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In 1849, it was written in the Polite Manual for Young Ladies:
“Novel-reading strengthens the passions, weakens the virtue, and diminishes the power of self-control. Multitudes may date their ruin from the commencement of this kind of reading; and many more, who have been rescued from the snare, will regret, to the end of their days, its influence on the early formation of their character. It is, too, a great waste of time. . .If you wish to become weak-headed, nervous, and good for nothing, read novels."
Words from almost 170 years ago. Other than loving the use of the ellipsis, I can't agree with much they said.
Jill
Comments
well it kind of depends on the novel
Dont you think? i would agree for say romance novels, for that is ALL they are about, inflaming the passions, etc. other types not so much.
Teresa L.
Good for Nothing
Yep, I must be good for nothing, with the amount I read probably totally worthless by now.
Hugs
Francesca
- Formerly Turnabout Girl
As usual
I, find myself agreeing with you,Jill!
Hugs, Cheryl
If novels are marijuana...
...comic books are HEROIN!! And gay heroin at that!!! A surefire destroyer of youth...
At least according to cold war era anti-comics crusader Frederich Wertham's
fear-mongering classic SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_Innocent
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
hmmm
hmmm. I must really be beyond all hope. I watch anime. in subtitles.
quidquid sum ego, et omnia mea semper; Ego me.
alecia Snowfall
I wonder....
I wonder how reading stories here on BCTS would rate. Given the nature of these stories, it would most likely be rated (then!) as worst evil they could think of.
Fortunately they would have been and they certainly are wrong!
Anne Margarete
Cajun Literary Criticism.....
Fick-SHAWN?
Pah-SHAWN?
No-vel-ih-Zay-SHAWN!
No Moh-der-Ay-SHAWN?
Mal-for-May-SHAWN!
Cah-sti-Gay-SHAWN!
Mais, J'mais!
Feh-meh-ni-Zay-SHAWN?
Ah-pree-she-Ay-SHAWN!
'n Grah-ti-fi-Cay-SHAWN
Love, Andrea Lena
You Are My Sun Shawn
MY only sun shawn.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
My Bosom Heaved
With the raw primal emotion generated by his passionate advances. As his lips pressed to mine and my breasts were crushed against him all sensibility left my mind and I became quivering putty in his hands.
Of course, I never recovered. Girls like us do not have the intestinal fortitude to resist the power of the erotic written word.
Heaving bosoms and the Romance Writers phrase book
There's actually a book to help you cherry pick all your favourite phrases of suggestive innuendo useful for corrupting innocent youth.
(The Romance Writers phrase book - ISBN 0-399-51002-8)
Although the only heaving my bosom does is when I've pushed myself too hard on a run. :)
Persephone
Non sum qualis eram
My grandfather ...
... who was born around 1860 and died in 1945 when I was 5, only read one novel in his life, or so my father (his youngest child) told me. He found it so absorbing and distracting he never read another because it prevented him from working. He was a self employed watch maker/repairer and jeweller right up to time time of his death and had to work to raise the money to pay for my father's operation for osteo TB back in the 1920s and never stopped.
I guess he would have agreed with the sentiments expressed in the Polite Manual for Young Ladies written only a few years before his birth. Me? I couldn't possibly comment :)
Rob
Always thought
I was good for something, just haven't worked out quite what it was.
Angharad
I'm good for nothing! Are you
I'm good for nothing! Are you?
Are you good for nothing, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be good for something!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Apologies to Emily Dickinson.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}