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A review by libraryzen
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster
2.0
Only useful for the 20 and under audience. If you have ever read How to Read a Book by Adler then you know all you need to read books.
The more non-fiction I read the more I realize that if it isn’t a how-to manual (gardening, home repair etc) or something required for one’s career then it’s really useless fodder. This book fits the self-help category for those who want believe they are smarter than others for interpereting the “deeper meaning” of a story. Yet the book points out obvious things anyone who has been half paying attention in life already knows. If it was assigned for a class then you may be young enough to find this book useful due to the lack of life and reading experience.
We all know that critical thinking skills are necessary in life which is why these interpretations are pointed out to school children, as adults don’t need them, but why ruin a good story by over analyzing it? Did the author stop to think that maybe the writer being discussed didn’t even have multiple deeper meanings buried in the text only to be truly understood by the chosen thinkers? Maybe they said it was spring because it was spring and that’s it. People read literature for the story and how it makes them feel period. This is why I hate book clubs. Just read the darn book and enjoy, stop analyzing it to death!
So to end with a quote from the book:
Freud: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Ayn Rand can also be quoted: “A novel (like a statue or symphony) does not require or tolerate an explanatory preface; it is a self-contained universe, aloof from commentary, beckoning the reader to enter, perceive, respond.”
The more non-fiction I read the more I realize that if it isn’t a how-to manual (gardening, home repair etc) or something required for one’s career then it’s really useless fodder. This book fits the self-help category for those who want believe they are smarter than others for interpereting the “deeper meaning” of a story. Yet the book points out obvious things anyone who has been half paying attention in life already knows. If it was assigned for a class then you may be young enough to find this book useful due to the lack of life and reading experience.
We all know that critical thinking skills are necessary in life which is why these interpretations are pointed out to school children, as adults don’t need them, but why ruin a good story by over analyzing it? Did the author stop to think that maybe the writer being discussed didn’t even have multiple deeper meanings buried in the text only to be truly understood by the chosen thinkers? Maybe they said it was spring because it was spring and that’s it. People read literature for the story and how it makes them feel period. This is why I hate book clubs. Just read the darn book and enjoy, stop analyzing it to death!
So to end with a quote from the book:
Freud: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Ayn Rand can also be quoted: “A novel (like a statue or symphony) does not require or tolerate an explanatory preface; it is a self-contained universe, aloof from commentary, beckoning the reader to enter, perceive, respond.”