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We would've studied Dracula for A-Level English, but we'd just finished studying the Kite Runner and the History Boys (which killed my interest in being taught these things) and i'd dropped out of college due to medical reasons.

Amaya wrote:What does Frankenstein have to do with Dracula and Lovecraft?

Why should either of those be taught? Neither are regarded as classic or great literature.

There was a college course that used Frankenstein as the object of teaching critical lenses.

So they read and analyzed it using feminist criticism, socialist criticism, historical criticism,
the new critics perspective, etc.

Strictly for the english majors, of course. (ha! of course! Get it? Of COURSE you do!)

Amaya wrote:I started The Da Vinci Code and put it down because it was on par with the crappy essays I was forced to proof in high school.

I read Digital Fortress and my god that was painful. Dan Brown is supposed to be an English professor or something, but he writes like a teenager. Poor writing style, ridiculous set pieces, no basis on fact and characters with supposed IQs of over 160 with no knowledge of major events in recent history, nor the ability to do extremely simple arithmetic. Rubbish.

corpsesarefun wrote:

Amaya wrote:What does Frankenstein have to do with Dracula and Lovecraft?

Why should either of those be taught? Neither are regarded as classic or great literature.

Ahahahaha.

Wait, I think you're serious.

If only we could read the good american lit. in American Lit class... Asimov, you must wait until I'm done with Faulkner...
Although so far he's not too bad.

Amaya wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:

Amaya wrote:What does Frankenstein have to do with Dracula and Lovecraft?

Why should either of those be taught? Neither are regarded as classic or great literature.

Ahahahaha.

Wait, I think you're serious.

I found both to be exceedingly dull, especially lovecraft.

YMMV on Dracula, I actually enjoyed that book quite a bit when I read it. It was nice to get the original Bram Stoker work as opposed to the Hollywood version..same with Frankenstein.

I wonder how many kids you have this conversation with:

"Do you know who Dracula is?"
"Yes, he's a vampire."
"Do you know when he was created?"
"2004, because that's when Van Helsing came out."
"Do you know how he was killed?"
"Yeah, Van Hesling turned into a werewolf and killed him."

(Sparkling in the light can be added if you so wish).

You mention Dracula to today's kids, and they know who you're talking about; you mention Bram Stoker and all you'd get back would be quizzcal looks and the odd "Wtf?"

ChrisWWII wrote:YMMV on Dracula, I actually enjoyed that book quite a bit when I read it. It was nice to get the original Bram Stoker work as opposed to the Hollywood version..same with Frankenstein.

One, of the few honestly suspenseful books in my opinion.

Were reading madame Bovary right now in class. This is supposed to be a pivotal piece of feminist littérateur, all it is chick who over romanticized love and marriage and so turns into a cheating lying bitch who hates her husand

Now that is something you won't expect to find on the blurb of the Penguin Classic translation!

corpsesarefun wrote:

Amaya wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:

Amaya wrote:What does Frankenstein have to do with Dracula and Lovecraft?

Why should either of those be taught? Neither are regarded as classic or great literature.

Ahahahaha.

Wait, I think you're serious.

I found both to be exceedingly dull, especially lovecraft.

Ah, so your personal opinion overwrites the massive impact both had on modern horror.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Now that is something you won't expect to find on the blurb of the Penguin Classic translation!

well its true

Tyyr wrote:It is, but think about what they do. They shovel the "classics" down kids throats and get pissy when you are bored with them. Sorry, but a teenager has absolutely no frame of reference to relate to any of the classics. Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn maybe but Little Women, Oliver Twist, Moby Dick, etc? Really? Do you think a fifteen year old is going to care about reading Melville's whaling diatribe? That they're going to be able to relate to any of it? Hell no, it's boring nonsensical crap to them.

In my opinion the way to do it is just encourage kids to read. Find a book that interests them and read it. Doesn't matter how pulpy, how campy, how little "literary value" it has let them read it. The focus should be on getting kids to read first and then introducing the classics. Instead we just shove the classics down their throats and wonder why they loathe reading later on.

