Reincarnated the fiction reader in me

Well, it has been quite the journey. I entered this course expecting to dislike 80% of it since I no longer knew how to read fiction. I quit reading fiction a long time ago. Also, literature courses have a reputation of being torturous. But boy, was I mistaken.

The ability to choose my own grade while conveying my actual thoughts motivated me to do well. The absence of the pressure of “being right” and learning “the right way” pushed me to study the way that was best for me. This was incredibly refreshing for a first-year student who is still adjusting to university life and hoping to get her desired major.

While the novels initially caught me off guard and puzzled me, at the end of the semester, I can confidently claim that I know my way around works of fiction. We’ve done it all , whether it’s reading about twisted obsessions, illicit love tales, a teenager navigating society, toxic relationships, an exciting robbery, or a talking chameleon. My favourite book was “The Hour of the Star,” and while I can’t explain why, it did make me laugh a lot (YES, I KNOW I AM BORDERLINING SADISM). 

What surprised me was that I preferred psychological fiction over an action-packed thriller, “Money To Burn”. “Money To Burn” was arguably the most disappointing book I read, possibly because I had such high hopes at the beginning of the book, but as it progressed, I began to doubt them. But learning to read books we don’t enjoy is part of the process, right?

While death and childhood were recurring themes in this course, I enjoyed the theme of identity. While I was attempting to bring out the fiction reading side of my own personality, it was comforting to realise that the characters in the book were also trying to navigate their identities.

Overall, this was a wonderful course that a lot of other literature courses could learn from. This was a course that reincarnated the fiction reader in me.

Since I started with a question about the relation between books and movies, it’s only right to end with such a question.

Question of the (last) week: Of all the novels we read, which one do you think would make an intriguing movie or TV show?