table is full. The triple-stacked TBR shelf is also total. At this point, I don't know if I'k going to live that long.
16Maleva
November 1, 2015, 9:38am
Now that I think about it, I remember reading as an 8-form assignment Treasure Island and Pyle's Men of Iron. Nosotros read each volume every bit a class, chapter-by-chapter, and and so discussed the material. I wish I could remember in greater detail. Since and then, I've e'er had warm feelings for Stevenson'due south classic tale.
17pechmerle
May nineteen, 2017, 4:22am
Well, I'll keep this brief - dissimilar Scott, who never could.
I too read Ivanhoe as a teenager. I don't remember information technology was on assignment, which may accept helped. I enjoyed the feudal disharmonism betwixt Saxon and Norman, and somehow - then - I had the patience for its length.
More recently, as a mature (i.eastward. old) adult, I've tried picking up both The Center of Midlothian and The Talisman. The sheer weight of verbiage in both was intolerable. The plot creeps forth considering Scott had to draw every article of article of clothing, every aspect of the landscape or urban scape, the weather, page after page, earlier the next bit of activeness finally comes along. I call back there is a good argument to be made that a carefully abridged edition of a Scott novel would be a much amend feel.
By the way, this doesn't hateful that I am a fan of post-modern minimalism. I usually follow the advice of a wise old journalist in our boondocks who suggested, 'Whenever you are tempted to pick upwards a new book, pick up an erstwhile one!'
What I do heartily recommend is that if you travel to Scotland, visit Scott'south habitation at Abbottsford. I of its many pleasures is browsing the titles in Scott'due south personal library. Several people here have commented on the important role that religious conflicts play in the Waverley novels. I spotted on his bookshelves a tome called something like "Popish Plots." A friend suggested Scott took that volume literally, whereas I come across it as illustrating his interest in agreement all perspectives on the religious conflicts involved in the novels.
Scott the homo rather than writing stylist was in some ways quite modern. At Abbottsford, he ran pipes underground from the steam boiler that heated the business firm (a modern element in itself for the time) to pipes inside the brick walls that enclose the garden. That style, he got more heat for plantings near the walls than that northern clime could otherwise provide.
18Tess_W
Edited: Sep xix, 2017, 10:08am
I've all the same not read Ivanhoe and at this time I can't say that I have any plans to do then. My loftier school reads were All Repose on the Western Front, The Scarlet Letter and Macbeth too as other brusk stories or books I've totally forgotten! I hated All Tranquillity but loved the Blood-red Letter....have read 2-3 times in the past thirty years. About time for some other re-read!
I practise run across the very vast divergence in writing between the adept and the mundane. I draw the line at virtually 1920. I especially similar the 16th and 17th century writers, generally British and Russian.
Is There an Easy Way to Read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Source: https://www.librarything.com/topic/160672
Komentar
Posting Komentar