Pleasantly Surprised

This semester in our Entry to English Studies course -- an entry course like no other -- we used digital platforms to enhance our study of literature. I'll say it right now: this course proved me wrong in a myriad of ways. Kind of a negative overarching theme, right? I actually don't think so. In this blog post, I want to illustrate the ways that my personal literary identity changed, or rather, expanded in order to let the digital age (and other things that used to bore me) in. I will explore my progress in terms of traditional ways to understand literature and in terms of the future of literary studies. 

Traditional Literature Studies

The main change I see in myself in reference to traditional literary study is being more open to subject matter and genres that I used to think didn't hold much relevance in my personal life. A great example of this is my personal study of the novel Heart of Darkness. I was not initially thrilled to learn that we would be studying Heart of Darkness, because the first time I read that novel, I just wasn't impressed. I was a senior in AP Literature, I was stressed about college applications, and I absolutely loathed the movie Apocalypse Now. However, this semester, as we studied the novel while also studying different literary theories, and reading other students' interpretations of the novel based on Marxism, reader response theory, cultural studies, etc. spiked my interest, and I began to see the novel as more of a vehicle for Joseph Conrad to make many different statements about society, etc. It was fascinating for me to see all of the different lenses by which we could interpret Heart of Darkness, and I realized that the novel was quite interesting to me when I read it through the lens of feminist literary criticism. Reading about different literary theories opened my eyes to the critical conversations that are already going on about novels, epic poems, and more. Critics are constantly finding more things to be said about books and poems that were written years ago, and they, along with their theories, help me to see how these things are relevant in my own life. Just because I don't personally enjoy a certain author's style doesn't mean that his or her work doesn't deserve my attention. More examples of this kind of enlightenment occurred when we analyzed the York Mystery Plays, wrote our own sonnets, and more. 

I've been pondering something that is very sacred to me for the past couple of weeks, and though the subject matter is dear to my heart, I realized that I hadn't thought too much about it before this semester at university.

The question is this: why do I read? But really, why?

Sure, in school I have to read certain books to understand material that I will be tested on/ need to write about and I'm motivated to get good grades, but what I'm really talking about here is why do I read when it's just for me? 

 

As reading moves into the digital age and devices like the Kindle and platforms like Goodreads and Amazon are becoming ever-more prevalent and their presence ever-more felt, this is an extremely important question. It's important because when your reading life moves to social media, what does "just for me" mean? It isn't just for you anymore- you're sharing it with the world. You're sharing it with the world before you even begin to read a certain book! What motivates us to read now and what will in the future, when Goodreads and Kindle usage are undoubtedly the norm? How do we balance our social media sharing and interaction with our own genuine relationship with a text? 

One Does Not Simply Write a Review

Trying to write a book review for Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was difficult because I was so worried about sounding like an idiot. I gladly did some perusing of others’ reviews on Amazon and Goodreads in order to get a better grasp on what makes a good review. I found that the best reviews contained at least one of three essential things – personality of the reviewer, quotes from the book, and a reason for the rating.

A personality is someone’s outlook on life, an attitude, a way of thinking and doing. I could take a book summary review and form an opinion of my own, but I’d rather read purposeful sentences written by another human being about why he or she loved or hated a book. A review should have a personalized view of what the book meant to you, the reader. 

Next to personality is the importance of quotes in a review. For example, a review that says something like “Heart of Darkness was dark, dreary, and powerful” doesn’t actually show that the reviewer read the book (SparkNotes, anyone?). Providing evidence from the text to show why it’s dark or why it’s powerful gives the author of the review credibility and an edge. I say edge because those quotes are typically preceded by or followed by a solid reason of how that specific quote affected the book reviewer’s life or how that specific quote centralized the main message of the book.

Last, but certainly not least, is that a good review must provide a reason for the rating. If I give a 1-star rating, I better back it up. For example, let’s say your friend walks into your room and asks, “How does this shirt look with these pants?” and all you say is “bad”. Your poor friend is going to walk away dejected and not sure why he or she doesn’t look good. But if you say “it doesn’t look good because your shirt is on backwards”, your friend is going to walk away with the decided purpose of fixing the problem. The same goes for a review; the rating given needs to be back up by good reasoning. Quotes and explanation of the quotes are great ways to provide that reasoning.

When I found reviews with these essentials, I automatically liked them. The personality aspect lead me to want to find out more about the author of the review. I went to profile pages of the reviewers and found that the most credible reviewers contained several books on their virtual bookshelves, but more specifically those bookshelves contained several different genres – this shows that the author of that review is experimental in their reading and will be able to compare and contrast different books. Another important aspect in a reviewer’s credibility is their “about me” section on their profile. It shows their level of education, their love of books, or even their love of critiquing books.

After my study of reviews I was ready to post my own review of Heart of Darkness on Amazon and Goodreads, and then Facebook via Goodreads. I tried engaging people in their reviews, but it’s all one-sided at this point, and I haven't received much feedback on either platform for my own review. I did, however, receive 3 “likes” on my Facebook (one from my sister and two from friends in Las Vegas)! Hey, it all starts somewhere. I also decided to join a network called Literature Network Forums so that I could try and get some more feedback on my specific review. I created a profile and posted a new thread on the forum called “Write a Book Review”. I got one comment! I thanked the commenter for his comment and asked him a question too, but haven’t heard back yet. I like this forum because you can also see how many people have viewed your thread or post (106 views for my review!).



It’s exciting and a little nerve-wracking to post a review because it shows a lot about who you are as a person. I tried to shape my review after the essentials I found in my research of good reviews. Here's a link to my review! Let me know what you think!