Alarei said
I really enjoyed studying Literature in High School. Came out with an A+.But as soon as I studied it at A-levels...I just completely lost it. Poetry is not my forte...Seamus Heaney...*shivers*Although learning The Great Gatsby, L'etranger, The Butcher Boy, and The Catcher in the Rye was quite fantastic.
I'm doing the Scottish equivalent of A-Level right now, and I too am... well, I have to actually work now, although I've still not actually read anything we've studied this year. And I fucking loathe Seamus Heaney's poetry. Perhaps I'd react differently if studied it now, but I refused to do an essay on his poems when I studied them several years ago and wrote about Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 instead.
Interestingly, we study Fitzgerald, but not The Great Gatsby - we do Tender is the Night and The Beautiful and Damned instead. I think his ideas and characterisation are fascinating, the inextricable interweaving of plot, character, setting, and all other aspects - but I can't stand actually reading the books. By necessity for the point he is trying to make, they are somewhat dull - not much
happens. While that makes for fascinating conceptual discussion, scouring the book for relevant quotes becomes arduous beyond belief. I think that's what started to wear my enjoyment of literature thin.
