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title: "How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition"
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# How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition

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How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition [Foster, Thomas C] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition

Review: friendly introduction to a deeper understanding of books - The author is an English professor at the University of Michigan and it becomes apparent quite quickly that he is one of those popular professors who is chatty and has lots of students signing up for his introductory courses on literature. The language is friendly and the examples are entertaining as well as informative. If I lived in Flint, I'd take his classes. There have been many times I've read a book and just *known* the author is trying to impart more than I am taking away from the prose, and I hear about symbolism in literature, yet I have very little success finding it on my own. One time in high school I had a very good English teacher who would point out the symbolism in stories and novels, but he never told us how to do it, as this book does. With chapters on a wide range of topics (journeys, meals, poetry, Shakespeare, the Bible, mythology, fairy tales, weather, geography, violence, politics, sex and illness, among others) and a wide variety of examples, I found myself learning A LOT. Certainly this would not be of much value to a literature graduate student or professor, but for the rest of us this is a great introduction to getting more out of our reading (or viewing, as the author also touches on film, though to a lesser extent). The book concludes with a test, in which you read a short story and interpret it using the principles put forth by Professor Foster, then interpretations by several students and Foster himself -- delightful and illuminating! Finally, the author gives a suggested reading/viewing list and an index. Two problems with the book: first, as I mentioned, the style of the author is conversational, but sometimes to the point of being distracting; secondly, the topics covered are quite idiosyncratic, leaving out as many as are included, though the author addresses this. Still, I give the book 5 out of 5 because it was entertaining, accessible and it has improved my understanding and appreciation of subsequent books I've read and even films I've seen. Update (06/12/16): Critical reviews seem to concentrate on two negatives -- that the author overgeneralizes ("Every meal is communion") and that the material is repetitive. Perhaps both elements can be explained by noting the intended audience -- college undergraduates. Critics want it known that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". I agree wholeheartedly. It's been a while since I read this book (Can it really be over a decade?!) but I don't remember coming away thinking that symbolism was universal and nothing was ever meant literally. If the author actually made that statement I do disagree. Perhaps he qualified the universal within the text? Regardless, even if the author overstated his position in that instance I garnered so much benefit from the book that its ideas inform my reading to this day. No book is perfect, and I suppose the professor would enjoy that some readers do criticise his ideas! As to the second perceived flaw, repetitiveness, if you've ever taught you know that you can't say something once and assume it's been internalized. Personally I found repeating concepts often helped me, and often the same idea is related in a different context, so it's not presented identically, if I remember correctly. I do not know, but I suspect, that those readers who did not enjoy it were either too sophisticated for the material, or not ready for it. Personally, as someone with a background in the sciences and social sciences who reads a fair amount of fiction, and not someone who has heard these concepts discussed very much, I learned a lot from this book and believe it continues to add to my enjoyment and understanding of fiction in books and film. I would still give it 5 stars. But man, do I feel old!
Review: Bam! And then I understood the darn novel... - It's a rare day that I'm willing to give a full five out of five stars to a book. It's rarer still that I'll give the five stars, and then put it back on my bed-stand for continual reference in my future reading. It's just that kind of a book, and every bibliophile should read it. In "How to Read Literature like a Professor," Thomas Foster has given us a delightful little romp through literature, producing a guide to the themes, symbolism, ironies, allusions, and plots that reoccur through-out almost all of the fiction we read. Whether it's Charles Dickens or Charles Schulz or even Tom Clancy, Foster's collection of essays are each a fun and enjoyable guide to what you've been reading, and what you will read, when you pick up a work of fiction. For example: in chapter 10, "It's more than just rain or snow," we read that "weather is never just weather. It's never just rain." Rather, Foster says, instead of providing just a setting, a backdrop to the story, weather in fiction is rooted in our fears and hopes. In addition to appearing as a feature character in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic biblical tale of the great flood, it makes notable and significant sightings in mythologies from all over the world, often, if not always, appearing and appealing to our fear of drowning. "Rain," Foster says, "prompts ancestral memories of the most profound sort. So water in great volume speaks to us at a very basic level of being. So rain--and floods--signifies drowning? Kind of, but it doesn't stop there. Citing D.H. Lawrence's "The Virgin and the Gypsy" (1930), which I've not read yet, Foster sees it as a "big eraser that destroys but also allows a brand-new start." Kind of like baptism? Yeah. If you're part of that Christian tradition, this is what baptism is: death of the old, imperfect, and flawed man, and rebirth of a new man. And such is the role that this element--rain and floods--plays in literature. Well, most of the time. Fog can represent a lack of clarity, sunshine hope and clarity. In short, weather is rarely just setting. That's rain and weather. Each chapter is a written with a quick and light wit that allows a reader, whatever his level of experience with literature, to follow along, see the theme, enjoy the examples, and find a taste for the point. Other chapter titles include the following: * "When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare..." * "...Or the Bible" * "It's All Political" * "Marked for Greatness" * "Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion" and, of course, * "Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampire." (Stephanie Meyer ought to pick that one up to understand why people who love literature hate Twilight). Weighing in at just under three hundred pages, "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" doesn't require deep commitment, deep concentration, or deep literature reading. My brain-candy of choice usually falls in the science-fiction or fantasy categories, and yet, I've started to find the themes and allusions and ironies that I saw in classics like "Howards End" and "Bleak House" appearing there, too. Whatever you read, it applies the symbolism that Foster walks through. As a result, my experience, whatever I'm reading, has been more enjoyable since I started it. It's that moment of sudden realization when the whole theme of Steven Erikson "Book of the Fallen" subplot (and there are a lot of them) is an allusion, or imitation, to Spartacus (I think). Or that the journey (all journeys are quests) across the water is a journey of transformation, where the fallen man chooses to start a new life, emerging from the water, as it were, reborn. It's fun. A lot of fun. Even just reading the book itself is fun. To boot, at the end Foster provides a list of all the books he refers to throughout his essays to allow you, the reader, to pick them up and read further. And what could be more fun about reading than delving into great fiction? Pick it up, start reading, and enhance your general reading experience. If you're going to read fiction, and you should, you might as well get the most out of it.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #30,301 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #4 in Comparative Literature #5 in Literary History & Criticism Reference #6 in General Books & Reading |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 7,590 Reviews |

