Help me get started on reading literature - Page 6

On May 14 2010 10:54 Eishi_Ki wrote:
Cant believe I forgot this, "A Song of Ice and Fire". Series of books by George R.R. Martin with a television series of the first book on the way. A seriously addictive series of books, to which many among this community would recommend.

On May 14 2010 10:40 sgeng wrote:


Personally I found Great Gatsby to be amazingly dry and a tedious read.

I would recommend:

-->The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Also wrote The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, which were both great books as well)--I recommend reading the abridged version, at least at first. The unabridged version can be a little daunting as well as complex.
-->Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
-->Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (An awesome book, must read)
-->The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (More of a short story)

These 4 books are relatively easy and enjoyable reads, being well known pieces of literature yet entertaining at the same time.


If you would like to move to something slightly more complex:

-->Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Actually, almost all of Dostoyevsky's works are worth reading)
-->The Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer--You've probably been assigned to read this in middle/high school, but more than likely you read the abridged version. The unabridged version I believe is worth going back and rereading.

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.
-->The Metamorphoses by Ovid (Not to be confused with The Metamorphosis by Kafka)--A collection of myths in which people are transformed into something else. The entire thing is terribly disconnected and difficult to really care about what it's talking about cause it's just BS anyways.
-->Most of the Shakespearean works--Most of the world probably would disagree, but I find that Shakespeares plays are just that...plays. The man was a playwright, not an author. His plays may be good and all, but honestly it doesn't pass as literature. It's like saying Schindler's List is a literary work just cause it had a good story. No. It's a good movie, not a good piece of literature.

On May 16 2010 16:07 Ruehl wrote:
east of eden by steinback <---my favorite book
watership down by richard adams

On May 14 2010 20:30 distant_voice wrote:
This is a PM I wrote up for the OP, but I might as well post it on the forums:

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

On May 16 2010 16:38 PhoenixM1 wrote:



^Good advice. The Great Gatsby was boring as hell and the symbolism was really hard to figure out. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books; I definitely recommend that one.