Does School Degrade Fiction...

...or enhance it? Having taken some more advanced courses in English during high school, I now find that fiction just isn't that fun to read anymore, at least for me. When I read a fictional piece, I cannot help but go about it analytically, which makes me long for the days when I had no idea that books are often intended to be meaningful as opposed to merely entertaining. Now I realize that there are some genres (i.e. thrillers...etc.) that do serve the purpose of expressly telling a good story. At the same time, however, these genres often, in my opinion, do not live up to the quality standards of their more meaningful peers. While I still read fictional titles frequently, my preferences are increasingly of the non-fiction variety, a situation that is not necessarily bad, yet at the same time creates a certain degree of nostalgia for a time when things were simpler. 

Anyway...

Did learning more about literature enhance or degrade your fictional reading experiences?

Did it have any impact at all?

Anyone have words in defense of the thriller novel?

Um, to be honest - most of my high school english courses consisted of fiction - the classic novels and poetry.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found some genres that I still love from this exposure.

College courses seemed to pick stuff that was so weird, and strangely written, as to be unenjoyable by me.

As an adult, I find I like stuff that is written lightly, so it is easy to understand and relaxing to read.  Happy endings and all that.  Well, I always preferred happy endings, but kids spend your brain power on things other than reading...

Original Post by puh8suwrux:

Um, to be honest - most of my high school english courses consisted of fiction - the classic novels and poetry.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found some genres that I still love from this exposure.

College courses seemed to pick stuff that was so weird, and strangely written, as to be unenjoyable by me.

As an adult, I find I like stuff that is written lightly, so it is easy to understand and relaxing to read.  Happy endings and all that.  Well, I always preferred happy endings, but kids spend your brain power on things other than reading...

I agree with you that high school helped expose me to various authors that I might not have stumbled upon otherwise. However, the point that I am trying to make is that greater knowledge of literature has changed the way in which I interpret fictional text, and in doing so, appears to have made the experience less enjoyable for me personally.

I have yet to taken any college courses in literature, so I cannot comment on them as of yet. Out of curiosity, as you have obviously been exposed to their selections, what are some examples? 

Nothing ruins a good book like having to study it for an exam..   You're conscious of the metaphors and symbolism now that you've studied literature more closely so it'll be top of mind for now.  However, if you keep reading you'll find it is possible to push the 'analysis' to the back and the 'entertainment' to the fore.

Thrillers are a 'good yarn'... and there's nothing wrong with that.  There are good and bad, of course.  The apalling 'Da Vinci Code' was a bad example.   The books of John Le Carre are a particularly good example of the craft. 

Well, personally, I've always enjoyed reading...  Even for school.  What I don't like is the fact that some teachers (not all, I've had some great teachers) ruin it for other kids.  I've even seen some teachers suck all the life out of truly fantastic books like To Kill a Mockingbird.  Luckily, I've always been able to do the school work, pick things apart, but still keep that separate from my enjoyment of the book.

Perhaps that's why I was an English major.

Original Post by vincent_louis:

Original Post by puh8suwrux:

Um, to be honest - most of my high school english courses consisted of fiction - the classic novels and poetry.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found some genres that I still love from this exposure.

College courses seemed to pick stuff that was so weird, and strangely written, as to be unenjoyable by me.

As an adult, I find I like stuff that is written lightly, so it is easy to understand and relaxing to read.  Happy endings and all that.  Well, I always preferred happy endings, but kids spend your brain power on things other than reading...

I agree with you that high school helped expose me to various authors that I might not have stumbled upon otherwise. However, the point that I am trying to make is that greater knowledge of literature has changed the way in which I interpret fictional text, and in doing so, appears to have made the experience less enjoyable for me personally.

I have yet to taken any college courses in literature, so I cannot comment on them as of yet. Out of curiosity, as you have obviously been exposed to their selections, what are some examples? 

 Those courses were nearly 15 years ago for me, but having studied Shakespeare and Milton and the Eyre sisters, etc, in high school it was a big disappointment to me to take college literature and to not even be able to understand what they were writing about.  It was all "modern", rather abstract, writing, sometimes bending grammatical and punctuation rules.  Not my style, and I felt like I must have missed the previous course preparing me for reading it.

I only took one literature class.  I couldn't make myself take another - I chose other electives.

Original Post by gi-jane:

Nothing ruins a good book like having to study it for an exam..   You're conscious of the metaphors and symbolism now that you've studied literature more closely so it'll be top of mind for now.  However, if you keep reading you'll find it is possible to push the 'analysis' to the back and the 'entertainment' to the fore.

Thrillers are a 'good yarn'... and there's nothing wrong with that.  There are good and bad, of course.  The apalling 'Da Vinci Code' was a bad example.   The books of John Le Carre are a particularly good example of the craft. 

