EPTHelp me get started on reading literature - Page 3
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shieldbreak
United States406 Posts
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GreenManalishi
Canada834 Posts
On May 14 2010 12:42 Fyrix wrote: Very difficult, but still great: Heart of Darkness Anything long and Russian hope this helps ^^ Conrad isn't all that difficult, he just has a unique way of writing. If you do decide to read any Conrad, Lord Jim is my favorite. I also like anything narrated by Marleau because hes' so cynical and detached he gives the books a unique character. I can't recommend James Clavell enough. He writes simply but has great characters and non-linear plot, and each book can be read stand-alone or as a series. From best to worst by him (that I've read): 1. Nobel House 2. Shogun 3. Taipan 4. King Rat 5. Gai Jin 6. Whirlwind On May 14 2010 15:35 SolHeiM wrote: The Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are two pretty great books in my opinion. They're bricks though, so unless you're an avid reader it'll take you a while to get through them. I read both of them in about ten days. She has some interesting short stories. Anthem is extremely similar to 1984 and is worth the 40 minutes it takes to read. | ||
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nepeta
1872 Posts
Chaim Potok 'my name is Asher Lev' (a painter's struggle with hassidism, art and religion, individualism and ethnicity) Oscar Wilde 'the picture of Dorian Gray' (about what makes life worth living, set against the backgroud of homosexuality in victorian england) Lewis Carroll 'Alice in wonderland', 'through the looking glass' (about math, you'll like this) Remarque 'all quiet on the western front' (german warstory about WW I) Robert Graves 'goodbye to all that' (a reckoning with WW II and british life as it was then) Robert Graves 'I, Claudius' (historical fiction, much of which I've seen proven to be quite accurate, about the roman emperor Claudius) Vladimir Nabokov 'Lolita' (an approach to humanity through one man's love for a girl) Careful with the proposed teen-lit, as anything described as 'easy literature' may fool you badly, or not have anything to do with literature at all. Just read a lot and you'll be ok. And stay away from fantasy, detectives, or anything else things that come in series greater than 3. PS: love these kind of threads, so good to see people wanting to abandon the ranks of the philistines. Also amusing to read what people got whacked over the head with at highschool. | ||
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hi19hi19
United States163 Posts
Also can recommend James Clavell. Working through all or even some of his books could take a while tho. | ||
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ShaperofDreams
Canada2492 Posts
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Golden Ghost
Netherlands1041 Posts
I find them great reads every time and very easy to read and understand. ps. DON'T start reading the Russian authors suggested here until you have a good comprehension of the English text. Although the stories are good the way they are written (both the structure of the sentences as the story itself) is hard to follow and enjoy if you don't have a very good understanding of the language. | ||
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Curu
Canada2817 Posts
Personally, I learned how to read/write English well by reading Fantasy novels; up to grade 5, English was my worst/most hated subject. I started with Lord of the Rings then moved on to The Wheel of Time then on to classics like David Copperfield and by my grade 10 year English was far and away my strongest subject. It was tough at the start and I had to look up a bunch of words in LOTR (keep in mind I was like...11 at the time) but it smoothed out as my vocabulary got better and better and I've never regretted picking up reading. | ||
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FraCuS
United States1072 Posts
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Triscuit
United States722 Posts
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Both were fairly boring at times, but overall were a great reading experience if you can get past the slow parts. | ||
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distant_voice
Germany2521 Posts
Hi there, it's nice to see that you want to get into literature. I've majored in comparative literature, just saying this to back up what I'm about to say to you. I know it's an appeal to authority but if it makes you read the rest of this it did what it was supposed to do. you can figure out if what I say makes sense to you or not yourself. You won't make any headway by just reading some famous books that random people recommend to you. Some people think that them skimming through thousands of pages written by authors that have some acclaim makes them literature experts or worse "connoisseurs". lol I can get high on 20 bottles of expensive wine but that doesn't say anything about whether I know shit about wine does it? The main difference between people who read for entertainment and people who read books to appreciate the art of writing is that the latter groups reads a lot more thoroughly and, thus, more slowly. My sister for example has rushed through hundreds of books without ever realizing what they were really about. You have to realize that writing is an art. This means that you take everything, every little detail very seriously. You don't have to read Vonnegut, Joyce, Kafka or any other "name-authors" to do that. I teach English over hear