Literature Courses

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I once took an introductory literature course in college. It was a lot like my high school lit classes, with the 'class discussions' mostly consisting of the teacher telling us what the author said between the lines. I did well in this class, mostly because I paid attention and took lots of notes. However, one assignment consisted of reading a short story and analyzing the meaning/symbols of it without any help. I choked and never even managed to write down some BS. I turned in nothing.

When I read a story, I don't look for deeper meanings or themes, nor can I discover them on my own. I am wondering if this could be because of my AS, or do many normal people have this problem, too?

I know someone who has that problem and is probably an aspie as well.

I'm an odd one, so I dunno. If I can relate to the author, I can shock the professor with my ability to get inside the authors head. If the author is a person who is 'really saying' something that I disagree with or don't relate to, I just block it out. Or I might see symbolic meanings that aren't actually there. That's when I need to take notes...

Normal people seem to have normal problems with lots of things...I dunno much about them hehe...I've noticed that Aspies tend to be less literature oriented and much more math/science. Logic versus open endedness...

I don't relate, but I think you're in the right company here

Red

I cannot deal with lit. I hate it. I am good at almost everything else but lit. Whenever I look at the page I just see empty words. I dunno, I also cannot wrap my head around it and I choked in my lit class too. I cannot make sense of symbolism, it just seems senseless to me, things are what they are. I think I am in the same boat as you are when it comes to literature, its meaning is something I am blind to, I see that which I read but I cannot see any deeper meaning, I might see an interesting tale but I cannot draw these conclusions.

I really cannot say whether or not it is an aspie problem. I do know that despite my strong English ability I ended up having one of the worst times in lit out of my class. So, it could be an aspie thing.

If my memory is correct I failed every literature class in high school. I then
got a GED. In college I did not take literature . For that matter I took mostily
Math & Science and only completed 3 years. If my chemistry book and literature
book had been the same size i would have glued the literture books cover on
my chemistry book. So the teacher would think I was doing "literture".

I can't read most literature without dozing off, in the past the only way I've managed to get the 'point' of the book was to read analysis from sparknotes etc.. It's kinda like how I view most smalltalk - My brain discards most of it without realizing what it could influence later on...

If I read books which are non-fiction/border on non-fiction, I find it quite easy to get. I tend to excel at real world stuff like that..

I did well in literature classes while I was in school, but they were extremely difficult and time-consuming, and probably contributed to my dropping out of college (note: English major is not a good choice for slow readers). For analysis, I found it helpful to treat each story as a puzzle I needed to solve, and look for clues as I read. Always helpful to identify a pattern the story shares with some other story I've read.

I think that literature is really cool.

I'm great with literature....really suck at maths, but great at literature, mind you i've been a bookworm, from a really young age, and one of my obsessions is reading fiction so i've had alot of practice. It is true that stories are a kind of pattern, also the history of fiction is fascinating. I used to particularily like fairy stories and legends when i was a kid. I find getting into the heads of charectors easy and really enjoy loosing myself in a book, but symbolism i just find a bit annoying. I've never been a fan of analysising fiction. Stories should be read and experianced not chopped in to little pieces.

Yeah, looking for (apparently) non-existant "deeper meanings" can be kind of frustrating, especially when everyone else seems interested in them. The thing is, I can sometimes get an understanding of the author that borders on empathy, which thus gives me a sort of insight into some literature. I am also tremendously good at the fine art of B.S. ("Uh... Wuthering Heights represents the... id. It's a very id-like place. And that's what Heathcliff is, folks. The id personified. So it's really no wonder that he lives at Wuthering Heights because he's an id person and that's an id place." - Me on the supposed psychoanalytical aspects of Wuthering Heights). So I've always done well in English and lit classes as long as I've kept my mouth shut and not let anyone KNOW that I think almost everything about them is full of it, which is admittedly hard to do.

I especially love how all of my high school English teachers had their own "agendas." Further proof that most forms of literary analysis are entirely subjective and reveal more about the person who uses them than the actual book.

I HATED wuthering hieghts. And i couldn't stand Healthcliff or Kathy.

However i read Jane Eyre about a hundred times....
( i know they were written by different sisters...but all the other bronte books i read were ok, just not WH)

Same here, actually. The fact that I hated it made it even more necessary for me to use my sophistry techniques on it. I'm usually unwilling to go on in that manner about books I actually like.

Jane Eyre. Hm. Y'know, WH made me never want to read any more literature of that style, but I might give that a try at some point... or be forced to give it a try by my college (Great Books program).

I loved Jane Eyre, but then I read Villette, which left me horribly depressed for a couple of weeks...

I do think that analysis sucks all the fun out of reading.

I'm like you - have trouble seeing themes in books.

I saw an interview of Bob Dylan once. He said people read into his lyrics things he thought were not there. Sometimes he just writes lyrics cause they sound good - no underlying meaning intended.

I wonder if some books are like that.