-
Definitely Crime and Punishment. I feel like that has been my answer to every novel inquiry, but it's the way it is :)
-
Wow, what a difficult question. I think I'd maybe say Romeo and Juliet. I saw the Baz Luhrmann film and I loved it. I knew my dad had a Complete Works of Shakespeare so I thought I'd have a go at reading it. I was about eleven and, although I devoured books before then, it was the first time I think I struggled through something more 'difficult'. Of course it was also my introduction to Shakespeare! I remember after I read it we had to give a presentation on the last book we read in English. Most of the other kids were reading Goosebumps etc and I felt so smug giving my presentation on Romeo and Juliet (it was probably an awful presentation but that's not the point!).
I'm so glad I read it because - and this may come as a shock - I never once got to study Shakespeare in English at school. I happened to have a teacher who said he didn't see the point in spending weeks and weeks slogging through Shakespeare when we could get through five other texts in that time and have a wider choice for exams. I can see where he was coming from but I didn't get the chance to study Shakespeare in English until I went to university. I was lucky, though, because I did Advanced Higher drama and we studied A Midsummer Night's Dream. I also came across Shakespeare in various other acting groups I was involved in but the emphasis is obviously different when performing it to when you're analysing it.
-
If I had to choose one, I'd say The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I read it in my sophomore year of high school and though I'd always been an avid reader, this was the first book that had me absolutely awed by its style. And once I was hooked stylistically, I became interested in all the little moral implications Hawthorne drew. That was probably the one book that swayed by decision to go into literature as a career. Ironically enough, I haven't read anything else by Hawthorne until recently, but now that I have I'm rediscovering my love for him.
Also, I fell in love with Poe's essay The Poetic Principle, which I read the same year (very productive year). That text, more than anything else, sparked my interest in the aesthetic aspect of literature.
