7 ms·

I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with useless sentences describing what the sc

by bgbntty2 10mo ago

I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with useless sentences describing what the scene looked like or what someone had for dinner. Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases. Maybe if I wasn't forced to read a book in an outdated language about some Christian farmer 300 years ago while I was not in school, and if I could access a succinct version 1/10th of the length of the book, I'd read it. Maybe if I wasn't asked to describe minor details to prove I read the book, I'd actually focus on the story and not on every irrelevant detail. Maybe if my teacher didn't force their religious holier-than-thou attitude and allowed us to form our own opinions, I'd be more engaged. What school taught me was how to get away with not reading the books. I skimmed books by skipping tens of pages at a time or asked friends for the TL;DR or just got an F. Now I have a feeling of uneasiness and dread when I try to read fiction for fun. So I don't. Most 300 page fiction books I had to read could've easily been condensed to 30 pages without any loss of information. Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute shit. A lot of people won't care about poetry no matter how hard you try to force them to like it. And half of it was propaganda - how $nation survived $struggle, how $nation is so great or beautiful or how $hero did $ethical_thing.

floren 10mo ago
> Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases. no cap Mr Darcy ur parties are bussin fr fr
- bgbntty2 10mo ago
  I should've used "archaic" instead of "outdated". As in, "incomprehensible to someone speaking proper modern $language". Without a dictionary, a normal student couldn't understand what was being said in many sentences throughout the book. Some books actually had a dictionary in the end, but not for all the archaic words and phrases.
  - opello 10mo ago
    I was intrigued by the idea that it might be unreasonable for a book to include a glossary or dictionary to explain usages for made up or unfamiliar terms. I like that this list [1] exists because I was struggling to think of such a book. But then I thought about The Lord of the Rings, and it even includes an index of terms among its appendices, which is something I remember using to revisit parts of the story when I first read it. Another book with a glossary of terms is Dune, which I found fun and reasonable to avoid trying to explain hierarchy where doing so would break the narrative flow. But maybe that just means it's not as cleverly constructed or organized as it could have been--but the trade-off has to be how to engage a wide selection of readers... Is the complaint about the dictionary at the end because it wasn't comprehensive? I'm unreasonably curious about the book and which phrases were included and which were not. I think all written works occur in a context that should be taken into account when thinking critically about them. That context is temporal and linguistic and is more apparent when you consider something like Beowulf in Old English or The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Understanding it requires either a modern reinterpretation or consideration given to the sociolinguistic context in which it was written. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/180823.Novels_with_Glossaries https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/180823.Novels_with_Gloss...
    - dooglius 10mo ago
      I think you are missing the broader point: why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? It's not as if there is a dearth of more modern works. It seems like the main function of selecting older works is to make it artificially harder for students to read.
      - floren 10mo ago
        > why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? Are you people for real?
      - opello 10mo ago
        > why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? I think there's a trivial answer which is that all things you encounter are fundamentally from an alien context. The degree of alien and intention of the action are the things to consider before proceeding. For example, why would one choose to read the account of a survivor of tragedy? To develop some amount of (emotional or cognitive) empathy? To learn a broader way of thinking that could apply to a future situation? Most simply: to learn from the past. If the goal is entertainment, evaluate your participation such that you maximize your utility. If the goal is learning, one should be wary of premature rejection without sufficient context to avoid missing the lesson. And there is an annoying reality in which most situations can teach something.
- miningape 10mo ago
  Honestly, I'd gladly pay for and read a version of pride and prejudice rewritten in gen Z slang
eimrine 10mo ago
> Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute shit. Yes and no. I used to start reading at 4 years old, but I forcedly used to memorize some rhymes at 3 years old. Most folk don't believe it is possible to read so early (though Eliezer Yudkowsky has reported about similar age). But my point is - how would I learn reading so early without that poetry? I don't really like poetry exactly as rest of the fiction genre. And I am still sure it is not shit even for those who are struggling of doing that. I consider poetry exercises as sport exercises: today you claim that some specific muscle is not important for you, but tomorrow you get some injury which happened because of some weak muscle. But you have also said one important word - propaganda. This is what really shitting any education and propaganda seems like the monster from the Nitzsche's quote "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster".
- Throaway198712 10mo ago
  I also learned to read at 3. I actually remember the switch from illiterate to literate, as I remember realizing that just by looking at road signs I would automatically read them. I told my sister, who couldn't read yet, that there was a downside, as you could never look at language without reading it ever again!
- eudamoniac 10mo ago
  Nobody believes this, but I have VHS evidence of myself reading at 2
- 1718627440 10mo ago
  I think 4 IS early, but not that uncommon. 5-6 is typically without it being forced.
BeFlatXIII 10mo ago
Seems like a skill issue on your end.
- Telaneo 10mo ago
  Is this the right attitude to have to kids who we want to get into reading?
  - Throaway198712 10mo ago
    get gud @ reeding
- bgbntty2 10mo ago
  I read non-fiction all the time. HN and reddit comments, news articles, Wikipedia articles, books, research papers. My ADHD doesn't help, but doesn't prevent me from finishing 300-page books that are actually interesting. I have yet to find a fiction book that's not full of fluff. I've read a couple of scripts for movies and TV, and they're, by far, much better than fiction books for me. Just more condensed, more to-the-point. That's not to say that I admit I can't finish (or even start) a fiction book now. They're ruined for me. But I don't care.
TitaRusell 10mo ago
It is interesting how everyone parrots that art is important when the vast majority of the population will never actually engage with it. Opera? Ballet? Literature? Poetry? Classical music? Modern art? Do the numbers it seems most people can do without them and still be functional.
- floren 10mo ago
  Fully functional economic units, the true aspiration of all thinking beings.
- threethirtytwo 10mo ago
  Avengers end game is also art. I engage with this type of art. I don’t consider opera the art of our modern culture. It is unfortunately a niche.
  - bgbntty2 10mo ago
    Yes! Art that's taught in school and that is "required" to know if you want to appear intelligent or fancy is just what GP posted. But art is also: * electronic music (if you're not aware, it's not just repetitive dum-dum-dum for 8 minutes, although I enjoy that style, as well); * rap (it's not just guns, drugs and mysoginy); * all the other music genres, of course, but I gave electronic music and rap as examples because they're usually treated badly by people who're not familiar with them; * games (I've been emotionally moved by many flash games, let alone new immersive games); * movies, series - live action or western animation or anime. Yet, in school we either learned about classical composers, or about regional composers. Only once, around 10th grade, we had a cool music teacher who played other genres for us - Fat Boy Slim, random metal groups, even a few pretty out-there experimental things. Much better than learning about some composer who lived 50 years ago just because he is from the same country as you. Same for paintings and similar art. What good does it do a 7th grader to look at Picasso? The context matters, but for people who don't care about such art, it's useless. I won't feel better if I can "intelligently" discuss the art scene in $nation in $year. I have, later in life, read interesting articles that actually mix politics and life in general with the art that was "allowed" to flourish. Like art in Soviet Russia. But that context, if it was given at all, didn't mean anything to a 7th grader, especially if they didn't learn about Soviet Russia in history before the art class. In my experience my education was all over the place.
saltcured 10mo ago
As a native US English speaker, I enjoyed Shakespeare and even when we read Beowulf and some Chaucer in mildly transcribed and annotated Middle English. More than any history lesson, it developed in me a feeling for how, in spite of lots of technological and other societal change, the basic human condition is the same. I imagine it would be interesting to read early texts in other proto languages too. Sadly, I'm not a polyglot and can't really access that experience first-hand.
- rawgabbit 10mo ago
  I graduated from public school a long time ago. I hated Shakespeare. The phrasing and Englishness of it was a complete turn off. And I read a lot. I believe I read almost a fourth of the books in my little public library in my rural town in Texas. As far as writing, I admire the writing in the King James Bible more than Shakespeare although I am Catholic. I would say most of the books I read were crap and written poorly.
  - ThrowMeAway1618 10mo ago
    [flagged]
ThrowMeAway1618 10mo ago
[flagged]

