How do You Go About Literature?

[qspeechc]

Hello everyone.

I have only recently fallen in love with literature. Please forgive me for being an idiot.

Whenever I read a novel- Dostoevsky, Lawrence, etc., all the classics- and plays and poetry, I feel I am not getting the most out of them, that I don't really understand them. I read some critic saying that you read a novel (poem, play etc.) over and over until you find nothing new, and then only do you read a criticism. A fair comment, but who's going to read "War and Peace" five times? I can't understand the old language of a Shakespeake, or Donne, or I have some other obstacle, I feel, to my understanding and enjoying the piece more. I feel I must read a criticism concurrently with the piece.

So how, then, do you get the most outing of reading something? How do you go about it? Is it a case of "practise makes perfect" to use a cliche (sorry)?

Thanks.

[mercymyqueen]

It is. You may want to simply read without looking and straining for meaning at first, and simply enjoy the piece's images and writing style. You'd be surprised how much you actually pick up. If you're still unsatisfied, try reading those classics that are meant for children. A great deal of the time, these, like Andersen's fairy tales, are actually written in a way that one can appreciate them as fine literature at many different levels, and at all ages. Remember, though, to read what you enjoy, and if you are perplexed by a pesky question, don't hesitate to ask!

[Etienne]

Well reading annotated editions or reading commentaries might be useful, and at some point you will get use at the different patterns of analyzing or understanding a book, and it will get easier. You will know what to look for, what are the different devices, etc. which will help in a deeper understanding. I don't think this method you described as being realistic unless it is a work of particular significance to you (or your studies).

It is normal that you do not understand a work as deeply as it can be unless you read it several times and read some commentaries, but I don't feel that this should be the point of reading any book either.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Any work that reveals all of its secrets in the first reading is shallow indeed.

Yes, it depends what you are reading for, if you are reading for pleasure or for academic study my reading varies somewhat. If I am reading for pleasure I basically do what I like. Sometimes I note a few things in the margins that I find noteworthy or interesting as I am reading, sometimes I don’t. If something in a novel I have just read for pleasure is niggling me I may skim through some critical works the next time I am in the library, I try to do this regardless, but I don’t often and this is fine.

When reading for study I am a little more thorough, and as from recently, I always make small pencil underlinings as I go through the work, or minor jots in the margins, not too much as to spoil the flow of reading though. I also try to re-read the work at a faster rate a week after the first reading, just skimming through in order to re-cap what I have read and to extend the meaning. I nearly always check out critical opinions, though not always, because if I am not going to write an essay on that particular work it may be time wasted that I could have used for something else.

No, it would be totally unrealistic to read War and Peace four or five times to gain extra meaning, this would be a waste of your time and resources (unless you loved it that much of course). When reading lengthy works you will be surprised at what you can gain by just skimming through the work, after an initial reading, try this method it will work just fine.

With writers like Shakespeare it certainly gets easier the more you read. Certain words that where unfamiliar in one play will probably crop up in another where you will have learnt its meaning. You also seem to get into a style of writing, all of a sudden it becomes easier to read, it is like a penny dropping and comes with practice. I certainly wouldn’t read criticism alongside a first reading of Shakespeare play apart from annotations explaining individual words, that is fine, but don’t try and read anthologies of criticism at the same time as the play. No, I think it is much better to read for the surface story first, then later when you have got this you can dig a little deeper if you like.

Also, you are certainly far from an idiot, the fact that you want to read such works states otherwise. Enjoy.

[wilbur lim]

Your school or tuition teacher will help you in your trails along our way.Ask them how they had learnt literature and probably they would give you their acquaintance of it.

[JBI]

Pen and paper in hand, my reading notebook on my side. Depending on the length of the work, chances are I will do 2-3 reads (for long novels 1.5 reads, skipping over many different parts), and then I will look into contextualizing, flip through to certain pages afterwords, to try to apply the context, and then read criticism, meanwhile taking notes, and creating a form of dialectic between my opinions, and different critics' opinions. Then I will read the text again for my final assessment, with everything taken into consideration.

Note, I only use this method for school stuff. For personal reading, I generally just tend to read it once, take a few notes, and move on.

[kiki1982]

I don't read terribly fast so I mostly know it almost by heart and that helps. For the rest I do read things again if I wish to know how they went again or what words were used... For the rest it helps to think about the ending, what is said at the end of a book. Ask yourself the question why? Allusions to other texts (titles quoted in a book, or pieces of poetry read by characters in a book) are very important!
Think about the story in itself: what was the general idea? What do you think the writer wanted to tell his readers?
If you don't seem to get an answer from yourself, then look on the internet, there are great places to finds things.

To have a real good think about a book, I usually take two weeks, more or less and then I'm kind of through. That's not a serious analysis though, because that can take years! Some professors spend 10 years on one book before they covered more or less all aspects, but then, you are not a professor...

[Lioness_Heart]

Perhaps persevere, and try to stay alert while you're reading. Sometimes it's quite easy to slip into skim reading, and if the book is quite challenging, or not immediately gripping, I can read several pages and then realise that I took none of it in! So maybe the key is to read slowly and think about what you're reading. And of course, the more you read of a particular author or genre or style, the easier it becomes.

Sometimes, if I feel that I'm not getting the most out of a book, I try to get into 'English teacher mode' and actively think about any possible meaning, i.e. linguistic devices, symbollism etc, that the author is trying to convey in any particular (short) section. I find that after I've done that, I absorb that kind of thing automatically for the rest of the book (probably in less detail though!)

[qspeechc]

Thanks everyone for replying. I'm actually going down to the bookstore later today, so I won't be bothered buying a challenging book :p