DS is reading Dante's Inferno

[NotAlarmed]

Is it possible he understands it? 😆

He's 19yo, at Uni reading Physics. He did very well at school in maths and science, but only scraped a 4 at GCSE English (and a 5 at Literature) after we paid for tuition!

As a child we read with him, but he never read voluntarily (unlike his brother who spent almost his whole childhood reading).

In recent years he's been reading voraciously with the titles becoming more and more obscure/intellectual. He chats with strangers online about the books and choses them based on their recommendations. Only 4 years since he could barely pass GCSE.

On the one hand, fantastic, but I'm just curious as to what he's getting out of it.

Well... yes

It's just a poem and there are a variety of translations into English, some more accessible than others.

Passing gcse English and reading for pleasure aren't the same.
I love to read, I struggled with the gcse when I was back at school.
What he's getting out of it is probably enjoyment 🤷‍♀️

Reading something because you want to, is a rather different thing from having to read such and such a book for school or exams.

IMO it’s not uncommon for kids who were turned off by school set books, to enjoy reading later.

Not sure Dante’s Inferno would be my choice, though!

Wow.

Sometimes I think enjoyment of reading is spoiled by schooling. Maybe he wouldn't put it in so many words, but there can be a guilt of reading a "non-programme" book when you're supposed to be reading the (perhaps)
boring course books.
So you don't read anything.

Now he maybe feels freer to enjoy the story more.

And it sounds like he's made friends through it. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't understand it. Perhaps his friends explain the themes better than teachers did. Or they're not micro-analysing every sentence and phrase to mean something.

Maybe Dante was a poor example then, I wouldn't know, but other recent examples are Conran, Poe, and 16th century philosophy essays

If he can read physics he could absolutely read that kind of thing and get a lot out of it :)

I read the full Dante’s Divine Comedy at a similar age; I was intellectually pretentious and used to whip it out on trains (appreciate some may find that endless tome enjoyable but I actually preferred Irvine Welsh). Quite a slog! And depressing 😂.