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Cecelia Ahern - hack, PS, I hate you, you suck

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Elmo wrote: »

    Surely Emily Dickinson is the Emo Poet :(


    I feel a Funeral in my brain.
    something was wreckin her head


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Calina wrote: »
    Reading through this thread is a jumble of accusations that Cecilia Aherne's output is of no literary merit. This was not brought up by people who read her work but by people who disparage it for its lack of literary merit. If it was just being put into a different category, we would not be having this discussion.



    Sorry. I thought school was supposed to encourage you to explore things further for yourself.

    I do not believe it should, no. But if something is unreadable - and it is fair to say that much of James Joyce's output is for the overwhelming majority of people such - I'd question the literary merit of an unreadable work. However, I am well aware that this is a heretical comment in the field of literary criticism.



    No, I think you are misinterpreting the problem here. I don't believe in taking literature off the course for something more accessible. .. If you have a literature course that leaves a significant proportion of its students disillusioned and bored with reading, then clearly the course is not working.

    I came away from school with a deep love of the work of Patrick Kavanagh and Robert Frost. I also came away from school with zero regard for WB Yeats. But fine, at this stage, you're dealing with a question of taste and not literary merit.

    I have to agree - Ahernes work is being castigated by people for its pop culture affiliation and because it describes a life not filled with sorrow and pain. Tracey Emin might describe such critics as Stuckists.

    I can read Bronte and Joyce but I dont marvel at the techniques they use to convey feelings and emotions and it doesnt do it for me.Maybe their fans are stuck in the past and not open to new ideas and literature , just like latin and greek teachers in the past whose skills and teaching methods they emulate.

    As a poet, Kavanagh did have his moments and certainly had more to say then Yeats. Montague considers himself a superior poet to Kavanagh and enjoys telling people so. He also tells people how when visiting Ezra Pound in an asylum in upstate New York that the staff would not leave Kavanagh out mistaking him for a patient. I dont know how true that is but Montague said it.

    You can get Kavanagh without being a fan - Yeats I am not so sure.But you can recognise the techniques and learn them off enough to pass an exam at Leaving Cert.Thats a criticism third level lecturers make of first year students - is that they arrive having learned the course by rote but are not capable of original thought and analysis.

    Most of all what gets me is the blandness of what is taught as literature and what is defined as having literary merit. Where is it written that literature cant be readable and enjoyable. It isn't.

    Cecilia Aherne does it for young women of a certain demographic and why not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,016 ✭✭✭Blush_01


    I think a fundamental missing piece to this preposterous jigsaw is the fact that there are a number of academic streams within the Irish education system, and English is divided into at least ordinary and higher level. Surely that illustrates a concerted effort to adjust the course for those either not able for or not interested in the higher elements of English literature while still developing their rudimentary English skills. There is no need to divide English and English Literature. Am I missing something here?

    Nobody denies that Austen is the chick-lit of her era. That was never called into question. The important thing is that her literature has endured - if I come back in two centuries and Cecelia Aherne is still as popular as she is today I'll apologise for calling her writing unreadable. Until that time, I'm entitled to consider Austen's work of more merit than Aherne's. I'll still read Hardy before Dan Browne for the exact same reasons - not only do I find the writing style more to my tastes, but the literature has endured through the ages.

    The Bronte's wrote in the gothic era, they were of an Irish background, and gothic writing was largely Irish - so what if it's considered emo by some? As for the Bronte sisters being poor examples, how does Aherne's personal life recommend herself as a role model for anyone?

    I feel that half the "facts" being bandied about here are less about the literature, and more about disproving the popularity of classical literature at any cost. So what if it's not your cup of tea?

    Surely education is about widening your horizons and exercising your brain in as far as is possible? Does anyone genuinely believe that higher level students should focus on material that has been designed to cater for the desires (and not needs) of the lowest common denominator? Some people don't want to read subtitles on the tv, they're so lazy. I'm not talking about people with literacy issues, that's a seperate matter. I'm talking about people who are simply not in the slightest bit interested in anything even vaguely academic. How much more dumbing down does the average Irish student need?

    Until I was introduced to a number of different writers in an academic setting, I would probably never have considered reading their literature. Some of my favourite writers and poets would probably remain unknown to me. I consider myself to have had a very good education and would be saddened at the thoughts of students being forced to limit their mental horizons due to the ignorance - not the inability, but the blatant ignorance - of others.

    I am neither a dreamer, nor a poet. I merely believe that there is no point in limiting everyone for the sake of few. Not everybody will be of an A standard, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be encouraged to strive for it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Blush_01 wrote: »
    I think a fundamental missing piece to this preposterous jigsaw is the fact that there are a number of academic streams within the Irish education system, and English is divided into at least ordinary and higher level.

