Books you liked that you were forced to read in school

[Buckwheat]

Young Werther and Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe were the only two that I had to read in school among everything listed in this thread. I absolutely hated Werther, which almost bored me to death, and when I was supposed to read it again at unversity, I did not. Romeo and Julia was one of the first two books that we had to read in German (advanced German class, so to say), and the most I remember of it was struggling with the language ... I did not hate it, maybe that is something.

I cannot remember any that I loved and all my schoolmates hated though.

[Jo498]

I think one usually experiences literature quite differently if one is still somewhat struggling with a foreign language. Many people will hate whatever they had to do in Latin class because it was so darn difficult to translate so it's almost impossible to appreciate style, poetry etc. And it's probably similar in some French, English, German etc. classes (although that stuff may usually not be as tough as Horace or Virgil). It can sometimes be a shock going from simplified textbook stuff to an original text which, even with comments and/or dictionary feels *way* harder at first.

I remember that after we did "The third man" in school in that simplified version my mother gave me a Penguin original of Greene's "Our man in Havanna". Although I had been doing well at school this was virtually impossible for me to get through. I simply lacked the vocab after 3 or 4 years of high school English. I think I put it away and a year or two later it was o.k. although still not easy.

[Buckwheat]

I think one usually experiences literature quite differently if one is still somewhat struggling with a foreign language. Many people will hate whatever they had to do in Latin class because it was so darn difficult to translate so it's almost impossible to appreciate style, poetry etc. And it's probably similar in some French, English, German etc. classes (although that stuff may usually not be as tough as Horace or Virgil). It can sometimes be a shock going from simplified textbook stuff to an original text which, even with comments and/or dictionary feels *way* harder at first.

By that criteria, I should be hating A Storm of Swords. :P

But yes, I agree that it is quite different. I have a problem with shortened and simplified versions of classic literature in an effort to get students read it though. I think it is better to simply start with simpler texts (children's texts or so called "trivial literature" if necessary) till they have practised the language enough/are old enough to understand the original version than force it too early on them in the form of abridged versions.

[Yersinia]

I remember other kids bitching about The Grapes of Wrath in high school, but I liked it and had already read it before that.

The Sorrows of Young Werther, on the other hand... had to read it in college, and everyone was wishing that he'd just get on with it and put us out of our misery.

[Lyanna Stark]

The Sorrows of Young Werther, on the other hand... had to read it in college, and everyone was wishing that he'd just get on with it and put us out of our misery.

At least it has a happy ending? :D

[Yersinia]

At least it has a happy ending? :D

Hahaha.

This book may once have meant something to its readers, but add a couple of centuries, translate to another language (at least in my case), hand it to some cynical teenagers, and the result is a decided lack of enthusiasm.

[Corvinus85]

The Long Ships (Red Orm) - Bengtsson (I had a cool English teacher in 9th grade) This is seriously one of the best books I've ever read, I've read it probably 10 times.

I loved that book. But I read it for my own pleasure, and it's been years.

The fact is the only books I did read in their entirety as part of a curriculum were books I found somewhat or really enjoyable. Everything else, I only pretended to read. So the only one I can think of are Dante's Inferno and The Odyssey.

[Darth Richard II]

Dante's inferno? Faust? In HIGH SCHOOL?

[K-26dp]

The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird, all Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, MacBeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar), Mutiny on the Bounty, Brave New World, a whole bunch of great short stories of which "The Lottery", "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", and "The Story of an Hour" come to mind.

[HexMachina]

Lord of the Flies was a book I liked but for some reason the rest of my cpass seemed to despise. Shame. By contrast, they all seemed to love Of Mice and Men, yet I hated it. I also really enjoyed the play An Inspector Calls but most others were waiting for us to finish.

[Jo498]

Dante's inferno? Faust? In HIGH SCHOOL?

