Reading Is For Awesome People

          “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.” Written by Charles Dickens in his famous book, Great Expectations, this quote has such depth, such a great moral. It was written in the 1860’s, over one hundred years ago, in a book about a young orphan coming of age. It was published as a serial in the newspaper All the Year Round from December of 1860 to August of 1861. The book, although apparently unimaginably difficult to plan week to week, kept fans extremely excited to read what came next, keeping them in suspense and leaving them wanting more like popular weekly television shows today. Published in the same way that the famous Sherlock Holmes installments by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were released, the All The Year Round earned Dickens and the paper lots of money and buyers in the year that book was distributed. Here is another quote by a hugely popular author today. “Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business. Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. I, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor. Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.”
Now this, written by J.K. Rowling, author of the equally, if not not more famous Harry Potter series, is magically written on a piece of paper to offend a teacher of the namesake of the series. This boy is also a young orphan who is coming of age, but the way his story is told is much more modern, and more magical, than that of books written in the 1800’s. As you can see, it is not as deep as the previous quote, and definitely does not have the same moral. Although these are just examples of quotes in literature from long ago to now, it seems pretty obvious that way back when, literature and writing was taken a little more seriously than it is today. Now I’m not saying that today there are no serious books with important messages that old college professors make their students read, because there definitely are. I am just saying that today, more so than in the 1800’s, there are more books that all ages enjoy, some created for children, like picture books, and others made for young adults, like the ever popular Hunger Games series. Books and stories have come a long way, from being spoken and memorized, to being written over and over again by hand, to being printed in mass production companies. Now, most people have even started reading of things on a screen, computer, phone,or tablet, like you might even be doing now! From the first pieces of literature, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, to the works of Shakespeare, to the Brothers Grimm, to Twilight, stories haven’t stopped coming yet, and hopefully will keep on coming until the last pencil breaks.

Sources:

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http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2612809-great-expectations
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/harry-potter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations#In_periodicals
Paul
my parents


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