How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface—a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character—and there’s that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you.
In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.
Customer Review: Put Down The Magnifying Glass
As a life-longer learner and literature major, I have spent years laboring over difficult, verbose, dry and authoritative texts that define and discuss literary symbolism. Reading too much deconstruction theory and word-specific analysis feels like getting so close to the words with a magnifying glass that the meaning of the words and sometimes the words themselves can no longer be deciphered. These tomes take seriousness to an exaggerated level, speaking down to the reader from great heights, perhaps the same heights Thomas Foster uses as an example from The Garden Party in How To Read Literature Like a Professor.
Suggestive of the second half of his title, A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Foster comes down from the heights of academia by speaking, not to his readers, but with them. And while this book is most suited to high school seniors or college freshmen as a friendly introductory text, it was delightfully refreshing to read. It felt good to put down the magnifying glass and see literature once again as basic and whole as it was meant to be. I felt as though I had pulled up a chair in Professor Foster’s classroom and had been part of a conversation, albeit a directed conversation.
Is Foster’s tone a bit arrogant? Sure it is - he is a college English professor and what’s a good English professor without a little arrogance? Isn’t that what we expect, after all? Are the concepts basic and used? Yes they are - there is nothing here that is new or revolutionary - but what a comforting feeling it was to walk again on a worn path.
Any non-student with the inclination to pick up this book on their own undoubtedly has a list of favorite authors and stories, and certainly will feel as though something is missing. But Foster repeatedly reminds his readers that a lot is missing from this book. As he explains, no book can encompass all of literary symbolism, or mention every story, novel, movie or poem worthy of mention. So although some readers might find his list of recommended readings somehow incomplete, it is nonetheless his list. As Foster points out very honestly, “I’m pretty sure I could have made this book, with not too much effort, twice as long. I’m also pretty sure neither of us wants that.”
Fosters concept of literature as play and his own word-play are as refreshing as the cleansing rains he outlines in his chapter on weather. Two of the best lines are from the end of his book, his “Envoi”:
“… don’t wait for writers to be dead to be read; the living ones can use the money. Your reading should be fun. We only call them literary works. Really, though, it’s all a form of play.”
As students of literature one tends to forget this, trudging through tedious and unpleasant pages because we are told that we must master certain classics; a list of some English professor’s doing. Foster further explains that, “… in fact literature is chiefly play. If you read novels and plays and stories and poems and you’re not having fun, somebody is doing something wrong. If a novel seems like an ordeal, quit; you’re not getting paid to read it are you? And you surely won’t get fired if you don’t read it. So enjoy.”
Which is his whole point, if you don’t like his style, his ideas or his words, don’t read his book. Otherwise - enjoy.
Customer Review: great book for students
This is a lively, friendly, entertaining book that is great for students. It discusses how to read, to to really read literature. But as a practiced reader I found that it didn’t teach me much, though it would be great for a freshman or sophmore.
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