In high school, the cool thing to do is complain about your assigned texts. I didn’t always enjoy them, but I usually didn’t complain just because we were assigned Hawthorne, Dickens or Shakespeare. I mean, hey, it might seem a bit archaic (though you’re talking to somebody who grew up with the King James Version of the Bible, so archaic doesn’t always mean unintelligible), but we get to read fiction for school!
Also, I was a lit geek. Aside from being in the International Baccalaureate (read: “AP isn’t AP enough for us”), my extracurriculars included running the literary magazine. Yeeeah. (Hm. This may be a lot closer to “nerd” than “geek.”)
So here are a few of the text I was assigned to read in high school that—don’t tell anyone—I actually enjoyed.
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| The Scarlet Letter | Ethan Frome | Romeo and Juliet |
| I liked seeing the strictures of Puritan society in action and reading about a woman who refused to be defined by her past sins, and I loved the tragic irony. | Made me an Edith Wharton fan | ‘Nuff said, amiright? |
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| Macbeth | Heart of Darkness | The Great Gatsby |
| Hey, who doesn’t like to see a jerk get his comeuppance? | I loved the justice of the man who hated the taint of death in a lie lying when the truth was too dark, too dark altogether. | Favorite. Book. Ever. Love the tragedy of selling one’s soul for a dream that’s already long dead. |
Hm . . . I’d say the universal theme of tragedy here has something to do with being a melodramatic teenager . . . except that I’m pretty sure my tastes haven’t changed. And yet I’ve never written a tragedy. Strange.
What do you think? Did you enjoy anything you read in high school? What are you reading now? Did you know you could add I, Spy to your Goodreads TBR? Come share what you’re reading!
Oh, Jordan. I knew you loved Ethan Frome but I had no idea you liked Heart of Darkness or The Great Gatsby. I’m planning to attend a Great Gatsby costume party on Friday night and I couldn’t tell you a single character’s name, other than Gatsby, of course. I couldn’t even get through the Sparknotes. That’s how much I despised F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wonder if I can let all that go and enjoy such classics like Wuthering Heights or Invisible Man. Err, maybe I need another decade or two.
I do, however, LOVE The Scarlet Letter. Well done, Hawthorne.
LOL—here’s another character’s name: Jordan. (It’s where my mom first saw the name used on a girl.) I’m excited for the new movie (even though I love Robert Redford & Sam Waterston who are in the ’70s version, and really don’t like Leo, I’d like to see a film get it right for once).
Yeah, another couple decades sounds good–not sure it’ll be enough though 😉 ! I didn’t care much for Invisible Man, and I didn’t get to read very much of Wuthering Heights before we had to return the books (yay, Hillside). I’ve tried WH again and just couldn’t get into it. I read Native Son by Richard Wright in college and felt like it handled similar issues to Invisible Man in a more engaging (and comprehsensible!) story . . . although NS does center around a couple gruesome murders….