Hell no. I have a completely unbroken track record of hating every single book that I have ever read for the first time as a class assignment, and have never found that a book I already liked was improved by this kind of dissection.
Maybe I’m the mutant. I know that your reaction is very common, but I attribute it to either the result of bad teaching and/or students being forced against their will to do something that they will therefore be very likely to hate. When I have been in classes with smart, passionate teachers, and the students were there because they were genuinely curious and not to fill a requirement, I’ve seen lots of minds get turned on in a way that extended past the end of the course and positively affected their enjoyment afterwards. I’ve also recommended books like Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers to adult friends that are avid readers and have had only positive feedback, some of it of the ‘profoundly changed the way I read for the better’ variety.
Maybe this is just my idiosyncrasy, but I think making the reader work hard when this isn’t absolutely necessary—in fiction, nonfiction, or anything else—is a failure of clarity, not a masterstroke of subtlety.
I don’t think very many people would disagree with you on that as a general principle. I certainly don’t. Not all difficulty is gratuitous though.
I’ve never taken an English or literature class voluntarily—it’s one of many subjects that I was permanently turned off to in high school and was glad to be rid of after I finished my gen ed requirements in undergrad. (Except English in the sense of fine points of grammar, vocabulary, etc. which I’ve reclassified as “linguistics” to be comfortable with it.) So maybe I was badly taught. But except for the part where I suffered during required English/literature classes and (maybe) developed a block about a handful of books that I might have liked if I’d run into them on my own, I don’t think I’m badly off for not having this sophisticated level of appreciation—given how I react when I exercise what artistic discernment I do have, and given how much fiction I find and enjoy without the help of literature instruction.
Not all difficulty is gratuitous at all! There are plenty of bits of content that would lose their impact if stated directly, for instance. But I think a large portion of the difficulty that is found in so-called classic literature is gratuitous.
Oh, for the love of chocolate-covered strawberries, never again. I spent a week in that sinkhole and am now mostly inoculated—I’ve read the majority of pages that catch my eye on a casual scan and don’t feel compelled to re-read them.
Maybe I’m the mutant. I know that your reaction is very common, but I attribute it to either the result of bad teaching and/or students being forced against their will to do something that they will therefore be very likely to hate. When I have been in classes with smart, passionate teachers, and the students were there because they were genuinely curious and not to fill a requirement, I’ve seen lots of minds get turned on in a way that extended past the end of the course and positively affected their enjoyment afterwards. I’ve also recommended books like Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers to adult friends that are avid readers and have had only positive feedback, some of it of the ‘profoundly changed the way I read for the better’ variety.
I don’t think very many people would disagree with you on that as a general principle. I certainly don’t. Not all difficulty is gratuitous though.
I’ve never taken an English or literature class voluntarily—it’s one of many subjects that I was permanently turned off to in high school and was glad to be rid of after I finished my gen ed requirements in undergrad. (Except English in the sense of fine points of grammar, vocabulary, etc. which I’ve reclassified as “linguistics” to be comfortable with it.) So maybe I was badly taught. But except for the part where I suffered during required English/literature classes and (maybe) developed a block about a handful of books that I might have liked if I’d run into them on my own, I don’t think I’m badly off for not having this sophisticated level of appreciation—given how I react when I exercise what artistic discernment I do have, and given how much fiction I find and enjoy without the help of literature instruction.
Not all difficulty is gratuitous at all! There are plenty of bits of content that would lose their impact if stated directly, for instance. But I think a large portion of the difficulty that is found in so-called classic literature is gratuitous.
I suggest self-study on the TV Tropes Wiki. ;)
Oh, for the love of chocolate-covered strawberries, never again. I spent a week in that sinkhole and am now mostly inoculated—I’ve read the majority of pages that catch my eye on a casual scan and don’t feel compelled to re-read them.