Time heals everything!

I did not realize that John Le Carre is an author of the thriller genre. I have not read any of his books, however, I am familiar with the name from a "Best of 2008" list that I glanced at...in 2008. I might look into his writing. 

Original Post by lilsammi23:

Well, personally, I've always enjoyed reading...  Even for school.  What I don't like is the fact that some teachers (not all, I've had some great teachers) ruin it for other kids.  I've even seen some teachers suck all the life out of truly fantastic books like To Kill a Mockingbird.  Luckily, I've always been able to do the school work, pick things apart, but still keep that separate from my enjoyment of the book.

Perhaps that's why I was an English major.

I kind of did that with Fahrenheit 451. I was not yet familiar with the "joys" of literary analysis and so read the book in advance of the class to get ahead. However, in the process I really did enjoy the book. But, as you mentioned, the class soon dissected it thereafter, much the same way they did To Kill a Mockingbird, and worse yet, Lord of the Flies (loved that book before!). While the near-complete dissection of books is excellent practice in literary analysis, it annihilates the appeal of rereading great titles for years to come. 

Original Post by puh8suwrux:

 Those courses were nearly 15 years ago for me, but having studied Shakespeare and Milton and the Eyre sisters, etc, in high school it was a big disappointment to me to take college literature and to not even be able to understand what they were writing about.  It was all "modern", rather abstract, writing, sometimes bending grammatical and punctuation rules.  Not my style, and I felt like I must have missed the previous course preparing me for reading it.

I only took one literature class.  I couldn't make myself take another - I chose other electives.

 Maybe this is where I lucked out.  I tested out of all of the broad intro lit courses, so I was able to start right away on the more narrow scope ones like Modern Comedies (plays), English Lit Pre-1800, Shakespeare, Canterbury Tales, Victorian Lit, Modern American Lit... etc.  You pretty much knew what you were getting into with those courses.

Original Post by vincent_louis:

Original Post by lilsammi23:

Well, personally, I've always enjoyed reading...  Even for school.  What I don't like is the fact that some teachers (not all, I've had some great teachers) ruin it for other kids.  I've even seen some teachers suck all the life out of truly fantastic books like To Kill a Mockingbird.  Luckily, I've always been able to do the school work, pick things apart, but still keep that separate from my enjoyment of the book.

Perhaps that's why I was an English major.

I kind of did that with Fahrenheit 451. I was not yet familiar with the "joys" of literary analysis and so read the book in advance of the class to get ahead. However, in the process I really did enjoy the book. But, as you mentioned, the class soon dissected it thereafter, much the same way they did To Kill a Mockingbird, and worse yet, Lord of the Flies (loved that book before!). While the near-complete dissection of books is excellent practice in literary analysis, it annihilates the appeal of rereading great titles for years to come. 

 For some it does... I still re-read To Kill a Mockingbird and Wuthering Heights every year. ;)

Original Post by puh8suwrux:

Original Post by vincent_louis:

I agree with you that high school helped expose me to various authors that I might not have stumbled upon otherwise. However, the point that I am trying to make is that greater knowledge of literature has changed the way in which I interpret fictional text, and in doing so, appears to have made the experience less enjoyable for me personally.

I have yet to taken any college courses in literature, so I cannot comment on them as of yet. Out of curiosity, as you have obviously been exposed to their selections, what are some examples? 

 Those courses were nearly 15 years ago for me, but having studied Shakespeare and Milton and the Eyre sisters, etc, in high school it was a big disappointment to me to take college literature and to not even be able to understand what they were writing about.  It was all "modern", rather abstract, writing, sometimes bending grammatical and punctuation rules.  Not my style, and I felt like I must have missed the previous course preparing me for reading it.

I only took one literature class.  I couldn't make myself take another - I chose other electives.

I think I understand where you are coming from. I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal (their website) that, from what I could tell, asserts that the modernists, in breaking with conventions, turned reading into a chore for most people. However, the article goes on to say, the current generation of authors is making an effort to revive the plot and to restore it to its former glory. In other words, reading contemporary literature might become fun again (and might not be so style-centric). 

Original Post by lilsammi23:

Original Post by vincent_louis:

I kind of did that with Fahrenheit 451. I was not yet familiar with the "joys" of literary analysis and so read the book in advance of the class to get ahead. However, in the process I really did enjoy the book. But, as you mentioned, the class soon dissected it thereafter, much the same way they did To Kill a Mockingbird, and worse yet, Lord of the Flies (loved that book before!). While the near-complete dissection of books is excellent practice in literary analysis, it annihilates the appeal of rereading great titles for years to come. 

