WORLDBUILDING DISCUSSION! - High School Literature

[St Oz]

Haven't had one of these in awhile...

What sort of shit does your national school system force the kids to read (but really they just sparknote it)

[St Oz]

The Experiment by Vabi Qaez (1974)
One of Ozia's greatest literary contributions to the 20th century, Ozian critics claim it's the greatest and most important novel of Ozian literature. The story revolves around two characters in a police interrogation room, Comrade-Captain-Detective Aeri and Iuwel Luveria. Iuwel is found holding a bloody knife over the dead body of a Myrorian tourist, but suffering from amnesia and cannot remember anything that happened. Charged with murder they take her to interrogation to find answers, and the Detective finds that by suffocating her with a plastic bag she regains "memories". Desperate to get answers because of a flimsy case, the detective suffocates Iuwel over two weeks to hear these memories. These memories are set in a non-existent Ozian region in the mountains that gains autonomous regional status and decides to cut off from the rest of the world for 100 years. Iuwel claims to be 126 years old to the detective and recalls memories from all parts of her life. These memories ultimately always dissolve into absurdity detailing a part of humanity every Ozian is familiar with. One sees all of walks of humanity, just in its history, tales, rise, and fall of this mystical region. The reader sees all of Ozia in its love and lust, crime and war, communist enforced castes, young and elderly, the variety of life, death, the search for individuality, safety, peace, and meaning, the corruption of governments. All bases are covered

[AwesomeSaucer]

The vast majority of Phoenician literature...isn't actually Phoenician.  It's not in our culture to write fiction on paper; though movies, shows, and plays are commonly written and studied in schools.   However, traditional literature is mostly from foreign countries like Allama, Oz, and Myroria.

[Prydania]

The Long Winter (1867) by Liam Caidic
The Long Winter was written at a pivotal time in Prydanian history. The victory over Lakotah in the Great War in Dixie was fresh in the minds of the nation, and nationalist sentiment was at an all time high. It was then that Liam Caidic, a half Erien playwrite from Burn, wrote what many consider one of the greatest works in the history of Prydanian literature.
The book is set during the 12th century and tells the story of Sir Arthur Bellmont, a knight on the Myrorian Crusade. The work follows his journey from faithful and earnest man to the moment when he first kills a man in battle to his longing for home and finally to his realisation that the commanders are hopelessly unprepared for the trials war brings. War has not brought God's glory, but only the death of his comrades and the stain of death upon the Church. Sir Arthur returns home, finding himself unable to connect to his loved ones, even as they shower him with praise over his role in "doing the Lord's work." He wonders if God will ever truly let the world know peace.

To Caliard and Back (1482) by Sir Garrison Maelor
The epitome of the chivalric romantic novel. Sir Maelor's work weaves the old stories of the ancient King Ryon of Caliard into a grant tale of heroic exploits. The work is mostly useless in trying to establish the historicity of King Ryon, as Maelor created a grand narrative around the straightforward exploits recoded in Owen of the Hightower's Chronicles of Prydania. The book's true value lies in the form of the medieval chivalric romance and in how Maelor, a Catholic, deals with the pre-Catholic Ryon. The narrative represents the height of the scholastic method as Catholic Prydania worked to integrate its earlier pre-Catholic legends into its world view.

The Sagas (100-1200 CE) various authors
The Sagas is an umbrella term for a collection of stories from Prydania's First Age of Exploration, dating roughly from 100-400 CE. They tell of great battles, heroic deeds, and holy quests, both Catholic and pagan, that supposedly accompanied these voyages. Favourites for study at the secondary school level are The Book of Upland, an epic retelling of great events from early Upland history, Voyage of the Black, detailing the adventures of famous pirate Hator the Black, and The MacBiek Trials, the story of the early conflicts and civil wars that defined the emergence of the Midland kingdoms in the 5th century.

[Myroria]

The most painful book taught in Myrorian secondary school is, of course, Romance of the Three Houses, a novel from the 14th century set in the Ozian-controlled portion of Myroria. As increasing degrees of autonomy are given to the land, feudal lords and retainers from Houses Demnevanith, Indiotrovth, and Moomintroth jockey for power. The book is nearly a million words in length and follows nearly 1,000 characters.

What high school student doesn't enjoy reading entire paragraphs about people's names, titles, and ancestors, watching them say one sentence, then not hearing about them ever again? I won't tell you how it ends because no one has ever finished reading it.

The "foreign literature" quota in schools is met by a thorough reading of Rolis and Indrionet, a Prydanian play from the 17th century about two teenaged lovers from feuding Myrorian families. Rolis Monraseth is the son of the patriarch of the Monraseth family, which has been engaged in a violent feud with the Cefaruth family for generations. Rolis falls in love with Indrionet, the daughter of the patriarch of the Cefaruth family, and hilarity, duels, and joint suicide ensues.