    Nobody denies that Austen is the chick-lit of her era. That was never called into question. The important thing is that her literature has endured - if I come back in two centuries and Cecelia Aherne is still as popular as she is today

    The Bronte's wrote in the gothic era, they were of an Irish background, and gothic writing was largely Irish - so what if it's considered emo by some? As for the Bronte sisters being poor examples, how does Aherne's personal life recommend herself as a role model for anyone?

    Surely education is about widening your horizons and exercising your brain in as far as is possible? Does anyone genuinely believe that higher level students should focus on material that has been designed to cater for the desires (and not needs) of the lowest common denominator?

    I am neither a dreamer, nor a poet. I merely believe that there is no point in limiting everyone for the sake of few. Not everybody will be of an A standard, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be encouraged to strive for it.

    Your logic here is unfathonable. You think that offering an ordinary level course excuses drab literary content of the higher level course. Not so. Its required for the points for college entry doncha know.

    As for the Brontes or is it Prunty's having an Irish connection - well so whats your point? In my book its "gothic" - the way the italians used the word to describe something crude and tasteless.

    The Brontes works may have literary merit but they are painful and mawkish reads. Wuthering Heights has poor narrative with characters fliitting in and out. I can't think of any plusses for inflicting it on anyone.

    Its fine as a college text for someone studying English and the development of literature but as an english language text to teach someone to communicate -it doesnt work.

    If someone wants to exercise their brain there should be a seperate english literature course. A classical option.

    I think Aherne holds its own describing life in its genre as well as Bronte did with her dysfuncional Victorian melodrama.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,016 ✭✭✭Blush_01


    Provide me with a logical, fathomable gap where the Irish education system has the space to adapt an optional English literature course, and what should be sacrificed in its place, and I will concede that you may have a point. Until you can do that (and I don't believe you can) I hold my position.

    I didn't see the "flitting" you speak of in Wuthering Heights. It's funny, I'm not denying there's a place for Aherne's writing, or modern fiction of virtually any genre. Maeve Binchy's Circle Of Friends is (or was) on the OL Leaving Cert curriculum, and I have no problem with that, but you blatantly refuse to acknowledge that classical literature has a place anywhere in the classroom. Surely once you get to higher level for the leaving certificate you would be reasonably expected to have mastered basic communication, and the point of higher level education is that you're being educated to a higher than ordinary or basic level? (The clue is actually in the name here.) Being honest, I don't think Aherne's literature is not taxing enough to become a core text for leaving cert students - even at ordinary level. Binchy is superior, due to her ability to construct a paragraph which won't make someone's eyes bleed. In 2200 who is more likely to still be read, Aherne or Binchy?

    Things don't survive for centuries for no reason CD. Unless you think there's some huge conspiracy to bore the masses for centuries to come. In which case, who gets the royalties, now that the writings in question are out of copyright?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    This post has been deleted.

    Just as you say people should be free to read Aherne-I believe no-one should be compelled to study the Brontes or Yeats.

    Well I have slagged off Ulysses in the past as being low grade porn masquerading as high class literature - a bit smartarse as most English porn published between the wars was published in Paris.Joyce had no qualms of using his own relationship with Nora as material for his books. Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" is as excruciating as anything by Ibsen - lack of plot and structure. Its supposed to be anarchy to rebel against a literary structure?!

    Im so sorry that I dont want my mind expanded in that direction.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSHaCzb3yYk


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Blush_01 wrote: »
    Provide me with a logical, fathomable gap where the Irish education system has the space to adapt an optional English literature course..

    I didn't see the "flitting" you speak of in Wuthering Heights.

    Things don't survive for centuries for no reason CD. Unless you think there's some huge conspiracy to bore the masses for centuries to come. In which case, who gets the royalties, now that the writings in question are out of copyright?

    I am not arguing that Aherne is LC material or that its beautifully written- but it has every right to be there if Wuthering Heights is. I think the Literati among you are finding it difficult to accept that some of us hate the books and writers you revere with a passion you can only imagine.

    THe books probably survived because they recieved some sort of cult status in academia that has led to them being studied as classics not on their own right or merit.

    Lets do Bronte because its her turn or because it was taught before. Money for old rope and it doesnt challenge those teaching English to come up with anything more suitable or worthwhile.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 911 ✭✭✭994


    CDfm wrote: »
    I am not arguing that Aherne is LC material or that its beautifully written- but it has every right to be there if Wuthering Heights is. I think the Literati among you are finding it difficult to accept that some of us hate the books and writers you revere with a passion you can only imagine.

    THe books probably survived because they recieved some sort of cult status in academia that has led to them being studied as classics not on their own right or merit.

    Lets do Bronte because its her turn or because it was taught before. Money for old rope and it doesnt challenge those teaching English to come up with anything more suitable or worthwhile.
    Also, the Brontes are women and they need balance. Woolf is far superior but maybe too difficult for school.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    994 wrote: »
    Also, the Brontes are women and they need balance. Woolf is far superior but maybe too difficult for school.

