Hullo there.

[oceanmotion]

Hi there, I'm new!

I'm seventeen and taking Eng Literature as an AS level, shortly continuing on to A level this summer and then hoping to take it further to Uni after that.
I came across this livejournal in a hope that I could broaden my reading to prepare myself for uni but also for my own enjoyment. I have been reading since I was very young but

Comments

[t3dy]

this is a difficult question to answer. eng lit is a huge field, it really depends on your interests and motivation. you should read stuff that appeals to you, but make sure not to read stuff that will frustrate/discourage: you should be reading stuff that you "get a lot out of" right now and developing study habits for future work. i would recommend learning to take notes early on, write study questions as you go, underline/bracket (or post-it if you don't write in books) bits in your text that you'll want to get back to

[oceanmotion]

Wow, thanks for being so detailed, I really appreciate it and have been taking notes. I'm desperate to become more knowledgable and better read especially as my form tutor/eng lit teacher is hell bent on sending me to Oxford, but I feel that I just don't know enough to compete with the kids that go there... for interview, let alone actually get in haha.

Yes, I often wonder if Ulysses is one of those books that you need experience of life to comprehend. I'm fairly familiar with the Bible and Homer and I know someone who has a PHD in the subject, so I don't know, see how it goes.

I've almost read all Shakespeares great plays and they continue to suprise me in how much they pop up in the context in modern life perhaps in discussion or argument.

Noone as witty as Wilde - well it was worth a try.
Right, thanks so much for your input, can't tell you how much it means... better get going then.

[t3dy]

happy to be of help. drop in anytime

[neigehilde]

Well, nobody might be as witty as Wilde, but you've got quite a streak of this "dandy" literature, which might be worth a try if you like the style. I personally do.
So -
collected stories by Saki
Pelham by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

If you like Austen you can go for some around-Austen digging like "Anna of the 5 towns" and the like ...
contemporary lit:
Ugh, I dunno if that's the kind of advice you'd care for, and it basically boils down to your personal likes and dislikes, but I'm a huge fan of Tom Stoppard plays(esp Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead). The "Last Samourai" by Helen de Witt was a staggering work, that I list among my favourites.

Are you only interested in the English literature or you don't mind a bit of french or russian as well?

And btw, what it is about Ulisses that every person making an introduction post in this community marks it as "I wanna try and read that". A proof of being an intellectual of the highest breed or what?!? It's getting repetitive.

[jane_doe_]

don't try ulysses yet. finish portrait (GREAT BOOK!!!!!) then try dubliners. or just read "araby" and "the dead" (my favorite short story)

i second tom robbins

have you read the critic as artist/artist as critic by oscar wilde? i loved it.

i recommend shakespeare's Richard III (it's one of his history plays, starts off as "now is the winter of our discontent"--it's a good one!)

as for romanticism, byron wrote a play called "cain" that i absolutely love--it's the adam/eve cain/abel story from cain and lucifer's point of view

kafka's _metamorphosis_

have you thought about american lit yet? we've got some awesome peeps: try zora neale hurston's _their eyes were watching god_ for instance, or hemingway's _in our time_ or _the sun also rises_ or t.s. eliot's poetry

louisa may alcott wrote an awesome gothic novel called behind a mask

contemporary lit: angela carter's _nights at the circus_

[oceanmotion]

It's interesting that (nearly all) your recommendation are works that I intend to read as soon as i have my exams out the way.

American Lit is definately something I intend to read but is something that there is just not a lot of in my house - strangley. I have read some J. D. Salinger though and enjoyed that very much.

Definatly take all you've said into consideration, thank you so much!

[yaarg]

Anna Karenina?

[icarus_]

t3dy pretty much hit it on the head... I'd recommend thumbing through a Norton to discover where your dark places of earth's literature lie. maybe even a "major authors" edition. big part about being well-read is knowing who goes where. you should be able to point out an artistic movement and historical era for pretty much every major author, and know their spiel. if you don't have a summary knowledge of english history I'd recommend some history, but if you're 17 you're probably taking it now in school. I second t3dy's recommendation of secondary sources, but don't read anything "too new." Start with older schools of criticism and leave the postmodern stuff for college. I recommend landmark texts such as Wayne Booth's "Rhetoric of Fiction," Brooks & Warren's "Understanding Poetry" (for a great introduction to New Criticism's approach to poetry), and Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" (my personal favorite

[oceanmotion]

I love Woolf, I've read Orlando and Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse is by my bed and I have a short list of other works I need to read.
Kafka is also v. high on my list.

Critism, right, get me some of that. I've taken down your recommendations. Thanks for your input! "Well-read" - thank you, but really I'm far from, which is why I'm here subjecting myself to titles and authors galore! :)

[icarus_]

also, it struck me later today that I would have loved to have had a better knowledge of philosophy going into college.. I'd recommend a basic history of philosophy text. It's important to know the bigwigs and how they affected intellectual history, which in turn constitutes/affects/is affected by each period's literature..

[oceanmotion]

Yes, I thought that too, which is why I'm taking Philosophy as an AS to accompany my A2s in September. The course looks really good, I'm so far glad I've chosen it.