True, but I think that learning to appreciate books for their merit, rather than simply their fun value, is a fairly hard thing to do. Whether you read Moby Dick or something else for the first time at 15 or 35, it's going to be hard work. If kids weren't required to look at a book as something more than entertainment, then it's unlikely they'd ever do so on their own.

There's a balance, kids shouldn't only be exposed to books that are hard work, but we shouldn't go too far the other way and accept that all reading is equal.


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NELS1031 wrote:I had to read The Chocolate War in high school english.

Hated it from start to devastatingly and completely defeated finish. Not sure what sort of lesson or theme that teacher was trying to impress on us, as the guy who is doing the right thing gets punished throughout the whole novel by his student peers and the higher ups, who are priests or something (but only one in particular if memory serves) and they get away with it. I realized then (and still now obviously) that bad people do get away with the things they do, but it seemed the lesson of this book was to just go with the flow, no matter how wrong it is. If not, you get bullied and beat the hell up. Just seemed to me like they were trying to program us.

Not the best lesson to impart on the youth of a private catholic school, as the novel is set in the same exact setting.

The novel really, really wasn't about how it was important to go with the flow. The efforts of the main character ultimately amounted to no more than his own victimisation, but that's because the novel is showing you how powerful society can be. Having this lone boy go up against that with little more than half an idea to rebel and getting away with it would be pretty pointless if he succeeded.

And for that matter, would he have succeeded if he had a better idea of his own individuality? He desire to be an individual was driven by being outcast from society, and his act of rebellion was based on his desire to resist, not out of any interest in selling or not selling the chocolates. He wasn't making individual choices, he was just opposing power. Would the outcome have been different if he'd formed a better idea of what he really wanted?

It's a really great book, maybe reading it again might help?


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corpsesarefun wrote:I found both to be exceedingly dull, especially lovecraft.

Which is fine, but you finding it dull doesn't mean it doesn't have literary merit. For that matter, all of us finding something dull doesn't mean it doesn't have literary merit. Sometimes because a book represented an important idea in history, sometimes because it's about things that are hard and not necessarily exciting, but can actually change the way you look at the world.

To Kill a Mockingbird....

Something about a girl growing up just doesn't interest me. Everyone seems to be ape gak about this book, and it always blows my mind.

the Twilight Books.

I agree with the LotR comments, they really aren't very good reads.

Same is true of the Harry Potter series. Good lord those are awful.

I don't read many bad books, because I choose not to buy it if it doesn't sound interesting.

As pop fiction, the Harry Potter books are a lot better than their peers.

bdix wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird....

Something about a girl growing up just doesn't interest me. Everyone seems to be ape gak about this book, and it always blows my mind.

Do you really believe that book was just about a girl growing up? That it didn't touch on anything else at all?

bdix wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird....

Something about a girl growing up just doesn't interest me. Everyone seems to be ape gak about this book, and it always blows my mind.

You are declaring To Kill a Mocking Bird the worst book you've read?! Gonna have to deploy the old man "kids these days ". And it's not about a girl growing up.

bdix wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird....

Something about a girl growing up just doesn't interest me. Everyone seems to be ape gak about this book, and it always blows my mind.

'

The thing is, Scout is the narrator, not the protagonist. The book isn't about her growing up, it's about so many other things.....

Atticus is the most awesome lawyer in the world, btw, and he's why I want to go to law school.

Also, I wouldn't call LotR a 'bad read'. I mean, the battle scenes are simply epic, and the story itself is epic. I understand that the story type, and the way the story is written doesn't appeal to a lot of people, but I don't think you can diss it as a 'bad read'. It's very well written, and the amount of detail contained within is simply astounding. In fact, I'd wager that a reason a lot of younger readers don't like LotR is because, since it basically reforged the fantasy genre in its own image, it seems cliche and predictable now, since everyone else has copied its character types and plot.

bdix wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird....

Something about a girl growing up just doesn't interest me. Everyone seems to be ape gak about this book, and it always blows my mind.

The whole part about Racism went right past you huh?

