Hullo there.

[oceanmotion]

Hi there, I'm new!

I'm seventeen and taking Eng Literature as an AS level, shortly continuing on to A level this summer and then hoping to take it further to Uni after that.
I came across this livejournal in a hope that I could broaden my reading to prepare myself for uni but also for my own enjoyment. I have been reading since I was very young but

Comments

[icarus_]

t3dy pretty much hit it on the head... I'd recommend thumbing through a Norton to discover where your dark places of earth's literature lie. maybe even a "major authors" edition. big part about being well-read is knowing who goes where. you should be able to point out an artistic movement and historical era for pretty much every major author, and know their spiel. if you don't have a summary knowledge of english history I'd recommend some history, but if you're 17 you're probably taking it now in school. I second t3dy's recommendation of secondary sources, but don't read anything "too new." Start with older schools of criticism and leave the postmodern stuff for college. I recommend landmark texts such as Wayne Booth's "Rhetoric of Fiction," Brooks & Warren's "Understanding Poetry" (for a great introduction to New Criticism's approach to poetry), and Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" (my personal favorite).

You sound already very well-read and I wish you luck.

ps I'm reading Ulysses now and while I love it, I also second moving on before you get to it. Not because it's too "hard"--I think anyone can read it with enough work put in to it--I just don't think it makes sense to put the amount of effort and time into it right now when you have so much else you can be doing instead. Portrait is a very adequate reflection of the genius of Joyce. If you want some more modernism, I'd recommend Woolf or head to the French and Germans (Proust and Kafka).

[oceanmotion]

I love Woolf, I've read Orlando and Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse is by my bed and I have a short list of other works I need to read.
Kafka is also v. high on my list.

Critism, right, get me some of that. I've taken down your recommendations. Thanks for your input! "Well-read" - thank you, but really I'm far from, which is why I'm here subjecting myself to titles and authors galore! :)