 For some it does... I still re-read To Kill a Mockingbird and Wuthering Heights every year. ;)

Well, I guess it's not so much that the books become unappealing to me as it is that they simply don't have anything new to offer. I don't know if you take any interest in video games, but they are often rated based on several factors, among them replay value. Now let me be clear that games can still receive excellent reviews even if they are lacking in replay value. Nevertheless, just because you enjoy a game the first time through, does not necessarily mean you will want to play it again, particularly if you enjoyed all of the extras the first time around. That being said, a few years may pass, and as is the case with most good books, the nostalgia of the experience may draw you back in for a visit. So, in the end, I guess it all comes down to how much you enjoyed the original experience...kind of like watching [insert your winter festivity (or lack thereof) here] specials each year.

This topic is kind of interesting to me. I pretty much hate poetry. I will hear or read the occasional poem and enjoy it, but for the most part I don't want anything to do with poetry. I especially hate haiku. The main reason is the way poetry, and haiku in particular, was presented and dissected in school. It was pure drudgery to study and dissect.

The same happened in high school for me for literature. I was in honors english classes and studying the classics and dissecting the plots and the characters and the blah and the blah blah blah. I still hate Wuthering Heights with a passion. I can't see how anyone could possible enjoy reading that crap. I thought the whole thing the most depressing and horrid book I've ever laid my eyes on.

However, I never lost my love of reading thrillers, detective novels or science fiction. I think that's partly because none of these books were dissected and the honors english teachers I had looked down on these types of books. Since they showed such snobbery for these books it fueled my enjoyment of them. I'm contrary that way.

I was lucky that I had a great teacher for To Kill a Mockingbird. For some reason I never read Lord of the Flies or Catcher in the Rye until I found out that some schools tried or were trying to ban it from their libraries. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these books. I think I'd like to reread these 3 as an adult.

Really, I think it all comes down to your ability to separate your enjoyment of a book from the analysis.  Not everyone can which is why taking lit classes destroys the enjoyment of reading for a lot of people... (it's actually pretty common, I know many of my fellow English majors who now have difficulty just reading for fun)

I can honestly say that I do get something new, even after reading a book 10-15 times.  My interpretation of Wuthering Heights at 27 is not what it was when I first read it at 13, or even at 20... As I grow and change, so does what I take from the reading.  But then, I'm one of those people who usually buys books and rarely goes to the library because I'm loathe to give a book that I enjoyed back.  I know I'm going to want to read it again.  I don't rent movies either, I usually buy them if I know I like them.  I'll want to see it again.

Original Post by moonikins:

This topic is kind of interesting to me. I pretty much hate poetry. I will hear or read the occasional poem and enjoy it, but for the most part I don't want anything to do with poetry. I especially hate haiku. The main reason is the way poetry, and haiku in particular, was presented and dissected in school. It was pure drudgery to study and dissect.

The same happened in high school for me for literature. I was in honors english classes and studying the classics and dissecting the plots and the characters and the blah and the blah blah blah. I still hate Wuthering Heights with a passion. I can't see how anyone could possible enjoy reading that crap. I thought the whole thing the most depressing and horrid book I've ever laid my eyes on.

However, I never lost my love of reading thrillers, detective novels or science fiction. I think that's partly because none of these books were dissected and the honors english teachers I had looked down on these types of books. Since they showed such snobbery for these books it fueled my enjoyment of them. I'm contrary that way.

I was lucky that I had a great teacher for To Kill a Mockingbird. For some reason I never read Lord of the Flies or Catcher in the Rye until I found out that some schools tried or were trying to ban it from their libraries. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these books. I think I'd like to reread these 3 as an adult.

I understand your point of view entirely when it comes to poetry. At the same time, I have found a way to make it at least mildly enjoyable. Rather than reading the poem as is, I like to essentially translate it into plain English (kind of like No Fear Shakespeare, which I admittedly adore) and simply walk away with the meaning. In other words, I enjoy (some) poetry for the same reason I dislike (some) literature.

My experience with science fiction and thrillers has been mixed. When it comes to science fiction, I am personally a fan of the classics, such as Jules Verne. I read through William Gibson's Neuromancer, but cannot say that I enjoyed it...at all. I found it difficult to understand, if only because it makes frequent usage of words that you can't even begin to look up in a dictionary. I don't know, I've thought about giving it another chance. As for thrillers, I have not ready many. I think Let the Right One In is somewhat of a mild thriller, and I can honestly say that I loved it, mostly because it elaborated on the movie (the book came first, however). Is Stephen King considered a thriller author? If so, then I like a few of his books. 

If you happen to have any recommendations for any of the genres you mentioned, I would be more than happy to hear (see) them. 

