Which Books Did You Hate in School but Enjoyed in Adulthood?

[HVC]

I had to read to kill a mocking bird twice (two different high schools and school boards) so at least in Ontario it appears Harper Lee is a thing.


Although not a book, we also did a section on the scopes monkey trial in English class. Both watched the film and read articles and the like. Which is kind of funny I guess, because it was a catholic school, but as a general rule Catholics aren't strict creationists. Although that might vary in the states, your Catholics are weird and contaminated with their close proximity to Protestants

[Jacob]

Yeah we read two of those authors in my high school - To Kill a Mockingbird and Grapes of Wrath. I don't recall if we read Huckleberry Finn or not. I think I read it at some point, and I don't think I would've read it if it wasn't assigned... but I'm not sure.

I think some folks read some F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I don't recall doing so myself.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I read Steinbeck for school - I think some people had The Great Gatsby. I think To Kill a Mockingbird is an option on the curriculum, so some schools will do it - but I read it at school. It was a book that we were aware of and were told this is good for your age group.

I don't think you'd get Twain on the curriculum here - but I could be wrong.

At school we did not touch Beowulf or Chaucer You might get sections of Heaney's Beowulf, and also Simon Armitage's Gawain and the Green Knight. But Middle English, Medieval Literature etc was very much something I only had at university (when you werre expected to read it in the original). I don't think Huxley is that widely taught or read either.

[OttoVonBismarck]

That's interesting on not being taught Beowulf or Chaucer, AFAIK they are still standard units in most American K-12 curriculum. Now, mind you again--they are absolutely not teaching teenagers Beowulf in the original Old English or Chaucer in the original Middle English. They generally teach translations, and then try to contextualize the links between Old and Middle English and modern day English.

I fact checked myself a bit and from scattered sources it looks like Beowulf is still taught heavily in America to this day, so my experience was not an outlier--by some accounts it is one of the most commonly taught stories in English literature classes.

I think part of its popularity is probably also that it is a story that is easy to get kids engaged in. It's about a dude who kills monsters and fights a dragon.

[Sheilbh]

Just looked and you might do it in primary school:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/english-ks2-ks3-beowulf-index/zfbhpg8

But this is obviously not the actual text or for the language. Other examples for that age group are Greek myths, Wind in the Willows etc.

In fairness you might do a bit of Chaucer. For poetry you'll get given the exam board's anthology so it may include a sample - but it won't be a standalone, Canterbury Tales style thing.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, we definitely learn a number of major Greek myths, and the Iliad / Odyssey.

[The Brain]

I enjoyed reading Shakespeare in school.

[OttoVonBismarck]

That surprises me that non-English countries would study Shakespeare in primary schooling.

[Sheilbh]

Or at all to be honest.

I hope French kids don't have to read Shakespeare.

[Gups]

But it makes me curious--do Canadians or British (or I guess even Aussies and New Zealander) children learn any American authors at all? In American schools several American authors are almost ubiquitously taught: Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald probably being the "big four", or are they largely just considered "American" authors and not of interest to children's literature education outside of America?

I think largely the latter in terms of formal education. Steinbeck and Lee may get a look in but not for all exam boards.

On the other hand, they are widely read here by bookish types. Certainly I read TKAM, Huck and Tom Sawyer as a child and most of Steinbeck plus Gatsby in my 20s. Hemingway is also popular

[celedhring]

There were all those "Classics simplified for English learners" versions they made us read in English class, but that's about it 

I mean, big foreign authors were adressed in our literature courses, so we had an idea of who they were and their role in the history of literature. We just didn't read anything from them. Incidentally, North-American writers were largely neglected compared to European ones.

To be frank, it would be a bit pointless to make Spanish high-schoolers read somebody like Shakespeare - it would have to be a Spanish translation and then what's the point? (I'm not a crazy purist against people reading translations, I'm just against building lit courses around that).

College was different though, particularly given my degree. One of my favorite courses was about misé en scéne that was essentially reading Hamlet, analyzing it, and then comparing it to how it was rendered by Brannagh.

[Jacob]

Yeah I had no exposure to Chaucer or Beowulf, but we read Brave New World. It was an interesting contrast to 1984.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, famous non-English authors are certainly "mentioned" in American education, but I don't think translations are part of most curriculums. A lot of "bookish" American kids probably read some translated Dumas for example. Goethe is probably someone that is "mentioned" as a famous foreign language author but translations aren't taught.

[The Brain]

We didn't read full Shakespeare plays in high school English class. Just some monologues and sonnets IIRC. But then we were in the science program, I don't know what the humanities program people did.

[Sheilbh]

To be frank, it would be a bit pointless to make Spanish high-schoolers read somebody like Shakespeare - it would have to be a Spanish translation and then what's the point? (I'm not a crazy purist against people reading translations, I'm just against building lit courses around that).

I will say though that big foreign authors were adressed in our literature courses, so we had an idea of who they were. We just didn't read anything from them. Incidentally, North-American writers were largely neglected compared to European ones.

They weren't really covered - I think the only non-English language book I remember reading at school was Diary of Anne Frank. But if you were a bookish kid () and read books in translation outside of the curriculum that would definitely be getting you extra marks. They're definitely mentioned though.

At university it English Literature so they were even stricter. You couldn't include texts in translation unless you were writing about the translation (Pound's Chinese poems, Pope's translation of Homer). I think it couldn't be more than 1/4 of a course reading list so I did one unit on the Poet as Witness which included some Spanish poetry from the Civil War and some Celan, but it was limited.

As you say I can see the point especially in a literature class.