So is Andew Motion a prat or what?

[SorenLorensen]

"The Odyssey, Ulysses and Portrait of a Lady by Henry James" (from MN's newsletter about an article in the Guardian) - as in what Andrew Motion reckons children should be reading.

Well, no-one could accuse him of dumbing down. But Ulysses? Really?

Sorry, AndRew

Great thread title SorenLorensen!

has he ever been a child? met a child? Some version of Greek myth, yes, but Ulysses??? Henry James????

I bet he didn't read Ulysses when he was a child (if he ever was a child, good point mts). I bet he read Famous Five like the rest of us.

fgs

dont mind him suggesting it but not 'should'

I pmsl when I read that too. the man must live on another planet. Cant say I've managed to plough through any of them and ceratinly cant see dss(14) doing so Its enough to get him to try and read a horrible histories book.

The 'should' is mine actually, Enid - to be fair to AM I assume it is a recommendation. This is what's on MN's homepage:

Top writers? book recommendations Don Quixote, Ulysses, The Waste Land and Paradise Lost are among the works recommended for today?s children by leading writers. Philip Pullman, JK Rowling and Andrew Motion were asked by the Royal Society of Literature to nominate their top books for schoolchildren. Pullman?s list included Samuel Taylor Coleridge?s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Maurice Sendak?s Where the Wild Things Are and Romeo and Juliet. Rowling?s included Wuthering Heights, The Tale of Two Bad Mice and The Catcher in the Rye. Motion?s list, generally agreed to be the most challenging, featured The Odyssey, Ulysses and Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. (Guardian 31.01.05)

J.K.Rowling's sounds the most sensible of the three listed. now must go off and track the guardian article down

Both of mine have read/or had read to them Where The Wild Things Are and The Tale of Two Bad Mice...yayy!

SorenLorensen

You had to ask ????????????

Have you seen the $**t he writes and passes off as poetry ??

Makes Fairyfly's ex look talented.

I'll let you do the link then, mts

Nah, really "prat or what?" was rhetorical

Good grief - are they really on his reading list for children? I wonder what age he's thinking of. He does come across as snootily intellectual at times.

I read the Odyssey when I was about 15 at school and I loved it, but mainly because we had a good teacher who explained all the symbolism and background thinking.

Also very childish I know, but I can never quite get over the idea that this chaps surname is Motion!

I read Wuthering Heights at six [just had to put that in]

Portrait of a Lady nearly put me off reading for life, and I was about 15 or so and a swotty type who continued to do a couple of degrees in English but still finds Mister James quite emetic.

I bet Will Self read Ulysses when he was a lad. But he's not of this world really is he

Actually I'll come clean - any mention of Ulysses brings me out in a cold sweat. It was the first book I had to read for my degree - and I dutifully struggled through it, didn't understand much of it, and it prompted several late night phone calls to my parents along the lines of "I can't do this...it's too hard...I'm not clever enough...everyone else understands it and I don't.." until I got to know other people on my course and found they were all equally bemused

I'm pleased the Rime of the Ancient Mariner is on there though. I can still remember loads of it by heart.

all right, I'm going to stand up a bit for AM (secure in the knowledge that I have not and never will read Ulysses ).
I think the lists were a fabulous idea and even if AM's contribution was somewhat ambitious, I am delighted to see lots of publicity for proper books and proper reading. With the papers full of loads of old toss about Chantelle, George Galloway and Kate Moss...thank God for loons like Andrew Motion, and especially JK Rowling and Philip Pullman, whose personal commitment to children's literacy goes way beyond banking the cheques.
(I don't even think his poetry is that bad either )

Beowulf does that for me SL. Nightmare in the fens...

Ds1 'did' Beowulf in Year 3, Marina - he loved it (though I expect it wasn't in the original Old English).

god I loved beowulf

and the Odyssey when little

but I also read great expectations and Jane eyre at 6

they were brillo

Seamus Heaney must have sorted it for him SL.
Fab tale I agree, it was all those flaming diphthongs.

Oh Marina (just read your first post) - you're so...librariany

I can't bear Ulysses - I fail to see why anyone would enjoy reading it. Personally I think reading should be for enjoyment.

I enjoyed reading the rest of the list as a child. I don't think you can really apprieciate hysterical (in the smelling salts sense of the word) romance like Romeo and Juliet or Wuthering Heights unless you are a 14 year old girl.

I keep drivelling on about it but ds was given Atticus the Storyteller to read by his teacher - wonderful large format volume of Greek myths, perfect stepping stone to Roger Lancelyn Green and Geraldine McCaughrean.