floren 10mo ago

> Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases. no cap Mr Darcy ur parties are bussin fr fr

bgbntty2 10mo ago
I should've used "archaic" instead of "outdated". As in, "incomprehensible to someone speaking proper modern $language". Without a dictionary, a normal student couldn't understand what was being said in many sentences throughout the book. Some books actually had a dictionary in the end, but not for all the archaic words and phrases.
- opello 10mo ago
  I was intrigued by the idea that it might be unreasonable for a book to include a glossary or dictionary to explain usages for made up or unfamiliar terms. I like that this list [1] exists because I was struggling to think of such a book. But then I thought about The Lord of the Rings, and it even includes an index of terms among its appendices, which is something I remember using to revisit parts of the story when I first read it. Another book with a glossary of terms is Dune, which I found fun and reasonable to avoid trying to explain hierarchy where doing so would break the narrative flow. But maybe that just means it's not as cleverly constructed or organized as it could have been--but the trade-off has to be how to engage a wide selection of readers... Is the complaint about the dictionary at the end because it wasn't comprehensive? I'm unreasonably curious about the book and which phrases were included and which were not. I think all written works occur in a context that should be taken into account when thinking critically about them. That context is temporal and linguistic and is more apparent when you consider something like Beowulf in Old English or The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Understanding it requires either a modern reinterpretation or consideration given to the sociolinguistic context in which it was written. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/180823.Novels_with_Glossaries https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/180823.Novels_with_Gloss...
  - dooglius 10mo ago
    I think you are missing the broader point: why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? It's not as if there is a dearth of more modern works. It seems like the main function of selecting older works is to make it artificially harder for students to read.
    - floren 10mo ago
      > why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? Are you people for real?
    - opello 10mo ago
      > why should one read things occurring in an alien context to begin with? I think there's a trivial answer which is that all things you encounter are fundamentally from an alien context. The degree of alien and intention of the action are the things to consider before proceeding. For example, why would one choose to read the account of a survivor of tragedy? To develop some amount of (emotional or cognitive) empathy? To learn a broader way of thinking that could apply to a future situation? Most simply: to learn from the past. If the goal is entertainment, evaluate your participation such that you maximize your utility. If the goal is learning, one should be wary of premature rejection without sufficient context to avoid missing the lesson. And there is an annoying reality in which most situations can teach something.
miningape 10mo ago
Honestly, I'd gladly pay for and read a version of pride and prejudice rewritten in gen Z slang