    Not because the books are written by women- but because they are just one genre. I havent read Woolf - but surely there are challenging books other then the Brontes that aren't so turgid.

    Wuthering Heights doesnt just challenge - it bores.

    And why no autobiographies?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    This post has been deleted.

    What made Ulysses racy was the sex. Im not attacking it.You might as well raise the Oz magazine obsenity trial in the early 1970s or the furore over Lady Chatterly's Lover. They don't live up to their reputation.If I liken it to psychedelic music of the 60s or progresive rock of the 70s -then modernist is just a genre. The "anarchy" that shocked London audiences would now be labeled alternative or independent - not a mainstream taste.

    It was just a little rebellion and not really significant to anyone other then those involved. In the same way the Oz trial is only significant because of its participants and their subsequent success and because it was obsenity. Other then that it was "studenty" and rebelling againstthe "man".

    I feel the same is true of the Brontes -its a specialist genre. It has its place -just not on the LC course and while many love the book and genre-many hate it.

    You may love "Wuthering Heights" but you are afraid to admit that it has its limitations as a primer for comparative literature. For a guy with a wide and eclectic taste , it surprises me that you haven't suggested alternatives.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,016 ✭✭✭Blush_01


    CDfm wrote: »
    Not because the books are written by women- but because they are just one genre. I havent read Woolf - but surely there are challenging books other then the Brontes that aren't so turgid.

    Wuthering Heights doesnt just challenge - it bores.

    And why no autobiographies?

    What's Hugh Leonard's Home Before Night then? Or Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings?

    There are a variety of genres covered on the leaving certificate course. We never read Wuthering Heights as part of my course. Amongst others, we read the above, Amongst Women, The Plough and The Stars...

    You'd swear Wuthering Heights was the only book on the Senior cycle curriculum. It's simply an accessible option which can be used in the classroom to introduce teenagers to the genre of literature.

    Bloody hell, is the aim of the leaving cert to teach students to do the bare minimum, or to look at things they may not have immediately chosen? Whether you liked it or not, you read Wuthering Heights. You had that opportunity, and you chose for yourself whether you liked it or not. Why choose to limit other people's experience because you decide you don't like something? Rather than considering expansion, you're looking for a contraction of the English education received by students. That makes little or no sense.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Blush_01 wrote: »
    What's Hugh Leonard's Home Before Night then? Or Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.. Wuthering Heights as part of my course. Amongst others, we read the above, Amongst Women, The Plough and The Stars...

    You'd swear Wuthering Heights was the only book on the Senior cycle curriculum. It's simply an accessible option which can be used in the classroom to introduce teenagers to the genre of literature.

    Bloody hell, is the aim of the leaving cert to teach students to do the bare minimum, ....... you're looking for a contraction of the English education received by students. That makes little or no sense.

    I see what you mean but can you get what I mean. There is a place for fluff and bang bang. Even for books that are bad "literature" (I dont believe there is such a thing) yet good fun.

    An academic might like Wuthering Heights and it might get chosen as the classroom text. Flann O Brien complained about the Cult of Joyce. So we have cult books creaping in without ever brightening up the syllabus:(

    I would probably added Anthony Burgess.

    The English Course neither teaches a love of reading and books or effective communication. Thats how it falls down. It needs to be split into Lit and Language. It doesnt "rawk" as it is.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    This post has been deleted.

    What made Ulysses racy was the filth of it:)

    I'm not saying that WH is not a good piece of literature or is not intellectually challenging. Maybe Hardy is more worthy but not all Victorian literature is accessable and I question period pieces on that basis.

    It might interest you to know that the first book I really "got" was a translation of Mother Courage and her Children by Brecht that I read at 19 probably in spite of my school education. I wouldn't inflict it on others but it gave me a benchmark I would never have gotten from Shakespeare.

    WH is not a "gateway" book whereas P.S. I Love You could be for some.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    "Sam, who?" is good old American fair. But then it has both Jennifer Espanito (sp?) and Christina Applegate which helps. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,016 ✭✭✭Blush_01


    CDfm wrote: »
    I see what you mean but can you get what I mean. There is a place for fluff and bang bang. Even for books that are bad "literature" (I dont believe there is such a thing) yet good fun.

    An academic might like Wuthering Heights and it might get chosen as the classroom text. Flann O Brien complained about the Cult of Joyce. So we have cult books creaping in without ever brightening up the syllabus:(

    I would probably added Anthony Burgess.

    The English Course neither teaches a love of reading and books or effective communication. Thats how it falls down. It needs to be split into Lit and Language. It doesnt "rawk" as it is.

