Let us now read about depressed white males with no lives!

[rj_anderson]

Shannon Hale has just written the most insightful and accurate description of what high school and college reading lists do to many passionate young readers that I've ever read. Her experience mirrors my own in many ways, on the high school side at least:

How Reader Girl Got Her Groove BackBut how about you lot on my f-list? Do you find that the

Comments

[pameladean]

I really didn't care how the books were discussed or dissected; the point was that we got to read them. School was my job, as a kid, and I got to read during it. The rest was irrelevant

[kerravonsen]

Do you find that the books you were made to read in high school and the way your teachers approached them whetted your appetite for reading and literature, or stifled it?

English as taught in High School: the perfect way to destroy any enjoyment one gets from literature.
My bookworm nature thrived despite English teachers, not because of them.

I had an enlightening experience when I was in Grade 9. Due to my father being on sabbatical, I had half of Grade 9 in one country, and half in another (and in both cases, it was the second half!). It so happened, therefore, that I came in half way through my English class's study of a Shakespeare play (it was Twelfth Night, if I recall correctly). That meant that I had to catch up to where they were up to, by myself, which meant that I read the first half of the play straight through without breaks, like I would read a novel. And I liked it! It wasn't boring, it was a cool story. This Shakespeare dude isn't so bad, I thought. 8-) And yet the way English is taught, everything is

[rj_anderson]

I much preferred Shakespeare when I read him independently, as well. Thank goodness I wasn't made to study Much Ado in school or I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it half so much. I probably wouldn't have laughed so hard I had to put the book down in the middle of King John, either.

[kerravonsen]

Due to moving around to different countries and states, I ended up having to study Romeo and Juliet twice!
I loathe that play. Sorry Mr. Shakespeare. 8-(

[shoebox2]

When I was around 14 I was so taken with The Merchant of Venice - not to say pleased with myself for 'getting' Shakespeare - I sat down one rainy Saturday and tackled King Lear, all by my earnest little self.

I think that experience pretty much killed any incipient snobbery in the bud - OK, it was great Art, but nobody could be expected to get through this stuff without help!

[yunitsa]

Um, I had rather a long comment here, but then I deleted it because I should have learned by now that things I compose after midnight are Never a Good Idea. If I still agree with it tomorrow, I'll repost in my own journal :) Sorry and good night!

[wahlee_98]

I never really bought into the "only literary fiction/classics are worthwhile" ideology-- maybe because I never stopped reading the good stuff, even while studying the so-called "worthy literature." But I certainly know how pervasive that attitude is, and I know *so* many people who *did* buy into it. What happened to me is that I finally got sick of pretending that I did think of literature that way. I decided I wasn't going to play that game any more. I was sick of being told not only what I could read, but how I should read it.

Which is why I'm NOT getting a PhD. Could I do it? Yes. But I don't want to any more. If writing a thesis about Harry Potter would be committing academic suicide (which is what a professor told me, early in my grad school career)-- then I don't think I want to work within the academic system, thanks. Anyone who would dismiss Robin McKinley and Dorothy Sayers and Lois McMaster Bujold and Lori R. King out of hand because their books are *gasp* genre fiction isn't the kind of person I want to associate with.

[skutir]

Lots of people do dissertations on children's lit. And hating the classics is practically a prerequisite. I didn't get my Ph.D. because I actually like the classics and respect their authors. After getting an M.A., I experienced open scorn for actually valuing the work of authors and was told if appreciating literature was my reason for going to grad school in literature, I was there for the wrong reason.

[shoebox2]

I feel a little disconnected from the article because to me, studying books in school and reading them for pleasure were two very distinct things. One was what I did for school, and the other was, well, pleasure. I never felt as though I was being trained how to react to books; that fell under the 'pleasure' equation, which homework definitely did not. :)
Dissection aside, though, I actually valued my HS reading list for introducing me to the concept of classics. Yes, the snobbish element felt and still feels restrictive in some ways - I don't like being told what to read any more than any other form of peer pressure, and resist them all when I can - but on the other hand, up to then my big literary excursion had been Stephen King's Carrie.

It was a world of possibilities opening, not to be flowery about it, but that's honestly what it felt like. Not only has some of the stuff I studied - Nineteen-Eighty-Four, The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman - ended up on my personal favourite list, the grounding I received in how to recognise