How to love the classics and pass the exam perfectly? Read Weil and Genis

MOSCOW. Corpus publishes book, Native Speech. The lessons of fine literature. "

One of the first actions of a high school student, who passed literature on the exam and did not plan to plow the expanses of a humanitarian university, was to remove from the eyes all that was connected with it. The standard school curriculum was always built in such a way that there was practically no chance of becoming addicted to reading classics for a child of any age. Those who are lucky with teachers are not taken into account. For them, domestic literature is daily joy, an urgent need. Something without which the soul and brain can not do.

Big seen in the distance. Often, the most penetrating lines about the Motherland are not born in its vast expanses. An example of this is “Dead Souls” by Gogol, “A Month in the Village” by Turgenev, and “The Idiot” by Dostoevsky. Often it is in a foreign land that a detached and more tenacious look at the contents of the bookshelf is possible. It happened with the work of Alexander Genis and Peter Weil, who emigrated to America back in 1977.

A witty analysis of works familiar from adolescence does not resemble the "dissection" of characters that causes a sore point and rejection at school lessons, giving rise only to banal characteristics and cliches, behind which the characters’ depth and layering are lost. Unexpected conclusions and associations, interesting facts, a mosaic of characters of figures iconic for Russian literature. The book of Genis and Weil, deprived of the burdensome and common title “textbook of literature”, is able to give a celebration of a new acquaintance with great works and, in a sense, their discovery. The number of its reprints is a testament to how much each new generation needs this joy.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru