Staff Picks: Didn’t I Read That in School? : Classics Worth Revisiting
by emjane
I read some wonderful pieces of literature in high school and undergrad – but when the reading is homework, I often didn’t spend the time it takes to fully appreciate both the writing and the story. Plus, the more life experience I gather, the more opportunities I have to consider a story from multiple perspectives. Here are some titles I felt were worth a reread!
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston| Request Now
Their Eyes Were Watching God has an ideal balance of beautiful description and a compelling plot, and all that was wasted on me when I sped through it in undergrad (a term with three literature classes sounds lovely, but is TOO MUCH!) Thank goodness I was spurred to pick it up again so I could participate in an AADL Book Club Discussion.
Hurston hooks the reader in immediately by beginning at the end, with Janie, the protagonist, returning home without her love Tea Cake. Janie, talking with her friend Phoebe, begins to tell how her life brought her to this point, beginning all the way back to her first marriage. A complicated love story, Their Eyes Were Watching God reads differently as a thirtysomething than it did as a teenager. Perhaps I’ll pick it up again in another decade or two and bring yet another perspective. The writing is good enough to warrant the reread!
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee | Request Now
None of you need me to describe the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird, as I imagine nearly every reader has, at the very least, heard the book discussed, if not read it themselves. Or maybe you saw the fantastic film adaptation starring Gregory Peck. But let me recommend the experience of re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
The first time I picked up the book, I was in fifth grade, and was all about Scout and Dill’s (and Scout and Boo’s) friendships. The second time I read this book, I was a freshman in high school, and was drawn to the drama of the court scenes. The third time I read this book, I was in undergrad, and appreciated the complexities of race and the role Atticus played as a public defender. In every read, I cared so much about the Finch family and pulled into the immersive setting of Maycomb, Alabama.
Don’t even get me started on Go Set a Watchman – Harper Lee only intended to publish one book and that is the only one I will read. But read it and reread it I will. Who knows what element my next go at it will bring forward?
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald | Request Now
When The Great Gatsby entered the public domain in 2021, the NPR show Planet Money read the entire book aloud as an episode of their podcast. Previously, I mainly associated the book with the hardest scantron test of my high school career, but my husband spent the 4.5 hours listening to Planet Money’s rendition and said, “you’ve really got to give it another chance.”
And so I did. When not racing to read Gatsby between history papers and biology lab reports, you can take time to resonate with the simple beauty of Fitzgerald’s prose. Though the book is occasionally dated – particularly one incredibly antisemitic characterization—the relevance of many of the big ideas, such as the impact of wealth and class, and the struggle to find yourself resonate just as much in 2022 as they did in 1925 when the book was initially published.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison | Request Now
This is the only one on the list that I didn’t read in school – though I was inspired to pick it up a few years ago when there was a community push to remove it from my high school’s library (that, fortunately, was ultimately unsuccessful!)
Toni Morrison excels at writing fully-formed characters the reader instantly cares for, and The Bluest Eye is no exception. Telling of the girlhood of our narrator Claudia, her older sister Frieda, and Pecola—a poorer girl fostered with them—The Bluest Eye deals with issues of the transition of girlhood to womanhood, race and the feeling of “otherness,” and poverty. Though not a “happy read” by any means, it’s a world worth delving into and taking time to develop empathy for the struggles of the characters.
This look into a growing-up that was very unlike my own could have been of value when I was in high school, especially if fostered in my reading by the guide of a good English teacher. But it was absolutely still worth picking up with an adult, especially since I had an engaged book club to talk through the story with. (Want to discuss it with your own book club – we have a Book Club to Go you can request!)
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