Book Ratings

[Petrarch's Love]

You don't seem the kind of poster that posts off the top of your head...

It has been known to happen on occasion. I am equipped with a top of head like everyone else.

...but point taken. I'm just aware of what's possible to buy, and I was thinking of a particular type of book. Perhaps you're right, and those sorts are easy to spot. On reflection, perhaps there are too many to comprehensively rate, and, as someone has said, there is a kind of rating with the distiction between, child teen and adult books.

Yes, I don't think you're wrong about the need to limit the access young people have to a certain kind of book, but a full on ratings system would be rather complicated and daunting as a task.

I think Scher's point about encouraging young readers to read the right kind of book for their age is interesting.Of course you don't want to restrict the avid reader, but I know, as Scher has pointed out, that I read stuff much too early to get it.

I get what you’re saying, but I don't think that age is necessarily a good indicator of comprehension, reading experience is perhaps more of a factor in terms of comprehension. Besides, there is nothing wrong with reading a book that is a little too challenging that you don't "get" some of, it's all good for development. In the end I would rather leave the individual to determine what they want to read (within obvious reason) than to stamp a one size fits all label on books - not to mention the impossibility of that in practical terms.

I agree fully with Neely on this point. I can't see the sense in a ratings system based on how challenging a book is at all. A person will either put a book down because it's too challenging, and possibly come back to it later, or maybe wrestle a little with a book that's a little beyond them stylistically speaking and learn and expand from the struggle. Not to mention, once you get a ratings system going there's going to be competition and branding among children. Kids who aren't up to reading the things they are supposed to be reading for their age could be teased for being "stupid" and kids reading ahead of their age could be labelled as (might even be susceptible to becoming) rather arrogant. Much better to just encourage kids (and adults) to take pleasure in whatever level of challenge suits them best.

I'd probably go with that. It's only with hindsight that I think the issue interesting. Any restrictions on me would have raised my hackles in the past anyway.
I suppose if I think of reading The wasteland that I was aware it was a great poem. I liked it, but as often as not I didn't know why. It was the returning to it from the initial reading that I gained anything like an understanding of it. It's like a big heap of culture that only becomes relevant when you experience/ read/ become aware of the bits. It took time to build it into anything with a coherent theme.

It's still a work in progree I hasten to add.

Oh, I love that feeling of reading something and loving it without really understanding why. Probably half the reason I'm so drawn to poetry. Your insight does suggest one of the great things about reading, which is the way we can grow into and out of certain books or different aspects of books, the way revisiting a really good work of literature can help us reflect upon the changes within ourselves. My grandmother, who lived into her late 80's, used to tell me about the experience of reading Dickens' Great Expectations multiple times in the course of her life from the age of about 16 to the final time at 85 or so. About every ten years she found herself picking it up again, and she said that each time it was like reading a new book, because there was so much that she hadn't understood or noticed before because of the way she had developed as a reader/appreciator of the literary aspects and because of the life experiences she had been through that gave her new insight into/appreciation for certain characters. One of the great reasons for reading things we don't entirely understand when we're young is that it gives us a wonderful marker for reflection back to that time if we revisit the same work later in life. And, as you say, it is always a work in progress. [/QUOTE]

I seem to have come round to the opposite view, but then I still wouldn't have liked my kids to read the stuff I did. Torn parent syndrome.

Perfectly understandable.

[Virgil]

The situation may be different in the US, but I suspect that movies will be cut to meet rating - certainly there's some anecdotal evidence around that - see discussion here: http://www.avforums.com/forums/movie...d-than-uk.html and the MPAA's own website confirms that:

I suspect it's the same in the US. If the director's cut to meet rating that's their decision. In some cases there is the perfunctory bare breast exposed in order to raise the rating purposely. Movies that are given a G rating will not be seen as artistic, and so they have insert sex or violence. Either way I don't see the point. Director is free to make whatever choices he wants his movie to say.

There is an interesting short story by Graham Greene about a middle-aged man who takes his wife to see a pornographic movie only to discover that the male in the film is himself when much younger. They don't get more embarrassing than that.

Not there was a burst of imagination.

[Paulclem]

I voted that it's fine to have catagorizations for films but not for books. I think a novel is way too complex for such simplifications as pointed out by several here. But books are to some degree catagorized as children's, young adult's, and adults.




But how is a parent supposed to know what type of film it is without some sort of classification? I don't think "censor" is the correct word. They don't cut or restrict any movie, at least not in the US. They catagorize a film, anywhere from general audience to porn. You would want to know if you were walking into a porno movie, wouldn't you?

You've reminded me.

This did happen to me with a girlfriend once. We went to see Caligula with John Gielgud in it. It was certainly a porno, with about the same acting aplomb! We didn'tstay.

[Scheherazade]

The OP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_..._rating_system

We have ratings for movies and video games but not for books. Why is that?

Is it all about visual effects?

Do you think it would be good to have a ratings system for books as well?

[crusoe]

I sudied the Life of Richard III for a while and realized how shallow and wrong Shakespeare's Play was. Licking some Tudor's Boots...sorry Bill.

[TurquoiseSunset]

I don't think that books being rated, with regards to sexual content, would be so bad. I have read some books with very disturbing scenes when I was quite young that I would've preferred to have read when I was a little older.

I have also read books which made me think that if I had kids those would be kept on the top shelf or somewhere else, until I feel they are old enough to read certain scenes.

I know people have mentioned maturity levels and so on, but I was always very mature for my age and even I was left a little scarred by some things I read (and saw in movies for that matter).