Books I Was Forced To Read At School

Not long ago I wrote a post about the books I remember reading as a very young lad, from nursery age through to pre-secondary school.

I re-read this post recently and started thinking about the next step in my reading education. 

By the time I was ten I was reading quite a few adventure books aimed at young readers, many based on World War Two, which even in the 80s was a huge cultural reference point. I was also a fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, which were very popular at the time. (Do they still print those?). Others I remember specifically were The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, which was later made into a wonderful animated film called The Iron Giant; as well as Stig of the Dump by Clive King and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, both due in part to the wonderful TV series which were broadcast in the mid-80s.

But eventually, of course, the world of adult literature is forced upon you, usually at school. I've never really known who chose the books we were to read during our English Literature classes, but I'd like to think it was Mrs M. our teacher. She was a stern but fair lady, respected if not loved by our class. Not exactly a John Keating from Dead Poets Society, but still passionate about the work she taught in a "you may hate me now, but you will thank me eventually" type way. 

This is why I wonder if she set the reading lists rather than the school, because they seem very "her". We were set books that pulled no punches, books that threw you into the deep end of adult literature and expected you to collect the black brick from the bottom of the pool without drowning.

Now, there must have been Shakespeare. Isn't there always? But for the life of me I can't remember which we studied. Having re-read most of the plays since leaving school, none stick out as the ones I probably struggled to decipher as a 13 year old. But I do remember two other books specifically. And the first was also originally a play. 

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play about the unravelling of an American Businessman's life from his own point of view. The main protagonist, Willy Loman, is in his 60s and a long career as a travelling salesman has taken its toll, with his mental health, work and family life all questioned during the short span of the play. It ends with what he hopes is an extraordinary act of redemption giving meaning to his toils and a future for his sons for whom he has unreasonably high hopes.

Even as an adult the book is a dense and claustrophobic read, but as a 13 year old I found the tone strangely engrossing despite an almost constant sense of apprehension throughout the story, which was new to me. It was entirely different to anything I had read to that point and I remember the unsettling story stayed with me for a few days after I had finished it, the first time a book had given me that feeling.

Despite its dark tone, Death of a Salesman was a happy-go-lucky skip through the flowers compared to the next book served up by Mrs M. for our education.

Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, written 10 years or so before "...Salesman", seems as quintessentially English in its settings and motifs as Miller's play is American.

Essentially a thriller about a sociopathic teenage gang boss trying to cover up a crime in 1930s Brighton, the book is packed with themes of moral ambiguity and Catholic Guilt and I remember finding it wonderfully unsettling, a very different book to Death of a Salesman but with a similar claustrophobic sense of inevitability. As I read them it was clear neither book was likely to end well yet I was compelled to read on.

Despite being just 13 or 14 at the time, the books were certainly an eye-opener in terms of what I deemed enjoyable, expanding my teenage horizons somewhat.

The tone of both these books obviously resounded with me as I started writing myself. My first completed manuscript, still to see the light of day I must add, (though perhaps one day), was once read by a known author as part of the creative writing course I half completed in my early twenties. In her critique she said three things from which I took great heart as would-be writer.     

Firstly, that the main character of the book was a wonderful creation of whom she would love to see more in a published work.

Secondly, that amongst the chaos of the book there was a potentially excellent contemporary story in there just waiting for my talent and writing education to catch up with it. (will it ever?)

And thirdly, she found the story to be relentlessly and almost unbearably claustrophobic. 

I'm almost certain she meant this last point as a criticism, but I was thrilled and took it as great compliment. Which probably says a lot about me.  

So in the end Mrs. M was right... getting through these great classics of early 20th century literature as a thirteen year old may have been a bit of a struggle at the time, but it was certainly worth it in the long run and I do indeed thank her now.

Which books do you remember studying at school? Are any still amongst your favourites?