Studying saps the pleasure from reading

**YES Caroline Lallis**

As an English literature undergraduate, lifelong library occupier and self-confessed book worm, it would be understandable to assume that I love nothing more than, having read a book, to explore the deeper depths of its meaning through further study.

My idea of heaven should be breaking it into small theme and motif sized pieces, picking over every last metaphor, hyperbole and dramatic foreshadowing and analysing the remnants through the lens of Feminism, Marxism or whatever theory appeals, whilst indulging in a cup of tea and a biscuit.

However, I would question whether this process of studying and effectively tearing books apart actually ruins them for us.

We all remember the days of analysing what our then English teachers assured us were “classics”, deserving of our unappreciative teenage attention. Even back then, in the halcyon days where just pointing out a metaphor got you a red tick, let alone any attempt to link it to the deeper inner machinations of a character who actually represents the impact of consumerist culture on society, we could feel the enjoyment being sucked out of studying books rather than reading them. Like repeating a word over and over until it loses meaning, eventually thinking a book over and over renders the characters, plot and any general human interest as secondary to the grander themes which, we were assured, were entirely legitimate and not just invented in order to include it on the syllabus.

Does recognising the intricacy of Shakespeare’s language as a text make us more likely to want to watch a production of the play? Is it not more important to feel the impact of the strength of Jay Gatsby’s hopes and dreams instead of acknowledging that they are symbolised by the green light in _The Great Gatsby_? Are we better placed to understand Frankenstein by learning about the racial undercurrents of the gothic genre as a whole? Whilst my former English teachers would whole heartedly agree and as a Literature undergraduate I feel I should, it doesn’t always seem the case.

In fact, not only does the whole process risk ruining the books that we do study, it also risks the same for the ones that we don’t. As soon as we begin looking for deeper meaning, a two tier system appears where we separate the haves and have-nots of the literature world. A kind of snobbery of books emerges; studying makes you aware of what is considered “worthy” reading and what is not. Your reading experience of any lesser books is then ruined through “intellectual guilt”, where you feel remorseful for all the Dickens, Wordsworth or Bronte that you haven’t quite gotten around to whilst you were busy with your fifth Nicholas Sparks novel.

I was once told that explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog, and I think the same applies to studying a book. Whilst in all three cases you will understand the subject much more after poking around at its gruesome inner workings, the frog, the joke and, in this instance, the book, are then all dead. Of course, you will still be able to appreciate them, most likely far more than before, but whether you still enjoy them as much, if at all, I would highly doubt.

**NO Jonathan Pitman**

The argument stands that studying a book as part of an English course destroys your ability to enjoy it later on. I’ve heard the same argument applied to Media Studies: constant analysis of TV and film results in an inability to be sucked in by the magic of the big or small screen. Personally, I believe this to be a fallacy, and I want to make the case that it is in fact possible to enjoy a book after laboriously studying it.

During GCSE English, I spent two years analysing novels page by page. We had to read each chapter as a class, which in itself was enough to cause a breakdown, and then we would go back through every page and underline practically every word except ‘the’ and ‘of’. One poor book to suffer this treatment was Harper Lee’s _To Kill a Mockingbird_. I still have my copy and it looks like it’s been viciously attacked by a four year old with a stash of highlighters. The most frustrating part of the whole thing was not being able to read ahead; it was a requirement to make it a joint endeavour, a class effort to reach the top of Everest. Instead of focusing on the magic of the plot, the way Scout explored the race relations in her hometown in Alabama, we were to find examples of interesting language, make notes on the form of the novel and make character profiles. Torture.

From the picture I’ve painted, you might assume that I have never returned to Harper Lee’s novel. On the contrary, many times I have picked it up and given it a read, ignoring my scrawls from about six years ago, and have enjoyed it far more than I ever did during English classes. In fact, it provided a welcome distraction whilst looking after a suitably inebriated friend whilst on holiday in Greece. {{quote We may be bored to tears studying a book, but if the plot is captivating enough, it’s easy to forget the torture associated with it.}}

The best stories are the ones in which we get so absorbed that we forget ourselves, so it makes sense that to repair our relationship with a book, we need to forget our analysis of it. Nobody wants to be concerned with the significance of the imagery in Harry Potter; we just want to get sucked into a world of wands and trees that can whomp, whatever that means.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the English effect can actually improve your reading experience. As an English Literature student, I’m doing a module on 19th Century English novels. The reading list is huge, as might be expected, so I read the majority over the summer. When it came to analysing them in seminars, I found that I enjoyed the books all the more for applying criticism or theories to them. Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park was much more appealing and interesting once I had a better understanding of the social context in which it is based.

Overall then, I’m of the mind that studying a novel doesn’t result in the annihilation of all the possible pleasure from reading it. It can seem that way when you’re reading something just to get it out of the way, but ultimately the magic of a narrative can triumph any close analysis of it.