I picked it up one day during high school, read the first chapter and gave it back to the Library; I could tell that I wasn't going to like it, flicking ahead to see when the chapter ends is never a good sign for me.

ChrisWWII wrote:Also, I wouldn't call LotR a 'bad read'. I mean, the battle scenes are simply epic, and the story itself is epic. I understand that the story type, and the way the story is written doesn't appeal to a lot of people, but I don't think you can diss it as a 'bad read'. It's very well written, and the amount of detail contained within is simply astounding. In fact, I'd wager that a reason a lot of younger readers don't like LotR is because, since it basically reforged the fantasy genre in its own image, it seems cliche and predictable now, since everyone else has copied its character types and plot.

Thing is, LotR is extremely plodding. It was written by a guy fascinated with language and with world building and it shows. Lots of authors will say something like 'this stands as great as the peaks of blahblah' but few will actually have considered exactly what blahblah is - Tolkein not only created it, he expects you to know about it.

In a lot of ways I'm not convinced LotR is that great a novel, if only for the very odd pacing problems it has. But it is certainly a great exercise in world building.

Avatar 720 wrote:I picked it up one day during high school, read the first chapter and gave it back to the Library; I could tell that I wasn't going to like it, flicking ahead to see when the chapter ends is never a good sign for me.

So it's not actually the worst book you ever read, it's the worst book you read a little bit of.

Yeah, I think a rule of worst book you read has to be that you finished reading it.

Sophie's World. The main character gets a free philosophy correspondence course where she instantly and completely believes without question every single philosophy described to her one by one. She uses her newfound self awareness (Who are you?) to belittle her mother and decides to run off with the strange mid to elderly man who introduced her to philosophy. The best parts of the book are the textbook snippets the strange man gives out. Better to just read a standard philosophy textbook.

The real clincher is probably that it is the only book I've bought before reading that disappointed me.

Avatar 720 wrote:I picked it up one day during high school, read the first chapter and gave it back to the Library; I could tell that I wasn't going to like it, flicking ahead to see when the chapter ends is never a good sign for me.

So, this is a classic example of complaining about books you haven't read. It doesn't matter that the book gave you a bad vibe. A lot of books start off slow. You have to read the entire thing, or at least make an EFFORT to read the entire thing in order to have the right to complain about it.

It's why I read the entire Twilight series. =Shudder= At least now I have the satisfaction of bashing and tearing that horrible, HORRIBLE series to pieces, without the fangirls whining that 'if you only read it, you'd love it!'

Sebster wrote:
Thing is, LotR is extremely plodding. It was written by a guy fascinated with language and with world building and it shows. Lots of authors will say something like 'this stands as great as the peaks of blahblah' but few will actually have considered exactly what blahblah is - Tolkein not only created it, he expects you to know about it.

Especiall with Fellowship, you're 100% right. It starts off extremely slow, and the sections focused on Frodo are even more so. I suppose that it is true that Tolkien wrote LotR to show off his home made languages and world. Still, you have to note that LotR took apart an entire genre of media, and rebuilt it in its own image. Somehow, Tolkien did something right, somewhere along the line...

So it's not actually the worst book you ever read, it's the worst book you read a little bit of.

I never said it was in my list of worst books; I have posted my list here already FYI.

I was simply giving my 2p, and it appears that nobody wanted it, so i'll have my 2p back thank you.

You have to read the entire thing, or at least make an EFFORT to read the entire thing in order to have the right to complain about it.

No I don't.

bdix wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird....

Something about a girl growing up just doesn't interest me. Everyone seems to be ape gak about this book, and it always blows my mind.

Wow, you missed the whole point, utterly.
It was about the trial. It was about racism. It was about fighting the good fight. It was about false perceptions.
re-read it or watch the excellent Gregory Peck film.

Avatar 720 wrote:

You have to read the entire thing, or at least make an EFFORT to read the entire thing in order to have the right to complain about it.

No I don't.

But if you haven't actually read the book in question it pretty much renders your opinion worthless, is the problem with the approach you're taking here.