Books Ruined Because You Were Forced to Read Them

[amykhar]

Are there any books (or authors) that you will always hate because they were rammed down your throat at school?

John Steinbeck is an author that I can't stand now because of having to plow throgh so many of his books in Junior High and High School. Even thinking about the Grapes of Wrath makes me shudder.

Amy

[CurtisEdmonds]

The Scarlet Letter , of course. The English teachers of the country have been harder on poor N. Hawthorne than anyone I can think of. (Not that he doesn't deserve it.)

[amykhar]

I just thought of another one:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice

of the huntsman? ...

I had to read that poem at LEAST three times in school. It's bearable the first time, but the repeats were horrendous.

Do kids still read Evangeline in school?

Amy

[eplovejoy]

If they don't, they're lucky. Every time I think of having been forced to read that one, all I can think of is the title of one of its chapters: "Gloomy Forebodings of Ill." Yep, that about sums it up.

[jsgoddess]

There is an author. One author. One hideous, repulsive, if-he-weren't-dead-I'd-consider-killing-him-myself author.

The book: Absalom, Absalom!

The author: William Faulkner

The result: the only book that was ever assigned me that I didn't finish.

Blecch.

Julie