... About English Literature.

As I have once said, "English Literature puts the 'anal' in analysis and the 'screw' in scrutiny" (or rather screw-tiny!). But before I can carry on with the point of today's post, allow me to apologise for going MIA for the past three months (or was it four?). Can you accept this photo as a token of my sincerest apologies?

You WILL accept this photo as a token of my sincerest apologies.

Anyway, back to English Literature. I'm taking English Literature for my A-Levels, and if there's one thing to be said about Lit : it's not the flipping same as what we did for SPM in high school. In high school, where students were given a choice between reading the shittiest play in existence or having your creative soul crushed by mark schemes (personally, I would have gone for the thumb screws) , this is a whole new ball game. Back in high school, we read this children's book called 'Step By Wicked Step'. It wasn't a bad book, really (save for the bit where there was this baby named Dumpa. Up 'til today, I still will never forget the fictional baby's misfortune of being given a name as such) but while schools everywhere had 17-year-olds reading George Orwell or John Steinbeck, Step By Wicked Step was meant for six-year-olds. Being the pretentious pseudointellect that I try or claim to be, this is clearly beneath me. For one thing, we were expected to memorise values and morals from the book, recitable characteristics and such but English Lit in A-Levels is ... unbelievable, to say the least. We analyse everything we could get our hands on; to the point of my teacher telling us that the glasses used in a play symbolises the main character's preference to submerge herself in hazy blurry disillusionment rather than clear harsh reality - that's what the play was all about, really : disillusionment. But the depth someone has to go to just to get an A* is intense, because figuring out all that from just a pair of glasses is ... deep. If it went any deeper, it would have dug a hole straight to China. I enjoy it a lot, though, because it gives me a chance to showcase and nurture my more mature and critical side. Kidding. I'm there because some of the books we study focus heavily on sex and I've gotten pretty raunchy a fair few times just from reading it. Also, by taking English Lit, I feel like some pompous twit who reads. There is something about analysing text that has turned me into a snob of sorts - like I get this annoying feeling of superiority (the same kind of feeling that comes after watching a French film or The Artist) whenever I tell my friends that I take English Lit. Of course, this feeling also comes with questions that it's a soft option and that Lit takers spend all day reading. 

Someone get me a monocle and a swordcane, please?

Thin Lynn has thunk.