eimrine 10mo ago

> Being forced to read and memorize poetry was the absolute shit. Yes and no. I used to start reading at 4 years old, but I forcedly used to memorize some rhymes at 3 years old. Most folk don't believe it is possible to read so early (though Eliezer Yudkowsky has reported about similar age). But my point is - how would I learn reading so early without that poetry? I don't really like poetry exactly as rest of the fiction genre. And I am still sure it is not shit even for those who are struggling of doing that. I consider poetry exercises as sport exercises: today you claim that some specific muscle is not important for you, but tomorrow you get some injury which happened because of some weak muscle. But you have also said one important word - propaganda. This is what really shitting any education and propaganda seems like the monster from the Nitzsche's quote "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster".

Throaway198712 10mo ago
I also learned to read at 3. I actually remember the switch from illiterate to literate, as I remember realizing that just by looking at road signs I would automatically read them. I told my sister, who couldn't read yet, that there was a downside, as you could never look at language without reading it ever again!
eudamoniac 10mo ago
Nobody believes this, but I have VHS evidence of myself reading at 2
1718627440 10mo ago
I think 4 IS early, but not that uncommon. 5-6 is typically without it being forced.

BeFlatXIII 10mo ago

Seems like a skill issue on your end.

Telaneo 10mo ago
Is this the right attitude to have to kids who we want to get into reading?
- Throaway198712 10mo ago
  get gud @ reeding
bgbntty2 10mo ago
I read non-fiction all the time. HN and reddit comments, news articles, Wikipedia articles, books, research papers. My ADHD doesn't help, but doesn't prevent me from finishing 300-page books that are actually interesting. I have yet to find a fiction book that's not full of fluff. I've read a couple of scripts for movies and TV, and they're, by far, much better than fiction books for me. Just more condensed, more to-the-point. That's not to say that I admit I can't finish (or even start) a fiction book now. They're ruined for me. But I don't care.

TitaRusell 10mo ago

It is interesting how everyone parrots that art is important when the vast majority of the population will never actually engage with it. Opera? Ballet? Literature? Poetry? Classical music? Modern art? Do the numbers it seems most people can do without them and still be functional.

floren 10mo ago
Fully functional economic units, the true aspiration of all thinking beings.
threethirtytwo 10mo ago
Avengers end game is also art. I engage with this type of art. I don’t consider opera the art of our modern culture. It is unfortunately a niche.
- bgbntty2 10mo ago
  Yes! Art that's taught in school and that is "required" to know if you want to appear intelligent or fancy is just what GP posted. But art is also: * electronic music (if you're not aware, it's not just repetitive dum-dum-dum for 8 minutes, although I enjoy that style, as well); * rap (it's not just guns, drugs and mysoginy); * all the other music genres, of course, but I gave electronic music and rap as examples because they're usually treated badly by people who're not familiar with them; * games (I've been emotionally moved by many flash games, let alone new immersive games); * movies, series - live action or western animation or anime. Yet, in school we either learned about classical composers, or about regional composers. Only once, around 10th grade, we had a cool music teacher who played other genres for us - Fat Boy Slim, random metal groups, even a few pretty out-there experimental things. Much better than learning about some composer who lived 50 years ago just because he is from the same country as you. Same for paintings and similar art. What good does it do a 7th grader to look at Picasso? The context matters, but for people who don't care about such art, it's useless. I won't feel better if I can "intelligently" discuss the art scene in $nation in $year. I have, later in life, read interesting articles that actually mix politics and life in general with the art that was "allowed" to flourish. Like art in Soviet Russia. But that context, if it was given at all, didn't mean anything to a 7th grader, especially if they didn't learn about Soviet Russia in history before the art class. In my experience my education was all over the place.

saltcured 10mo ago

As a native US English speaker, I enjoyed Shakespeare and even when we read Beowulf and some Chaucer in mildly transcribed and annotated Middle English. More than any history lesson, it developed in me a feeling for how, in spite of lots of technological and other societal change, the basic human condition is the same. I imagine it would be interesting to read early texts in other proto languages too. Sadly, I'm not a polyglot and can't really access that experience first-hand.

rawgabbit 10mo ago
I graduated from public school a long time ago. I hated Shakespeare. The phrasing and Englishness of it was a complete turn off. And I read a lot. I believe I read almost a fourth of the books in my little public library in my rural town in Texas. As far as writing, I admire the writing in the King James Bible more than Shakespeare although I am Catholic. I would say most of the books I read were crap and written poorly.
- ThrowMeAway1618 10mo ago
  [flagged]

ThrowMeAway1618 10mo ago

[flagged]