American education is absolutely fucking dogshit, that's why
I remember sitting in my senior year non AP English class (so where you put the future poors) and 90% of the class could BARELY get through or comprehend the first few chapters of 1984, it was seriously fucking depressing and I don't know if that's indicative of anything but a society scale failure to educate people
my english teacher in high school made us read metamorphosis by kafka and half the class couldnt understand that it wasnt meant to be a funny story about a beetle
can't comment on how common that is bc english isn't my first language, but German is and Kafka translates just extremely well to English. There's something about his style, his syntax n stuff, that just lends itself well to English translations. Also, Kafka became popular in the anglophone world long before he became popular in German-speaking countries due to his work being discovered and becoming popular post-mortem, when Hitler had just risen to power and Kafka's books were being banned due to him being Jewish and an absurdist author. So Kafka only became popular in postwar Germany, when his work was reintroduced from the English-speaking world, where he's made a massive cultural impact.
American education is absolutely fucking dogshit, that's why
I remember sitting in my senior year non AP English class (so where you put the future poors) and 90% of the class could BARELY get through or comprehend the first few chapters of 1984, it was seriously fucking depressing and I don't know if that's indicative of anything but a society scale failure to educate people
Literacy in the US could be a bit better...
my english teacher in high school made us read metamorphosis by kafka and half the class couldnt understand that it wasnt meant to be a funny story about a beetle
lol, to be fair I read it after high school on my own and all I knew for sure was that it was not funny.
Is it common to read translated books in english class?
can't comment on how common that is bc english isn't my first language, but German is and Kafka translates just extremely well to English. There's something about his style, his syntax n stuff, that just lends itself well to English translations. Also, Kafka became popular in the anglophone world long before he became popular in German-speaking countries due to his work being discovered and becoming popular post-mortem, when Hitler had just risen to power and Kafka's books were being banned due to him being Jewish and an absurdist author. So Kafka only became popular in postwar Germany, when his work was reintroduced from the English-speaking world, where he's made a massive cultural impact.
To be fair most classes are called English and literature or something but yes translated books are very common
Fairly common to read at least a couple. We read Beowulf, journey to the west, tartuffe, and a bunch of greek tragedies like Antigone or oedipus.