Book Question

If a book does not say it is a abridged it probably isnt right? I HATE
reading abriged books.. would be like reading cliff notes:P onely book I
almost read that way was beowolf.. I hated that book.

toypup...

I really have a hard time with Beowolf. Ugh. It was awful. I just
couldn't get into it enough to even know what I was reading. Maybe I'm just
not into language. I didn't get it. Never got the Cliff Notes, because I
wanted to tackle it myself, but I probably needed it.

Tori M...

I never got the Cliff Notes either but I sure was tempted. It was a "perky"
first year teacher and I just hated every single moment in her class..
Really. The first assignment for the year was to Draw a picture of what we
thought Beowolf would look like.. WHAT!! it was 12th Grade.. I didnt do so
well that year.. it was the class that she wanted us to write a paper about
ourselves every week.. I usualy wrote about how I dont write papers about
myself to 12 grade teachers.

toypup...

LOL. What was her comment about your papers?

Tori M...

Dont really remember but she went on and on about how they would expect that
sort of thing in college.. I think it was a writing assignment in college..
I think I only followed the true spirit of the assignment a few times and
then it was only because I was feeling off.. I honnestly did not think it
was any of her business.. lol

toto...

Try having it read to you in the original Middle English. Our senior
English teacher did that because she wanted us to get a feel for how
it sounded. The version we read had annotations throughout it.

Tori M...

The version we had was the Middle English.. I could not stand it.. it made
my brain bleed.. ugh

Vanessa...

UGH! My senior English teacher made us memorize and recite as a test
grade the entire prologue to The Canterbury Tales in Middle Engish.
Surprisingly, this was the lady that inspired me to teach (but also
inspired me *never* to make kids memorize lines from *anything*).
V

Penny Gaines...

Somewhere my parents have a record (ie an LP/vinyl) of parts
of The Canterbury Tales being read aloud.

With things like Beowulf, so much depends on the translation.
An un-inspired translater could easily ruin any magic in the original.

Irene...

Hey - we had to do that, too! But, it was junior year English. She
told us it would be a good party trick someday. And strangely enough,
if you get a bunch of us together from hs, you may end up hearing us
try to stumble through it - quite amusing.

(I never had to read Beowulf)