Revisiting School Reads

Despite schools being closed, it is nearing the end of the school year. For us, that means that we finished school approximately three years ago. Three years is probably long enough that we can now revisit texts we studied in class without automatically analysing every sentence and looking for key themes. So, here’s a list of books and poetry we studied at school that, hopefully, when we get around to rereading them, we will find that we enjoy them a lot more.

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

C: I remember doing this as a warm-up activity in English, we read through the poem and then were asked to jot down key themes and just discuss the poem. We were allotted twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, for this poem. I’m not a big poetry fan because of how we were taught poetry in school, however, as this is gothic and not romantic, I really want to give it another try to see if I do dislike poetry or just how it was taught. Also, I found an old book of Poe’s poetry and other writings, that feels like a waste if I don’t read at least the Raven.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

M: Great Expectations was our core text for A-Level coursework. We had to choose another book to compare it to and create our own essay question. Due to having already chosen my essay title prior to reading this Dickens novel, I don’t think I truly got to appreciate the book for what it is. I was constantly looking for themes and characters that I could compare between this and my chosen book. I think if I went back and read Great Expectations again now I would probably love it because I have always been a fan of Dickens’ work.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

M: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit was a text from our second year of A-Levels. I honestly don’t think I had ever read a book that I disliked as much as Oranges. But thinking back now I think this was definitely biased by the fact that I couldn’t stand the English teaching that we had for this text. Our teacher had her own religious opinions which felt very forced upon us when analysing this book which made it very hard to enjoy a book heavily based around pentecostal evangelism. Despite this, I am very intrigued to see that if I attempted to read this book again would I see it in a different light.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

C: This was one of our A-Level texts and I actually quite enjoyed studying it despite not getting to enjoy the story at face value. I know that some of my opinions on characters are based on who in our small class claimed their lines and related to them. I enjoyed the film when we watched it, but so much of that was tied up in the fact that we had an entire theatre for five of us and our friends who had free periods came to join us. I also have two copies of this play, one that I was probably supposed to give back, full of post-it note upon post-it note of analysis. I also have a clean copy, which is the one I will reread and hope that I can get through it without the urge to analyse the stage directions.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

C: Honestly, I don’t remember whether or not I hated this book or just my English teacher at the time. The teacher didn’t get on with my class and didn’t make reading this book any fun, just had us follow along as he read to the class. I remember it felt like it took forever to read. I was willing to write this book off as one I didn’t enjoy and would never read again, but then I saw how popular the stage adaptation was and thought maybe the book would be better without an awful teacher reading it at snail’s pace.

Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffy

M: If I’m honest I actually quite liked this anthology of poems by Carol Ann Duffy. The mix between personal poems and poems about women of history really intrigued me. I think the main reason why I haven’t picked this collection back up again is because I hardly ever read poetry. Mainly because of the way it was taught at school. Another reason also is that my copy of Feminine Gospel is covered in so many notes of analysis that I wouldn’t be able to read the poems without analysing all over again.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

C: I will admit that I have never read the original novel of The Woman in Black, so I suppose this isn’t a reread, but we studied the play in class. Unfortunately, it was the same year as The Curious Incident… and so it was with the teacher I didn’t like, but, I did enjoy the story. I saw the play at the same time and loved it. I would happily go back and watch and reread the play again and maybe even read the novel at some point too.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

M: Wuthering Heights was given to us to read over the summer between GCSE and A-Level. It wasn’t actually a text used for our exams but almost like a warm-up of sorts for our English Lit course. I actually quite liked the book when I read it in my own time over the summer. But as soon as we were in the classroom going over and over the text again that soon wore away. Also, I think due to being at the very start of our A-Level journey there were some people in the class that definitely didn’t want to be there which made class time harder until they ultimately dropped the subject.

C🌙 and M🌸