When I saw How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
I knew it was a book I wanted to read for many reasons. I'm a college student who writes papers constantly, so any hint into a professor's mind is welcomed. This blog is geared towards other college students (although my readership is actually quite mixed which I think is excellent!), so I thought it would be helpful to give a review of a book such as this. And I'm also just interested in literary theory (shocker) so I thought this book would give me so helpful insight. I was mostly right about this book, although I was a little disappointed.
While I love to read critical analysis, I was frustrated by the amount of analysis for books that I had never read (and in some cases, never heard of) before. Two good things did come out of this though: I decided I must read the Bible and I must read D. H. Lawrence because every description about him sounds fabulous. That being said, I'm not sure if the amount of literary analysis was necessary for Foster to make each of his points. I think he could have done less analysis for each topic and stuffed more topics, perhaps more obscure ones, into the book.
Which leads me to the set up of the book. I thought the book was really going to be more of a guide to reading passages, but it is actually just a list of topics that might come up within literature and then Foster's analysis of passages. Topics covered include quests, eating, vampires, sonnets, Shakespeare, the Bible, folklore, myths, and so on and so forth. There are 26 topics covered and a test case at the end of the book where you can see how much you have learned from the book. I have noticed that since reading this I am more aware of the presence of a few things, such as myths and Christ figures, but other things I really don't think I needed to read ten pages about... such as sexuality which I always find fairly easily. Must have been all that Sex and the City I watched in high school.
I wish the book would have included more concise lists for topics, which Foster does to for Christ figures. I love lists, and while a list is never truly complete it did help me to see things in list form rather than through his analysis because then I could get a better understanding of what he was trying to say even if I wasn't familiar with the piece he was talking about.
There was some beauty in the book though. I particularly liked his passage about how all literature is a continuation of One Story, "One story. Everywhere. Always. Wherever anyone puts pen to paper or hands to keyboard or fingers to lute string or quill to papyrus. That all take from and in return give to the same story..." (186).
This book earned a B.
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