I like reading, but I never liked trying to figure out symbolism, etc. I just like reading a book for enjoyment. I sometimes wonder if teachers assign meaning to things that the author never intended.

FWIW a high school teacher is going to be falling back on typically a lot of academic literary criticism and not discovering the symbolism for themselves. There's a school of thought that authors say many things without consciously meaning to.

 

edit: the whole "Death of the Author"/postmodern deconstructionist movement

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author

 

No I don't actually understand any of that.

Edited May 10, 201312 yr by StrangeSox

I think reviewers treat books a lot like reviewers treated Lost. You throw enough s*** in there and someone will make weird connections that were never intended, but the author will take credit for looking like a genius.

OTOH Nabokov included some statements at the end of Lolita, or at least later editions of it, where he lambastes reviewers who take it as an allegory for the US being violated by Old Europe or vice-versa; he's taking a stance that his work means what he says it means and that reading all that extra stuff into it is nonsense.

Lord of the Flies was the s***. Also, for those that liked The Outsiders, how did you not immediately follow that up with "That was Then, This is Now"

Oh ya I forgot about Lord of the Flies, that was another good book and movie combo.

I think reviewers treat books a lot like reviewers treated Lost. You throw enough s*** in there and someone will make weird connections that were never intended, but the author will take credit for looking like a genius.

True. For some authors the "imagery" was something they did on accident because thats how they were feeling when the wrote a book and then the reader/teacher looks into that emotion and makes a whole topic out of it.

When I was in HS I remember having to read:

 

12 Angry Men

To Kill a Mockingbird

Romeo and Juliet

The Crucible

Great Expectations

 

Those last two I remember almost nothing about them.

 

A few other stories I remember reading in school are: Something for Joey, Where the Red Fern Grows, Soup and Me.

 

Some of the "classics" I've never actually read:

Of Mice and Men

The Great Gatsby

The Scarlett Letter

Lord of the Flies

The Lottery

Catcher in the Rye

 

I'm currently reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They are all put together in a single paperback.

 

I'm only halfway through Frankenstein and having only a vague knowledge of the story based on movies and other pop culture, it's not what I was expecting at all.

 

Shelly's Frankenstein is great, but it is very challenging Elisabethan language and even for a short novel it was challenging reading.

 

Stoker's Dracula is my absolute favorite book ever after LotR. The perfect gothic horror novel that all others aspire to but fall short.

 

What the author did "on accident" could be meaningful and say something about the author or the culture/society/times they lived in, though.

OTOH Nabokov included some statements at the end of Lolita, or at least later editions of it, where he lambastes reviewers who take it as an allegory for the US being violated by Old Europe or vice-versa; he's taking a stance that his work means what he says it means and that reading all that extra stuff into it is nonsense.

 

The Jeremy Irons movie really makes you feel bad for Humbert, even though he's a pederast.

Animal Farm was just a pro-Trot allegory for the rise of Lenin and then the Stalin-Trotsky conflicts. I think a lot of people read their own ideas into that story.

 

I understood that even at age 13.

I went to a Birmingham, Alabama (Magnet) public high school, so the required reading was all horsesh**. Cold Sassy Tree, The Mayor Of Casterbridge and what not. Had to do my own reading, I tested out on a college reading level at age 12.

Edited May 10, 201312 yr by JPN366

The Jeremy Irons movie really makes you feel bad for Humbert, even though he's a pederast.

The book does that too, he's a subversively sympathetic character. Best first person narrative I've ever read.

Off of the beaten path, the Mission Earth decology by L Ron Hubbard was some of the best sci fi I read as a kid. Also loved War of the Worlds by Wells.

I also really liked the short story The Lottery

 

We did that as a play in HS.

What the author did "on accident" could be meaningful and say something about the author or the culture/society/times they lived in, though.

Thats actually exactly what I like.