## Images

![How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81kqh6-g6PL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ friendly introduction to a deeper understanding of books
*by A***S on January 27, 2004*

The author is an English professor at the University of Michigan and it becomes apparent quite quickly that he is one of those popular professors who is chatty and has lots of students signing up for his introductory courses on literature. The language is friendly and the examples are entertaining as well as informative. If I lived in Flint, I'd take his classes. There have been many times I've read a book and just *known* the author is trying to impart more than I am taking away from the prose, and I hear about symbolism in literature, yet I have very little success finding it on my own. One time in high school I had a very good English teacher who would point out the symbolism in stories and novels, but he never told us how to do it, as this book does. With chapters on a wide range of topics (journeys, meals, poetry, Shakespeare, the Bible, mythology, fairy tales, weather, geography, violence, politics, sex and illness, among others) and a wide variety of examples, I found myself learning A LOT. Certainly this would not be of much value to a literature graduate student or professor, but for the rest of us this is a great introduction to getting more out of our reading (or viewing, as the author also touches on film, though to a lesser extent). The book concludes with a test, in which you read a short story and interpret it using the principles put forth by Professor Foster, then interpretations by several students and Foster himself -- delightful and illuminating! Finally, the author gives a suggested reading/viewing list and an index. Two problems with the book: first, as I mentioned, the style of the author is conversational, but sometimes to the point of being distracting; secondly, the topics covered are quite idiosyncratic, leaving out as many as are included, though the author addresses this. Still, I give the book 5 out of 5 because it was entertaining, accessible and it has improved my understanding and appreciation of subsequent books I've read and even films I've seen. Update (06/12/16): Critical reviews seem to concentrate on two negatives -- that the author overgeneralizes ("Every meal is communion") and that the material is repetitive. Perhaps both elements can be explained by noting the intended audience -- college undergraduates. Critics want it known that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". I agree wholeheartedly. It's been a while since I read this book (Can it really be over a decade?!) but I don't remember coming away thinking that symbolism was universal and nothing was ever meant literally. If the author actually made that statement I do disagree. Perhaps he qualified the universal within the text? Regardless, even if the author overstated his position in that instance I garnered so much benefit from the book that its ideas inform my reading to this day. No book is perfect, and I suppose the professor would enjoy that some readers do criticise his ideas! As to the second perceived flaw, repetitiveness, if you've ever taught you know that you can't say something once and assume it's been internalized. Personally I found repeating concepts often helped me, and often the same idea is related in a different context, so it's not presented identically, if I remember correctly. I do not know, but I suspect, that those readers who did not enjoy it were either too sophisticated for the material, or not ready for it. Personally, as someone with a background in the sciences and social sciences who reads a fair amount of fiction, and not someone who has heard these concepts discussed very much, I learned a lot from this book and believe it continues to add to my enjoyment and understanding of fiction in books and film. I would still give it 5 stars. But man, do I feel old!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Bam! And then I understood the darn novel...
*by D***N on February 8, 2012*

