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Another thing is the mandated reading comes with punishment attached. One goes into it knowing that they’ll have to puke out some key points, contort bullshit i

Another thing is the mandated reading comes with punishment attached. One goes into it knowing that they’ll have to puke out some key points, contort bullshit into an intro-body-conclusion format, or worse, overanalyze it for “meaning”. Early in high school among other things I had to read was “The Veldt”. Of course I hated dealing with it like everything else. I couldn’t have even told you who the author was a few weeks after the assignment. In late high school, I discovered Ray Bradbury as I began exploring my local library, branching out from comics (Calvin and Hobbes, pogo, bloom county) and nonfiction books into fiction. He quickly became one of my favorite authors due to the sheer volume of short stories he had. Many were good, some were bad, and some were great. It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to encounter “The Veldt” again without a teachers whip at my back. It was sad to finally work my way through the last of what he wrote knowing there would be no more.

WaxProlix 2y ago
You've almost certainly come across them by now, but his novels are fantastic. I started with The Martian Chronicles and then The Illustrated Man, but ended up loving Something Wicked This Way Comes and even Dandelion Wine. There's something about good fiction and youth that just went together so well -- maybe people who did a lot of, say, swimming in their formative years feel that way about "good swimming" and youth, but I have to believe that good fiction would still trump most everything else for the time period.
- yurishimo 2y ago
  For me, fiction was a way to explore my thoughts and dreams indirectly as a kid. I’ve never been one much for introspection, but reading tickles something in that part of my brain to reflect on my life and sometimes relate what happens to a character to what I’m feeling/have felt. In a story, the author has to tell you how the character feels explicitly (usually) in addition to the normal story beats. Occasionally I would notice a mismatch between my own gut reactions and that of the character which would make me stop for a second and try to dissect what the differences were between my interpretation and that of the author. Not to even mention that reading is a way to escape and explore without leaving the comfort of your own home. The only downside I find currently is that reading new things is quite expensive and I haven’t found a great digital solution yet. My phone is too small but carrying a book or a reader tablet is not practical every day.
  - titusjohnson 2y ago
    8+ years ago I accepted an offer to join some family on an impromptu weekend trip. Plenty of pool time was expected so I brought the novel I was 3/4ths the way through, its sequel, and an unrelated book on the off-chance I wanted something different. Combined these books took up half my carry-on satchel (I enjoy long epic fantasy), turning it from a simple carry to a painful shoulder-biter and hip-digger. I purchased a Kindle after that trip. I read a lot more than I used to because between my phone and the physical Kindle I always have my current book ready to go. Physical book purchases can now be hardcover-only because I'm buying for a permanent collection, not endless consumption.
    - yurishimo 2y ago
      Yea, I'm also a fan of epic fantasy! I largely find myself moving to audiobooks to get around carrying books everywhere. Do you have experience with devices that aren't kindle? Not super thrilled about the Amazon ecosystem, though I know it's not terribly difficult to jailbreak them.
knallfrosch 2y ago
>>overanalyze it for “meaning”.<< I doubt overanalyzing actually happens. But pupils, including younger me, just don't understand how much more work and thought have gone into the legends they are reading. Yes, it's a 500 page tome. No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." Yes, a work like this happens only once a decade on one continent. That's exactly why it's one of the maybe 20 books that you read in full during your schooling.
- freilanzer 2y ago
  > No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." I firmly believe that most of this stuff in schools is massive over-analysis and that most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test. And that's exactly what we did - assign meaning to any meaningless detail and somehow connect it to the character or plot. The curtain is blue? It must signify the protagonists deep longing for love. In short, 99% of it is indeed overanalysed bullshit.
  - cultofmetatron 2y ago
    > most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test. you're absolutely right and they even doubled down on that https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/blog/the-death-of-the-author/#:~:text=The%20Death%20of%20the%20Author%20is%20a%20literary%20theory%20that,of%20the%20Author%E2%80%9D%20in%201967 https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/blog/the-death-of-the-....
  - fransje26 2y ago
    I was always astonished at how much my literature teachers could seemingly hallucinate at-will on a piece of text and come with some hidden meaning for every word, comma, or rime. I did not seem to be blessed with the accepted form of creativity for literature analysis, and, with every rebuttal, the pleasure of exploring those texts became less and less.. After many, many, many years, I'm slowly coming back to some of them to read on my own terms, and most books have been a pleasure to re-discover.
leokennis 2y ago
I loved the approach my “high school” (in The Netherlands) took around 2002: you had to pick a few books from a list of books the teacher read. Then read those books and have a 30 minute “free format” discussion with the teacher about them. She’d ask for shared themes between the books, or differences in the way the stories were told, what it showed about the approach or background of the authors etc. Basically a teacher-student one-time book club.

