Bookish Discussions: Attacking a High School Required Read – Again

 

 

So last year when I went on vacation home to the Philippines, I purchased two books written by the national hero, Jose Rizal.  I had promised myself to delve into these books again AND really “digest” it.  See, when this was required back in high school, we had to read it in the national language Tagalog and as most of my friends know, I absolutely suck at that language.  See, the Tagalog used in these books can be equated to Old English in that no one really talks like that today.  So even if I understand Tagalog, the book uses words that are not commonly used today.  Of course, I could be wrong since Tagalog is not my dialect at all.

It has almost been a year since I purchased the English translation of the books (oh, I forgot to tell you that the original texts were written in Spanish back in the 1887)) and I still haven’t read it.  Sure, I read the authors note which was a mouthful in itself and reading it really turned me off into starting the book!  However, I am willing to give this another try.  I know I have been reading a lot of western books and I feel so un-Patriotic for not reading it.  I was also inspired when I wrote a discussion about required reading a couple of weeks ago and discussed about Mr. JR.

This will be my MO in attacking the books:

1. Read at least a chapter a week – I aim to read one chapter a week because I am predicting that with the plot, it would be too overwhelming.
2. Tab the sh*t out of it – I want to add tabs and notations on the book (not write on it but on the post-it) and see how this experiment goes.
3. Lastly, I will try to give updates on my blog on my reading progress and/or chapter discussion.

So, have you attacked a very hard required reading book?  Let’s discuss!