A lot of people read a lot of good books, but often find themselves wondering when they finish: what now? Is that it? There has to be more. The great part about books though, is that, more often than not, there is. In fact, there is so much more to books than what is printed that it's feasible that the combined analysis of, say, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Voltaire are probably more expansive than all the print in the world. Now, that might be a little bit of a stretch, but the fact of the matter is, literary analysis is infinite in nearly every way. There are so many opinions on just one scene of any given novel that some get lost trying to navigate through them to get back to the actual plot. This analytic confusion often discourages possibly brilliant minds from even attempting to think bigger and deeper into literature.
Enter...me. At the start of my high school career, I was put in an on-level literature class. Which was fine. I didn't much care. Then I got placed in on-level literature sophomore year as well. Still fine. Still didn't care. Junior year rolls along, still in on-level; but this year, the light turns on. I realize that I have the capacity to think more intellectually about various things than my peers. I start thinking more and more about why a character said something, whom they said it to, the wording, everything. I put so many pieces together that so many of my peers either couldn't or didn't care to attempt or even care about. Their lack of literary interest moderately frustrated, but recently I've started questioning why it bothers me so much. Was it that they didn't try? Was it that they didn't understand? What about the lack of intellectual depth in a person ground my gears? Then, I realized: the reason why I get so frustrated with people who don't care about literature or anything intellectual is because they haven't put forward any effort to trying to be intellectual. Understanding is no easy feat; everyone struggles with that. But I think some people don't put any effort forward to be intellectual because they believe that they can't, that their brains simply aren't strong enough to handle such an attempt.
If you're reading this right now, and you think that you're one of those people, listen very closely:
All those people who've told you you're not smart, that you don't have a chance?
They're wrong.
You haven't had the chance to become something greater because the opportunity has never presented itself to you. It's always been seemingly impossible. But this is where things change.
Enter this blog. This blog is meant to explain seemingly difficult books one bit at a time so that as many people as possible can understand them. I'll go through each book, categorize the chapters appropriately, and input what I think is a solid summary and analysis in an effort to clarify the book in a format that's easy to understand. However if you happen to be confused (which is completely okay; literature is very difficult most of the time), do not hesitate to contact me at nickseymour42@gmail.com so that I can not only help you, but also clarify for others who might have the same issue.
Below is the list of books so far. Each will be linked to a page containing links to each post about the book.
Thanks for reading,
Nick
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