    And economics/physics/chem/home ec/history of art does? Are you going to split physics into application and theory, and teach them as two separate courses? Economics in macro and micro? It's not feasible. You have yet to give me a workable example of how it could - you also know that in practice it would fail miserably because it's a component of the overall, not a whole in and of itself.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,641 ✭✭✭✭Elmo


    English Lit and English Language could be thought as 2 separate subjects.

    This goes for most Languages.

    English Language should be a core subject while English Lit should be an optional one.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 95 ✭✭MaryCat!


    LOL! at the tangent the thread is taking! Cecilia Ahearn to James Joyce!! Inevitable in a way i suppose!!;)

    LOL! i actually quite enjoy her books! I read P.S. before all the hype about it, and I thought it was pretty good. But I was shocked at how big it became


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Blush_01 wrote: »
    And economics/physics/chem/home ec/history of art does? Are you going to split physics into application and theory, and teach them as two separate courses? Economics in macro and micro? It's not feasible. You have yet to give me a workable example of how it could - you also know that in practice it would fail miserably because it's a component of the overall, not a whole in and of itself.

    You know its different because its communication and literature.

    And it may not be such a bad skill to teach precision in english as we do in other disciplines.It pains me to say this but it is split in the UK.

    When you look at it classical training and Latin and Greek was for thought and english for communication. When the classics stopped being thought in schools there was a void. Now for some there is a blur.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,016 ✭✭✭Blush_01


    CDfm wrote: »
    You know its different because its communication and literature.

    And it may not be such a bad skill to teach precision in english as we do in other disciplines.It pains me to say this but it is split in the UK.

    When you look at it classical training and Latin and Greek was for thought and english for communication. When the classics stopped being thought in schools there was a void. Now for some there is a blur.

    The British education system is also markedly different to the Irish one. For one, most Irish secondary schools are directly comparable with eachother. For another, we specialise less and later.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 43,045 ✭✭✭✭Nevyn


    Twas funny to see every desk at the polling office at the last election had one of her books on the table being 'read' by the polling officers.

    Yes anything which gets a person started and reading is a good thing but
    even considering differences in taste and the need for bubble gum reading I still
    come back to the same comment about her books which is
    " they cut down prefectly good trees to prinit this dross".


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Thaedydal wrote: »
    Twas funny to see every desk at the polling office at the last election had one of her books on the table being 'read' by the polling officers.

    Yes anything which gets a person started and reading is a good thing but
    even considering differences in taste and the need for bubble gum reading I still
    come back to the same comment about her books which is
    " they cut down prefectly good trees to prinit this dross".


    Have you actually ever read her though?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    This post has been deleted.

    I just don't like WH. Its not a good primer to learn about literature with. So as a book I don't like it and as a textbook I dont like it.

    You may look at reading as a "scholar" -I don't. I didn't learn how to "read" at school but from finding one phrase in a biography(forget whose but a Cork writer who was Marxist & youth to war of independence?) and that got me reading Marxist socioligy to understand his outlook.

    Kavanagh and Pound I read after meeting Montague at a function that I got tickets for from an English ascendency chappie who had loaned furniture to Fota House. Joyce - I read because of the gossip - and do think those post modernists are conceited. Im not saying they were not clever but Joyce was "up his own arse" - I agree with Flann O'Brien about the Cult of Joyce.

    Brecht - then its not hard to see that if I prefer him that Ibsen and Beckett will not be for me -whereas O'Casey might. Shakespeare I dont like- maybe the school association instilled a hatred.

    Whats wrong with being able to appreciate the writting in the Sun or being able to read a car manual and look up what you dont know. Education should teach those skills. I happened accross them and it was no thanks to school.

    Later when I went to college - I was able to use the skills and used them to get a degree with little or no work.

    I just happen to think that the skill to read a car manual and look stuff up is very important however you develop it.

    Andy McNab is my current favorite. His style of English and anyone who reads Tim Collins' speech will understand while well written it was just what guys didnt want to hear.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,711 ✭✭✭Hrududu


    The English Course neither teaches a love of reading and books or effective communication.
    It did for me. You seem to think that everyone came away from LC English with the same experience you did. Discussing the literature in depth over the 2 year course was in itself an education in communication.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 21,235 CMod ✭✭✭✭Eoin


    Hrududu wrote: »
    It did for me. You seem to think that everyone came away from LC English with the same experience you did.

    Unfortunately I did to some degree. I will never forget how much I detested A Portrait of the Artist. It completely turned me off.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Hrududu wrote: »
    It did for me. You seem to think that everyone came away from LC English with the same experience you did. Discussing the literature in depth over the 2 year course was in itself an education in communication.


    different strokes for different folks - it didnt work for me:eek:


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    eoin wrote: »
    Unfortunately I did to some degree. I will never forget how much I detested A Portrait of the Artist. It completely turned me off.

    The Portrait of an Onanist as a Young Man is more apt.


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