WaxProlix 2y ago

You've almost certainly come across them by now, but his novels are fantastic. I started with The Martian Chronicles and then The Illustrated Man, but ended up loving Something Wicked This Way Comes and even Dandelion Wine. There's something about good fiction and youth that just went together so well -- maybe people who did a lot of, say, swimming in their formative years feel that way about "good swimming" and youth, but I have to believe that good fiction would still trump most everything else for the time period.

yurishimo 2y ago
For me, fiction was a way to explore my thoughts and dreams indirectly as a kid. I’ve never been one much for introspection, but reading tickles something in that part of my brain to reflect on my life and sometimes relate what happens to a character to what I’m feeling/have felt. In a story, the author has to tell you how the character feels explicitly (usually) in addition to the normal story beats. Occasionally I would notice a mismatch between my own gut reactions and that of the character which would make me stop for a second and try to dissect what the differences were between my interpretation and that of the author. Not to even mention that reading is a way to escape and explore without leaving the comfort of your own home. The only downside I find currently is that reading new things is quite expensive and I haven’t found a great digital solution yet. My phone is too small but carrying a book or a reader tablet is not practical every day.
- titusjohnson 2y ago
  8+ years ago I accepted an offer to join some family on an impromptu weekend trip. Plenty of pool time was expected so I brought the novel I was 3/4ths the way through, its sequel, and an unrelated book on the off-chance I wanted something different. Combined these books took up half my carry-on satchel (I enjoy long epic fantasy), turning it from a simple carry to a painful shoulder-biter and hip-digger. I purchased a Kindle after that trip. I read a lot more than I used to because between my phone and the physical Kindle I always have my current book ready to go. Physical book purchases can now be hardcover-only because I'm buying for a permanent collection, not endless consumption.
  - yurishimo 2y ago
    Yea, I'm also a fan of epic fantasy! I largely find myself moving to audiobooks to get around carrying books everywhere. Do you have experience with devices that aren't kindle? Not super thrilled about the Amazon ecosystem, though I know it's not terribly difficult to jailbreak them.

knallfrosch 2y ago

>>overanalyze it for “meaning”.<< I doubt overanalyzing actually happens. But pupils, including younger me, just don't understand how much more work and thought have gone into the legends they are reading. Yes, it's a 500 page tome. No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." Yes, a work like this happens only once a decade on one continent. That's exactly why it's one of the maybe 20 books that you read in full during your schooling.

freilanzer 2y ago
> No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." I firmly believe that most of this stuff in schools is massive over-analysis and that most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test. And that's exactly what we did - assign meaning to any meaningless detail and somehow connect it to the character or plot. The curtain is blue? It must signify the protagonists deep longing for love. In short, 99% of it is indeed overanalysed bullshit.
- cultofmetatron 2y ago
  > most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test. you're absolutely right and they even doubled down on that https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/blog/the-death-of-the-author/#:~:text=The%20Death%20of%20the%20Author%20is%20a%20literary%20theory%20that,of%20the%20Author%E2%80%9D%20in%201967 https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/blog/the-death-of-the-....
- fransje26 2y ago
  I was always astonished at how much my literature teachers could seemingly hallucinate at-will on a piece of text and come with some hidden meaning for every word, comma, or rime. I did not seem to be blessed with the accepted form of creativity for literature analysis, and, with every rebuttal, the pleasure of exploring those texts became less and less.. After many, many, many years, I'm slowly coming back to some of them to read on my own terms, and most books have been a pleasure to re-discover.

leokennis 2y ago

I loved the approach my “high school” (in The Netherlands) took around 2002: you had to pick a few books from a list of books the teacher read. Then read those books and have a 30 minute “free format” discussion with the teacher about them. She’d ask for shared themes between the books, or differences in the way the stories were told, what it showed about the approach or background of the authors etc. Basically a teacher-student one-time book club.