in Germany and I've read Louis Sachar's Holes with a bunch of 16-17 year-olds. It's as fertile for interpretation and for learning how to properly read a book as any other decent book. This goes for King's or Rice's novels as well. Details have meaning and if you don't see the meaning immediately think about them. Why did the author put this sentence in the book? What does it convey? This is something that takes effort and time. Read slowly. Read thoroughly. You'll discover a lot of things that will make you appreciate the book you're reading on a whole new level. If you want to practice this you might want to start out with poems, since they're even more compressed than novels are, but easier to read through a couple of times so that you can see the whole thing. This is another thing: read books several times. Each times you'll discover new things and learn more about the book. I'd suggest you get a good book that explains a couple of poems in detail, and I don't mean a bio of the author and the way people believe the poem came into existence. You need to analyse the imagery, the structure of the text. This is where is magic is. There are a couple of things that one has to take into consideration when dealing with a book, but that's mostly to do with the history of ideas and it's nothing you have to worry about if you don't want to study literature. When you've understood what some imagery means and how you have to approach it and think about it I'd suggest you get a rather short novel next. Pick something accessible, for the love of god stay away from Joyce and the like. I'd recommend "The old man and the sea". It's plot is so simple that you'll be forced to think about the actual meaning of the book in order to not get bored. Remember that understanding literature isn't about having read a lot of famous books, it's more like aquiring a set of tools that'll help you unlock each and every book. If you don't like "The old man and the sea" pick any other book. JUST REMEMBER TO READ SLOWLY TO READ THOROUGHLY (TAKE EVERY DETAILS SERIOUSLY) TO RE-READ BOOKS THAT THE MAGIC ISN'T IN THE PLOT | ||
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distant_voice
Germany2521 Posts
There are no slow/boring parts really. If you think a passage in a book is boring it should give you an incentive to figure out why that part is necessary for the novel. this is where you'll make headway in understanding the book. that "boring" passage is there for a reason and if you can't find it it might not crash your reading experience altogether, but it's still your loss. Reading, like most other things is not about liking or not liking, but about understanding. Any idiot can like or dislike anything. Few take their time to understand things. "Hey bra you like the theory of relativity? No dawg it's fucken boring." | ||
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Terrakin
United States1440 Posts
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distant_voice
Germany2521 Posts
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
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XeliN
United Kingdom1755 Posts
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JohannesH
Finland1364 Posts
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Divinek
Canada4045 Posts
and since some people have mentioned him but havent name dropped his arguably best book, check out the brothers karamazov for the deepest book you'll ever read, that one might be a long term goal though there are of course some more fun classic stories to read out there like Beowulf, sir Gawain and the green knight, the Canterbury tails etc good list in this topic so far | ||
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revy
United States1524 Posts
Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfume It's good fiction both from an english professor sense as well as an enjoyment sense. Easy and quick read, has depth if you care to delve. I highly recommend you read this book before you read most others in this thread. The others in this thread are of course great but this is a good way to ease into things. | ||
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Biochemist
United States1008 Posts
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312446934/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0312404719&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=075ESNRN539YVGK2P9DD It's an old edition now, so you can get a used copy for like two dollars. It's a big collection of essays, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them is fascinating in a completely different way. | ||
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Crissaegrim
2947 Posts
On May 14 2010 10:40 sgeng wrote: What I would NOT recommend: -->Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes--This book is a bore. There is no plot, just a series of events of a madman. Hold on right there! Don Quixote a bore?! Seriously it's an amazing adventure seen through the eyes of a man clinging on to the wonders and charm of the past. It was written as a parody of course but the story of an elderly man still fighting for love with what little strength he has does give it a nice romantic hue. This book may be many things but a bore it is certainly not. It's really funny as well with many pearls of wisdom strewn in. Recommended. As for recommendations, if you count fantasy as literature then I suggest the original dragonlance saga: starting with dragons of autumn twilight. It's the main reason I started reading actually.=P | ||
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