How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

I saw the title of this book and thought, "Now why
would I want to read literature like a professor?"
which was probably a reflection of my professors
who sucked the passion for reading literature right
out of my veins. Too bad I didn't havev a
professor like the author if this book!

(I do have to mention the one section that upset
me, though - where he supposes that 45 year olds
are somehow to old to increase their self-knowledge
as a "Quester"...this was in his summary of
"Every trip is a quest." I beg to differ on this
one... and in fact, I wonder how many of this
books readers are over 45 years old and are
actually questing through reading this book
and applying the principles found therein?)

So now that this one opinion of "The Professiorial
Doubting Thomas C. Foster" set aside.... I will also
say that this book was eye-opening and evocative and
nearly each page had something wise that I could
immediately use and apply to my own learning
process and discovery as both a reader and a writer.

Writers would find a lot of gold here, too - so
I strongly suggest it be added to any writer's
library as well.

You will read smarter and write smarter after reading this book. A must for understanding the underpinnings of good literature. Foster's presents the material in a friendly, breezy, easy to understand and compelling way. I couldn't put it down, didn't want it to end.

Reading for hidden meaning in terms of symbolism, etc., has never been my strong point, which is why this book interested me. And I am certainly glad I read it. I did pick up a few ideas on how to look and what to look for in literature. I'm afraid that I did not delve so deeply or see everything there was in the test case at the end, so I probably will never be cut out to be a professor of literature. But this book definitely brought some things to the front of my mind. I imagine it will pay off in terms of deepened appreciation some day.

The author mentions in the last chapter that he realizes that his book might be a bit rambly and idiosyncratic. I'm glad he and I were on the same page! The chapters had a tendency to wander, and they were, on the whole, a little longer than they needed to be.

I had mixed feelings about his habit of pointing to specific examples. I realize that there was really no other way to go about illustrating his points. And sometimes it worked well, but other times I felt very annoyed and frustrated that I had not read the book and didn't always understand exactly what he was talking about. I couldn't really predict which way my feelings would go about the example texts, so I don't know if it was him or me. But it did seem sort of hit or miss.

I do appreciate the author's effort to keep his guide 'lively and entertaining'. He did a good job, in my opinion. It was a fun book to read. Lively, entertaining, and quite educational. He provided quite a bit of food for thought. My favorite tidbit? Both A Raisin in the Sun and Damn Yankees contain Faustian plot elements. Cool!

This book blows.

Well, let us start from the beginning. I got this book for a summer AP Lit reading assignment, looked at the cover, and the first thing I thought to myself was, "Hmm, that's strange, I don't recall Huck Finn ever having the phrase 'how to read literature like a professor' on any page." Then I decided I'd stop staring at the cover like a fool and open the book and start reading the pages.

What I discovered was every chapter read like ad-libs. Not just any ad-libs may I add, it was like reading the same penciled in story over and over. Pretty much, it was like reading an essay a gradeschooler wrote. (Thesis, Body Paragraph 1, 2, 3 etc., Conclusion, Repeat on a New Chapter, and every once in a while there would be a few big words you had to look up and some italic words that symbolized your thoughts)

Look, we all know writers are in a class of their own and decide that everything will either be (A) a symbol, (B) somehow sex related, (C) relate to the past or (D) relate to religion. Just because you read this book, it doesn't mean whatsoever that you will become proficient in the art of spotting these things out, or even a proficient reader. All I got out of this book was now I can go to my friends, pull up my suspenders and straighten out my pocket protector as I say with honor, "This summer, I read an entire book on how to read books." So if you're looking to be bored by Mr. Thomas C. Foster, look no further and pick up this book

If you're a voracious reader of novels or stories, but not an English Literature Major, and often find yourself thinking "there's more going on in this story, but I can't figure out what" then this book will provide a great starting point for expanding your reading. Foster takes the uninitiated on an easy to follow quest through literary symbology, allusion, and theory. It focuses almost exclusively on reading, not on writing (though one can vastly improve one's writing by becoming a better reader). And the intended audience is the beginner (though someone who has never read a novel might not fare too well).

Foster's ideas may strike some as "out there". He reads stories and symbols on a very mythological level. And this leads to his easy to misunderstand notion of "there's only one story". By this he doesn't mean "there's only one plot" or "all stories are the same story" but something more philosophical such as "all stories belong to and feed off of the one big story" (something ineffably akin to existence and history). Thus stories and symbols take on recognizable meanings over time. They get embedded in culture and interact with other stories. The best examples he discusses involve the Bible ("Christ figures", floods, etc), Shakespeare, Fairy Tales, and Greek Mythology. Stories have the ability to tap into these culturally embedded notions and heighten the meaning of a plot or a character. This only works because "we're all part of the same story" and, subsequently, because "there's only one story". Originality, then, becomes a measure of how well a story taps into this wellspring of meaning and exploits it for purposes of its own meaning.

Foster presents this idea of one story as the source of literary allusion. He gives numerous examples to support this theory with various symbols, including: quests, vampirism, eating, rain and snow, violence, flight, disease, the seasons, and geography. His approach isn't a tyrannical one, either. He doesn't, for instance, say "rain is ALWAYS cleansing!!" Foster accepts the notion that symbols only suggest meaning, they don't dictate it. Symbols have fluidity. Different people may interpret "snow" in different ways (though bad interpretations do exist, as Foster also recognizes). And irony also throws a wrench into the narrative machine.

Other topics that receive mention include politics and sex. Foster points out that many covert political stories exist (in defiance of the "don't put politics into your fiction!" dictum). He uses Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" to eludcidate this. As for sex, Foster finds symbolic literary sex far more satsifying than outright portrayals of intimacy in stories. Why? Because sexual intimacy typically carries symbolic meaning for a story. It carries the plot forward.

Foster's book most of all encourages the questioning of a story. Why is the main character short or tall? Why is the story set in winter rather than spring or summer? Why do references to birds keep appearing in a story? Such questions lead a reader down the path of reading a story in a more broad way. Which should heighten the experience of reading.

The book's final chapter presents a "test case" in the form of Katherine Mansfield's short story "The Garden Party". After reading the story (included as a whole), Foster asks the reader to consider some questions and return to the text. He then gives interpretations of some of his students and finally his own reading of the story. For those that have never taken a literature course, this chapter probably provides the most benefit, especially regarding the "tools" introduced in the preceding chapters. Here he puts theory to practice.

In the end, Foster claims that this book doesn't represent the only, or even necessarily the best, way to read and analyze a story. So those who already have a literary background may take issue with his approach. But for the beginner this book presents a possible new dimension for reading, understanding, and judging stories. It should help to dispell the notion that literary teachers and professors just "make it all up." Most of all, it should provide a good launching pad, not a landing pad, for further reading.