Do you remember the books that you HAD to read at school?
Some were cool. I know that we did The Crucible, The Merchant of Venice and The Great Gatsby.
I always tried to read the set
texts the holidays before so I had read it with pleasure without the
pressure of "needing to study it".
However all delicious recall of such titles and joy is completely quashed by my
memory of the Year 9 English book that I didn't get forewarning of as I
was moved from the English class that I thought I had (that had some
cool and wonderful book) to Miss C- (I think - or was she a
different teacher? - they all blur after a few decades).
Miss C (or whoever she was) had set some woeful book about a girl turning 14, finding drugs when she was babysitting and dabbling and then becoming a full addict, broken home, mental institution and postage-sized Pyrrhic hope on offer on the last page if you are willing to take the "at least she didn't die" approach.
I can't remember the title - Unhinged or Unraveling or Jesus Wept (not
the last one, I would have remembered) and the author was some bint who
had an unspellable last name.
My goodness, if "Year Nine is the worst year of your life" needed a mascot, that was the book for it.
So - what were your highlights? (or lowlights?)
I remember "Go Ask Alice" when I was a kid. It didn't ring true to me, even as a young teen. I cannot remember any books that were required reading that I actually enjoyed, even though I was an avid reader. Silas Marner. The Scarlet Letter. Julius Caesar. Funny how the books that were supposed to shape us didn't. At least not for me.
ReplyDeleteI love all the books I've read in school.
ReplyDelete"Portrait of the Artist as Young Man" by James Joyce was atrocious. I struggled my way through it. Classics wise, I loved Shakespeare, Jane Austen and most of what we read in English class. I was very disturbed by "Lord of the Flies" although I thought it had important messages.
ReplyDeleteDebby - I never read Go Ask Alice - it sounds similar to mine though. I loved A Scarlet Letter, but it may not have been a set reader for us - I remember that The Crucible was!
ReplyDeleteIt is a very rare book I didn't love at school, Davey.
Margaret - I must admit, I am not a James Joyce fan. We also did Lord of the Flies. A lot of our books were designed to disturb and get us thinking outside our boxes I think.