It's a rare day that I'm willing to give a full five out of five stars to a book. It's rarer still that I'll give the five stars, and then put it back on my bed-stand for continual reference in my future reading. It's just that kind of a book, and every bibliophile should read it. In "How to Read Literature like a Professor," Thomas Foster has given us a delightful little romp through literature, producing a guide to the themes, symbolism, ironies, allusions, and plots that reoccur through-out almost all of the fiction we read. Whether it's Charles Dickens or Charles Schulz or even Tom Clancy, Foster's collection of essays are each a fun and enjoyable guide to what you've been reading, and what you will read, when you pick up a work of fiction. For example: in chapter 10, "It's more than just rain or snow," we read that "weather is never just weather. It's never just rain." Rather, Foster says, instead of providing just a setting, a backdrop to the story, weather in fiction is rooted in our fears and hopes. In addition to appearing as a feature character in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic biblical tale of the great flood, it makes notable and significant sightings in mythologies from all over the world, often, if not always, appearing and appealing to our fear of drowning. "Rain," Foster says, "prompts ancestral memories of the most profound sort. So water in great volume speaks to us at a very basic level of being. So rain--and floods--signifies drowning? Kind of, but it doesn't stop there. Citing D.H. Lawrence's "The Virgin and the Gypsy" (1930), which I've not read yet, Foster sees it as a "big eraser that destroys but also allows a brand-new start." Kind of like baptism? Yeah. If you're part of that Christian tradition, this is what baptism is: death of the old, imperfect, and flawed man, and rebirth of a new man. And such is the role that this element--rain and floods--plays in literature. Well, most of the time. Fog can represent a lack of clarity, sunshine hope and clarity. In short, weather is rarely just setting. That's rain and weather. Each chapter is a written with a quick and light wit that allows a reader, whatever his level of experience with literature, to follow along, see the theme, enjoy the examples, and find a taste for the point. Other chapter titles include the following: * "When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare..." * "...Or the Bible" * "It's All Political" * "Marked for Greatness" * "Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion" and, of course, * "Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampire." (Stephanie Meyer ought to pick that one up to understand why people who love literature hate Twilight). Weighing in at just under three hundred pages, "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" doesn't require deep commitment, deep concentration, or deep literature reading. My brain-candy of choice usually falls in the science-fiction or fantasy categories, and yet, I've started to find the themes and allusions and ironies that I saw in classics like "Howards End" and "Bleak House" appearing there, too. Whatever you read, it applies the symbolism that Foster walks through. As a result, my experience, whatever I'm reading, has been more enjoyable since I started it. It's that moment of sudden realization when the whole theme of Steven Erikson "Book of the Fallen" subplot (and there are a lot of them) is an allusion, or imitation, to Spartacus (I think). Or that the journey (all journeys are quests) across the water is a journey of transformation, where the fallen man chooses to start a new life, emerging from the water, as it were, reborn. It's fun. A lot of fun. Even just reading the book itself is fun. To boot, at the end Foster provides a list of all the books he refers to throughout his essays to allow you, the reader, to pick them up and read further. And what could be more fun about reading than delving into great fiction? Pick it up, start reading, and enhance your general reading experience. If you're going to read fiction, and you should, you might as well get the most out of it.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ as a teacher, I will implement this book
*by C***D on August 1, 2015*

There is no crash course in literature quite like the revised edition of Tomas C. Foster’s How To Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. Symbolism, theme, cultural context—you could be awakened to these elements in any great work by taking a full course. Foster’s book is an analytical guide rife with classic examples and explanations, tailored to the unliterary mind curious to become more literate. The title itself strikes at our envy, and even our disdain for ivory tower condescension: In the introduction Foster himself, a professor, admits that it seems “at times as if the professor is either inventing interpretations out of thin air or else performing parlor tricks, a sort of analytical slight of hand.” As a teacher, I feel students feel that way about me sometimes, that I call them in to my room to show them what linguistic tricks an author is pulling, or even pulling tricks with their words like I’m folding a dollar bill to make it say “state of fear.” Even in his own book Foster seems at times to be stretching too far to read something into the works of renowned authors. But even he qualifies these interpretations with the reminder that often the interpretation is up to the reader, and could be right, wrong, or both. He’s not telling us how to read correctly, but how to read with the mind of a professor, looking for both obvious clues and vague hints at subtexts and secrets. Foster handles each literary technique by chapter, spending multiple pages on, for example, all journeys are quests for self-knowledge (and the goal is never the stated one), all meals are acts of communion (unless ironically not), that rain is an act of cleansing (unless it’s an act of something else), that flight means freedom (or sometimes just travel), and that it’s all about sex (except for sex, which is about power). The purpose of learning all this stuff isn’t to help you understand plot or characterization, but to deepen, to enrich the experience of the novel or poem. Foster does devote entire chapters to exploring whether an author really means what professors think they mean, or whether a symbol really is a symbol and not just a…something. A novel, he says, is “a network of meanings and significations, that permit a nearly limitless range of possible interpretations.” This, of course, crosses into the controversial “epistemological politics” of writing—is the author “alive” or “dead”? Are they saying something indisputable exact, or is the meaning out of their hands? We bring our own history to a reading, just as the author does in their writing. So while Foster’s book does barely open up what to literary scholars are intense debates about authorship, meaning, and the nature of any and all bodies of texts, he effectively and thoroughly introduces the rest of society to this world of interpreting works of written art. One of his great strengths is his frequent and diverse examples: from Faulkner, Brookner, Auden, Kingsolver, Nabokov, Stoker, Woolf—and even several films and paintings—not to mention a short story by Matherine Mansfield. I plan to use it in my English Honors classroom in the future. It makes for a challenging but eye-opening assigned reading, as well as a resource for examples of difficult-to-spot symbolic gestures in assigned reading. It’s not about teaching students how to read, exactly, but how we can and do read. -Caleb Coy, author of An Authentic Derivative

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