#but ironically when i took literature in grade 12--it was an elective class at my school--it was one of my fave classes ever | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

coffeebanana · 2 years ago

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Every time I read classic books I feel this pressure to enjoy them, and I just...never do? I can appreciate why they're important or influential for their time, and I appreciate that they exist, but...I just don't enjoy the style? Like they tend to be very repetitive and they have a lot of scenes that frankly...don't do anything to move the story forwards. The kinds of things that today would get the story tossed aside by publishers. And obviously I'm not saying it is bad writing, because again--different time period. Different style. But I wish I could be completely comfortable saying I just don't enjoy those books. For me personally, reading them is often more effort than what I get out of them. And sometimes I will read them anyways because I want to understand references people make to them in other books or media, but at the end of the day they don't bring me joy like modern books or fanfiction do and I think that's okay.

#kayla rambles #i actually do think if i was reading them in a school setting i would enjoy it more #like. i like learning about what a book says about the people of the time period it was written in #but at the same time i hated being forced to analyze things for a grade #i liked learning the opinions other people had on it but i always had this idea in my head that i sucked at analysis--i still have that tbh #i shy away from trying to analyze things i DO enjoy because i just have this idea other people will do it better than me #and sometimes i just don't want to analyze things! which is also okay! but kasjdbsbjf i still feel like it's a shortcoming sometimes idk #and it's annoying i still can't get over this #like i know it basically stems from the fact it was easier for me to get an A in STEM classes while putting in minimal effort #and english--even though i did mostly get As--always felt like a struggle. it always felt like i was missing something crucial #but ironically when i took literature in grade 12--it was an elective class at my school--it was one of my fave classes ever #probably because my teacher was an atheist lesbian and i fucking adored her #she told us on like day 1 she was trying to read the bible so she could understand symbolism in other works better 😂#and she was frankly just a badass lmao #but she also taught it from the lens of what literature said about the people of the time #she brought history and linguistics into everything and she made it feel real #god if she could have taught me english class throughout high school maybe i wouldn't have cared as much about the grade

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