My memory for whole chunks of text isn’t great, so I tend to think of short phrases my A level English teacher used to repeat with passion, like they were the answer to everything: ‘Only connect’ (Howard’s End, EM Forster), ‘April is the cruellest month’
(TS Eliot’s The Wasteland). ‘The horror’ Colonel Kurtz in Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad). I’ve so many favourite books, but can’t quote any of them!
Oh, I loved The Wasteland, Lisa. I’d discovered it independently when I was about 12, long before studying it, which I’m sure helped. An ancient copy on the bookshelf. Understood little, but somehow absorbed the mood and found it mysterious. So when we came to study it, I was really interested to know about the layers and meanings in it. Plus, I had a great teacher who passed on his enthusiasm.
Oh that’s very interesting. I’ve tried to read a few over the years. I think sometimes these books land at different times in our lives. 14 years old is probably not the best time to get stuck into James Joyce or TS Eliot.
That’s actually wonderful to hear. I do wonder if my dislike of that, and many other works of literature, such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles, was down to lacklustre teaching. They were all so unengaged and plodding. Maybe I should give it another go?
I think it’s worth giving classics another shot, sometimes. I found I could suddenly persist with James Joyce’s Ulysses when my daughter was studying it at university and tipped me off that if I imagined it with an Irish accent, it would be much more likely to click. It worked!
If you got here via email you’ll have noticed the typo in the first sentence. So did I…once it went out. Now corrected. 🤦🏻♀️
“The quality of mercy is not strained
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven. It is twice blessed…”
Mercurio from The Merchant of Venice.
Beautiful 🧡
Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive - Damage by Josephine Hart. Dark, I appreciate 😳
I like it. It’s also so very true x
My memory for whole chunks of text isn’t great, so I tend to think of short phrases my A level English teacher used to repeat with passion, like they were the answer to everything: ‘Only connect’ (Howard’s End, EM Forster), ‘April is the cruellest month’
(TS Eliot’s The Wasteland). ‘The horror’ Colonel Kurtz in Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad). I’ve so many favourite books, but can’t quote any of them!
I also have short key words / phrases from other authors, that stick.
“April is the cruellest month” is searing but my goodness I dreaded Literature when we were wading through The Wasteland!
Oh, I loved The Wasteland, Lisa. I’d discovered it independently when I was about 12, long before studying it, which I’m sure helped. An ancient copy on the bookshelf. Understood little, but somehow absorbed the mood and found it mysterious. So when we came to study it, I was really interested to know about the layers and meanings in it. Plus, I had a great teacher who passed on his enthusiasm.
Oh that’s very interesting. I’ve tried to read a few over the years. I think sometimes these books land at different times in our lives. 14 years old is probably not the best time to get stuck into James Joyce or TS Eliot.
That’s actually wonderful to hear. I do wonder if my dislike of that, and many other works of literature, such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles, was down to lacklustre teaching. They were all so unengaged and plodding. Maybe I should give it another go?
I think it’s worth giving classics another shot, sometimes. I found I could suddenly persist with James Joyce’s Ulysses when my daughter was studying it at university and tipped me off that if I imagined it with an Irish accent, it would be much more likely to click. It worked!