See I'm the opposite. I always go to the library. I rarely reread a book. There are just too many books and not enough time. If I get a chance to read, I want to explore a new book. This became especially true for me after having my son and a family. I think by the time I retire, there will such a huge list of books I want to read that I still won't revisit many.

I have read Gone With the Wind at least 5 times. Maybe more. I've read the hobbit series 3 times (all 4 books in a row). I read a couple of detective books twice. I read The Phantom Tollbooth at least 5 times. I read the first Dune book twice, but only because I wanted to read the rest of the series and had to reread Dune again first. It had been too many years between the first and the others.

The books I do want to reread include: To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye & Lord of the Flies. I'm sure there's a couple more out there, but I can't picture them right now.

Original Post by lilsammi23:

Really, I think it all comes down to your ability to separate your enjoyment of a book from the analysis.  Not everyone can which is why taking lit classes destroys the enjoyment of reading for a lot of people... (it's actually pretty common, I know many of my fellow English majors who now have difficulty just reading for fun)

I can honestly say that I do get something new, even after reading a book 10-15 times.  My interpretation of Wuthering Heights at 27 is not what it was when I first read it at 13, or even at 20... As I grow and change, so does what I take from the reading.  But then, I'm one of those people who usually buys books and rarely goes to the library because I'm loathe to give a book that I enjoyed back.  I know I'm going to want to read it again.  I don't rent movies either, I usually buy them if I know I like them.  I'll want to see it again.

I'm the same way, I never rent anything. However, my reasons are a bit different. First of all, I don't like having to pay fees for being late with the return (which is often inevitable because I still rely on my parents for transportation). Secondly, I love collecting things, and even aspire to have a decent-sized library of both books and movies some day. 

I see what you mean in regard to the new perspectives of successive ages. I cannot remember the source (sorry), but not too long ago I read an article about the joys, specifically, of rereading favorite novels. Aside from the nostalgia aspect, the author also shares your point of view that experience invites fresh insights into the process each time.

Original Post by lilsammi23:

Really, I think it all comes down to your ability to separate your enjoyment of a book from the analysis.  Not everyone can which is why taking lit classes destroys the enjoyment of reading for a lot of people... (it's actually pretty common, I know many of my fellow English majors who now have difficulty just reading for fun)

I can honestly say that I do get something new, even after reading a book 10-15 times.  My interpretation of Wuthering Heights at 27 is not what it was when I first read it at 13, or even at 20... As I grow and change, so does what I take from the reading.  But then, I'm one of those people who usually buys books and rarely goes to the library because I'm loathe to give a book that I enjoyed back.  I know I'm going to want to read it again.  I don't rent movies either, I usually buy them if I know I like them.  I'll want to see it again.

 This is what I was going to say.  As your perspective on life changes, so does your "take" on favorite books.  Truly great books will grow with you.

To the OP - take a break from the books you have studied.  Read something just for the story.  Or start writing your own book.  After a bit of distance from the dissection, I am sure your enjoyment will return.

I'd consider Stephen King either a thriller or horror. I kind of combine the 2 in my mind. I like both. I love King's characters. I've read most of his books. I'll have to think about other thriller novels I've read and get back with you.

As far as sci fi, I've read most of Asimov. That's where I started. It was the summer I went to 6th grade. I went to the library to get out of the heat. The librarian asked me what I liked and I told her science fiction. She pulled out an Asimov and I fell in love. Then I just kept going back to that shelf and pull out books with an interesting title. I wanted to be an astronaut and when I was told I couldn't because I was a girl, I read about them.

I love the Ringworld series and the I Robot series. There is a series called Planet of the Damned that I found pretty fascinating. I do remember loving a couple of the Jules Verne novels.

I'm also into a good detective type book for enjoyment. I love to read the serial killer novels. John Sandford has a great detective series with the Prey novels. And Jonathan Kellerman has a psychiatrist who unravels mysterys for his clients. It's more a psychological thriller in many ways. With both of these authors it's the characters that I love. I can picture them as real people. I picture where they live and work.

I guess I'm really character and plot driven. As long as the charaters are interesting and the plot is handled well I'm pretty happy.

Original Post by puh8suwrux:

 This is what I was going to say.  As your perspective on life changes, so does your "take" on favorite books.  Truly great books will grow with you.

 ^This.

And it's not just restricted to mainstream adult literature.  I have a totally different perspective on Where the Wild Things Are and James and the Giant Peach now that I'm reading them with my kids, and I'm finding them quite refreshing.

I'll eat you up, I love you so.

A line so good it hurts.

I love rereading stories I haven't read for years. Every time I read Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice something else strikes me. I could never grow tired of fiction no matter how deeply I have had to try and dissect it.