I do not know about Dante in Italy, but in Germany the first part of Goethe's Faust is traditionally read in the last (or second to last) year of the college-bound branch of secondary school (i.e. the students are about the age of US college freshmen, 17-19). Usually you also have to do at least a few shorter poems in middle high German (from the 13th century). Like maybe Shakespeare or Chaucer in Britain these are considered "national treasures" and at least the upper third in education is supposed to have encountered this stuff. (And in schools where Latin is an important subject also bits of Tacitus' "Germania" ;))

[sologdin]

we read prince of nothing in high school, and it roX0red.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I have only fond memories of the books I was forced to read in school, although maybe I've just blocked out the bad ones. Some good ones I recall are... Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, The Things They Carried, Ethan Frome, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men.

[Happy Ent]

Dante's inferno? Faust? In HIGH SCHOOL?

I believe Faust is standard reading in German high school, as is some Shakespeare play (in English), typically Macbeth.

No longer true?

I’m quite sure Italians read Inferno.

[Corvinus85]

Dante's inferno? Faust? In HIGH SCHOOL?

I believe Faust is standard reading in German high school, as is some Shakespeare play (in English), typically Macbeth.

No longer true?

I’m quite sure Italians read Inferno.

I don't know about Italians, but I read Inferno in my AP World Literature class in my senior year of high school.

[Jo498]

As I said, we didn't do any Shakespeare in English (Abitur 1991), but students focussing on English ("Leistungskurs", probably what is called "advanced placement" in the US) certainly had to read some; Macbeth is popular (because short), but also R&J, midsummer night's dream, Hamlet.

My most impressive claim to erudition may be the Classics track in my HS, although these were always "only" extraits:

Latin: (among others) Ovid: Metamorphoses, Sallust: Catilina's conspiracy, Virgil: Aeneis, some bits of Horace, Cicero, Augustine, Seneca, Tacitus: Annals, and (because our teacher was slightly crazy): On the nature of things by Lucretius, a poem in hexameters on atomism and Epicurean natural philosophy

Greek: Gospel of Luke, Socrates' Apology, Herodotus' Histories, Homer's Odyssey (we read the whole in German in addition to translating several of the more famous episodes from Greek), Sophokles' King Oedipus, and poetry by diverse poets.

[Jo498]

But yes, I agree that it is quite different. I have a problem with shortened and simplified versions of classic literature in an effort to get students read it though. I think it is better to simply start with simpler texts (children's texts or so called "trivial literature" if necessary) till they have practised the language enough/are old enough to understand the original version than force it too early on them in the form of abridged versions.

I actually quite enjoyed the abriged/reduced vocab versions of "The third man" and "Dr Jekyll" with 14 or 15 (I started English in school with about 12). They are still great stories (the third man is actually a movie script anyway) and far more entertaining than the textbook stuff about the British school system or racial tensions in the US...

Of course, English is a somewhat special case because the biggest hurdle for a learner is the huge vocabulary. For "passive" understanding of a written text the grammar is usually not a problem after three years of the language in school (compared to e.g. Latin).

[Woofless]

Bunnicula!

:lol:

[iBrian]

Henry IV, Part 1, by William Shakespeare. A great mix of humour and war, great characters, and an epic feel. :)

[lady narcissa]

I pretty much only have good memories of the books we had to read in high school. The exception is maybe Moby Dick which I absolutely hated and seemed to take forever to get through but everything else I enjoyed. We were lucky that we read a wide variety of books and that we had some literature electives where were could pick what we'd be reading. There were a lot of old school classics but we also had to read some science fiction and fantasy such as Easy Travel to Distant Planets and A Wizard of Earthsea.

Favorites that stand out that I enjoyed were The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, The Awakening, East of Eden, What Maisie Knew, The Turn of the Screw, The Age of Innocence, The Scarlet Letter, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Poe's short stories and poems, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Canterbury Tales, Lolita, and Madame Bovary.

And yeah, we also had to read the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Inferno our freshman year. Enjoyed those as well but that was the one year I really disliked my literature teacher as he much preferred teaching grammar to reading/discussing books and he sort of ruined that class for me despite the reading being enjoyable.