So this is Theory... (Beginning Theory - Peter Barry)

Member Name: Aerith

Product:	Beginning Theory - Peter Barry
Date:	06/09/01 (141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use,, User friendly,, Understandable!

Disadvantages: Hmm, BIG WORDS..., and foreign names..

Oh dear... first days at uni.
I went through all that last year, my freshers fair and the oncoming fear of having to actually buy books. My throat tight... fever running as I panic and looks for my switch card and buy what will be the MOST important book of my course. Mistah Barry's that is...

So, I get to the tip hole I call my student room and everyone else calls a death trap... and sit down and start reading for my Critical Explorations seminar the next day, thinking how bad all this will be. But to my everlasting surprise LeCant and Freud and everyone in it make sense!
Jaw drops.

Now, all and anyone who does or have done english will give you a look if you say "english, thats easy?!". Drop dead. English isn't easy unless you own an eidetic memory, and a brain the size of a whale. You work at it, and eventually hopes it sinks in. Theory is no different! Some of the theories I have to work with generally look like double dutch but then again, some days, I guess double dutch would make more sense than the rubbish I spout! This is where my miracle comes into action. Barry. Making everything so... peaceful. No more waking up in a cold sweat and panicking that my essay isnt too critical or my modernism lacks reasoning...

In Barry's book he first presents a history of the ideas of english language theory which is fascinating to read. What more could a girl want, I couldn't! From the history he then moves into the various theories, of modernistic writing, post modernistic, structurlism <which I like> Feminism, Deconstruction, stylistics and countless others. All are carefully explained in detail so you can understand the mess we make of our own course and the theories we need to pull through it with a smile on the other side.

It's nicely set out and pleasing to look at and a good read. In my holiday I spent a lot of time just flicking through it absently and getting re-acquainted with the grea
t theorists, Barthes, Derrida, Kafka,Marx and all the others who go along with them in their lickle gang. It's easy on the eye and for an english textbook, of which we normally buy truckloads, it didn't cost me the earth.

An absolute MUST HAVE for those doing english, and maybe for those not.

Lov' me xxx

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