Ha, ha. This is the
English education system that Kev is talking about here Kiki, be kind.
This is the same education system that has students studying about one novel, two at the most, in their GCSEs (14-16) and about one play, and that is pushing it, massively so.
However, I'm not intending to pick on schooling or teenagers here because I do think that Dickens would be considered a very hard read for the majority of native UK speakers - certainly for those people who are occasional readers or holiday readers. "Wordy, dense, difficult to read and old-fashioned" would certainly be accurate crimes that Dickens commits in that regard.
From my teaching experience I can tell you that there is no hope in hell of ever getting
close to reading the likes of
Great Expectations or
A Tale of Two Cities, not a prayer of getting close to it, even an extract of 6/7 pages would be too much to handle, I'm serious. (Damn I said I wouldn't go for the school thing, never mind.)
I was teaching a top set class last week and just annotating two poems was enough to bring the boredom home to roost. I tried my best not be dull and even waved my arms a little here and there to add interest, but by the end of it I could see eyes glazing over and I had to insert video clips to stop the riots setting in (though that didn't really help). Oh boy we are so out of whack it is unbelievable, unbelievable, fecking unbelievable.
Children of 8 years old? The vast majority of 18 year olds in this country could not tackle Dickens, 28 year olds even. Anyone. Maybe 1%
at the most. This is the reality I'm afraid.