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What was your favourite 'required reading' text?? I was lucky enough to study The Left Hand of Darkness in high school, and The Crying of Lot 49 in uni
I did English Literary Studies in high school and for Year 12 we had some solid selections: Things Fall Apart, A Doll's House, the poems of William Blake & Shakespeare. The only problem is that I'd already read all of the above save for A Doll's House... Never studied literature at uni.
In high school we read Catch-22, which of course being a 16 year old boy I loved, and my teacher suggested I compare-and-contrast it with J.G. Farrell’s “The Siege of Krishnapur”. Farrell’s three novels are everlasting faves of mine to this day.
In high school we had to write a bit on "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Oates and I think that was where I first got seriously invested in the act of analysis. Heart of Darkness was also a big favourite, plus the teacher screened Apocalypse Now for us which was great. I was a lit major so it's hard to choose a favourite from college. I hated going through Ulysses but that was probably the most worthwhile text in hindsight. I might be inclined to say a few issues of Blast, which we had to read as prep for Ulysses, and which I never would have cared for otherwise. My roommate and I found it inspiring / funny enough to start our own (short-lived) journal on campus.
I got to do a whole seminar on Ulysses. Would probably have never read it otherwise, but going through a chapter a week with discussion and secondary sources was great
Gosh, I wish I had this opportunity in uni. I've been meaning to give it a go but don't know how to approach it on my own.
One hundred years of solitude
Damn, I wish I was introduced to Ursula K. Le Guin in high school, that would have been awesome. Although, personally, I prefer *The Dispossessed* over *The Left Hand of Darkness*. Tbh I enjoyed almost everything we were required to read in high school. (I didn't go to university for literature.) It's hard to pick one or two works I enjoyed more than the others. The only book I *didn't* enjoy was *As I Lay Dying*, as I was pretty close-minded when it came to stream-of-consciousness prose at that age. (Faulkner still isn't my cup of tea, though; hopefully one day I'll learn to appreciate him!)
Going to concur below re: Hamlet and concur above re: Crying of Lot 49 (props to my freshman writing professor who pushed Pynchon on us louts). I'll also add King Lear and As I Lay Dying to the list. And as an oddball choice, Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild for a nature writing course.
Probably Hamlet. Or Heart of Darkness. But as a kid what I loved the most was Narnia.
Definitely 'Flowers for Algernon'