Dickens' Friday

I really have been missing all these Friday memes, hopping around the blogosphere and seeing what everyone else has written! So I decided that this Friday I would finally find the time to force myself to blog.

Follow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee. This week's qst is:

Q: What writing device or trick most irritates you when reading a book? For example, if an author employs an omnipotent narrator that is sometimes considered bad form.

Oh God, where do I begin. Actually, what irritates me the most, probably, is interior monologues that go on for pages. Not even a very beloved character can survive this device. This is one of the reasons why I disliked 'Twilight', because Bella's monologues were never ending and incredibly boring. Authors should, to a certain extent, think of their characters as human beings. No one's thoughts are interesting or profound for longer than maybe a paragraph. Then they start thinking about food, going to the toilet, how bright the sun is and how much you miss Disney. (Maybe that's just me, I don't know.) But so far, I don't think I have ever read a book where this worked properly.

Anything else? I disliked the epistolary form back in the day but since 'Frankenstein' I quite like it, if it is done properly. It also worked in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', even if the book disturbed me. I also used to struggle with dialects in books, but once I reread 'Wuthering Heights' I sort of warmed to Joseph's accent even though it was hard to read.

For Book Beginnings (Rose City Reader) and Friday 56 (Freda's Voice
) I chose 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens. I'm not a Dickens' fan but I have to read it for one of my modules so I thought what better way to inspire me to get started than to use it for these memes?

BB:

'Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root our everything else. You can only form the minds o reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the prnciple on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I will bring up these children. Stick to the Facts, Sir!'

I think that's quite a harsh way to open a book, especially since a book is fiction and therefore not Fact. Although perhaps this is exactly the kind of paradox Dickens wants to create. Damn you, Dickens.


F56:

'"I wish," whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a chair, and discharging her strongest point before succumbing under the mere shadows of facts, "yes, I really do wish that I had never had a family, and then you would have known what it was to do without me!"'

Well, that's quite a turn from the opening. Here we have someone succumbing to Facts rather than glorifying them. But I don't think I like Mrs. Gradgrind, she sounds a bit weak and overly dramatic.

I have decided, out of pure frustration at having to read Dickens I would also do a Friday 56 from Richard II, which I am reading at the moment for a different module.

GREEN: 

'Alas, poor Duke, the task he undertakes, Is numbr'ing sands and drinking oceans dry. Where one on his side fights, thousand will fly. Farewell at once - for once, for all and ever.'

That is simply beautiful. Shakespeare has made me all happy again.

So, how about your Friday memes and answers? Leave a link in the comments!