It’s uncanny how often you say what I’ve been thinking. Re-read (ok, skimmed) an Austen novel in January that hadn’t been opened for three decades. My teenaged handwriting touched and saddened me. So neat. And the naive enthusiasm for my discovery of IRONY on every page!!!
Heh, this is a post guaranteed to flush out the librarians among your readers -- Helen Barrell's comment could be mine, word for word (except for "we were allowed to take the novels into exams" -- what??). I recall my college library, like many others, used to have a Cabinet of Shame, containing books withdrawn from the shelves because of the copious annotations.
I, too, came across some of my own annotations to school and university texts recently, and ended up contemplating a back-garden auto-da-fé... They tended towards AMAZING!!, WHAAT?, and the occasional FAR OUT! (the language of literary analysis was different in 1972).
How interesting! We're moving house very soon and I've found some of my old school and uni novels which had my old underlinings in. We were allowed to take the novels into exams, so I tried to find a balance between underlining quotes that seemed pithy and might be a bit of a zinger in an exam essay, but without underlining so much that I wouldn't be able to find them!
I knew someone doing a law degree, who highlighted important stuff, but in a way that seemed counter-productive (to me) because they were highlighting most of the words on the page!
I work in a uni library and you'd be amazed how many people underline and even highlight things in library books. It annoys me so much (especially as assistive tech that can read the page can trip up on it). Sometimes they're quite funny, though, when you read a passage and it goes somewhere bizarre, and you find a comment in the margin: WHAT??? When I was a student, I saw someone had underlined a very bland sentence in one of these much-misused books and added my own comment, in capitals: WHY DID YOU UNDERLINE THAT??!
I've seen whole discussions going on in library books, like graffiti on a bus stop or in a toilet cubicle. "This book sucks." "No - you're just thick." Etc etc.!
Yes, those marginalia debates are intriguing. I wonder if the graffiti row is still going on in the ladies loo of the bodleian library (upper reading room)? Used to see screeds of vicious bookish comments on the back of the cubicle doors.
One of the best essay assignments I was set at university: What is the difference between a first and second reading of Emma? [Tribute to Bernard Richards, Brasenose, Oxford; not my college but I was very happy to be farmed out to him.]
I now only underline in pencil, obsessively. I feel ashamed, looking at books from years ago that have yellow highlighter or, even worse, red felt tip. Ah the idiocies of youth!
I think you might like Jeff's book Senses of Style, on Thomas Wyatt & Frank O'Hara but also about whatever could we mean by the word "style." I'm about to re-read it, and I've also been dreaming of rereading Forster, especially Howard's End.
It’s uncanny how often you say what I’ve been thinking. Re-read (ok, skimmed) an Austen novel in January that hadn’t been opened for three decades. My teenaged handwriting touched and saddened me. So neat. And the naive enthusiasm for my discovery of IRONY on every page!!!
love this
Oh so much IRONY in my O and A level texts
Heh, this is a post guaranteed to flush out the librarians among your readers -- Helen Barrell's comment could be mine, word for word (except for "we were allowed to take the novels into exams" -- what??). I recall my college library, like many others, used to have a Cabinet of Shame, containing books withdrawn from the shelves because of the copious annotations.
I, too, came across some of my own annotations to school and university texts recently, and ended up contemplating a back-garden auto-da-fé... They tended towards AMAZING!!, WHAAT?, and the occasional FAR OUT! (the language of literary analysis was different in 1972).
Sir, I guess you didn't think it necessary to mention Nabokov's famous comment about re-reading.
But what I'd like to know is what you think of Emma and Howards End now.
Merci.
How interesting! We're moving house very soon and I've found some of my old school and uni novels which had my old underlinings in. We were allowed to take the novels into exams, so I tried to find a balance between underlining quotes that seemed pithy and might be a bit of a zinger in an exam essay, but without underlining so much that I wouldn't be able to find them!
I knew someone doing a law degree, who highlighted important stuff, but in a way that seemed counter-productive (to me) because they were highlighting most of the words on the page!
I work in a uni library and you'd be amazed how many people underline and even highlight things in library books. It annoys me so much (especially as assistive tech that can read the page can trip up on it). Sometimes they're quite funny, though, when you read a passage and it goes somewhere bizarre, and you find a comment in the margin: WHAT??? When I was a student, I saw someone had underlined a very bland sentence in one of these much-misused books and added my own comment, in capitals: WHY DID YOU UNDERLINE THAT??!
I've seen whole discussions going on in library books, like graffiti on a bus stop or in a toilet cubicle. "This book sucks." "No - you're just thick." Etc etc.!
Yes, those marginalia debates are intriguing. I wonder if the graffiti row is still going on in the ladies loo of the bodleian library (upper reading room)? Used to see screeds of vicious bookish comments on the back of the cubicle doors.
Hahaha ohhh how naughty!
One of the best essay assignments I was set at university: What is the difference between a first and second reading of Emma? [Tribute to Bernard Richards, Brasenose, Oxford; not my college but I was very happy to be farmed out to him.]
I now only underline in pencil, obsessively. I feel ashamed, looking at books from years ago that have yellow highlighter or, even worse, red felt tip. Ah the idiocies of youth!
Cheers
John Lancaster
Oh that's a great question -- I might well steal that.
The link didn't work, but I think perhaps it was this one?
https://jdolven.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/325/2015/08/2010-Shakespeares-Reading.pdf
I think you might like Jeff's book Senses of Style, on Thomas Wyatt & Frank O'Hara but also about whatever could we mean by the word "style." I'm about to re-read it, and I've also been dreaming of rereading Forster, especially Howard's End.
thanks for the link correction!
and yes I love the Wyatt / O'Hara book