I wholeheartedly agree. It wasn't until my late 20s that I realized that literature is actually a deep reflection of real life, rather than just some story that someone made up. eg Animal Farm is not about farm animals...
Surely it wasn't my fault for being so dense. Age was, of course, mostly responsible. But probably also just poor instruction - surely if a teacher had actually explained this, it would have gone a long way to opening my mind and likely re-orienting my life.
Likewise with most other subjects - I spun my wheels learning French from age 10-15, because it was just an exercise in memorization rather than understanding. I learned Spanish in my 30s without even "studying", just by virtue of better understanding grammar at that point, and just focusing on trying to express ideas rather than worry about conjugations, spelling etc...
Surely it wasn't my fault for being so dense. Age was, of course, mostly responsible. But probably also just poor instruction - surely if a teacher had actually explained this, it would have gone a long way to opening my mind and likely re-orienting my life.
Likewise with most other subjects - I spun my wheels learning French from age 10-15, because it was just an exercise in memorization rather than understanding. I learned Spanish in my 30s without even "studying", just by virtue of better understanding grammar at that point, and just focusing on trying to express ideas rather than worry about conjugations, spelling etc...
The school system really does not do a good job.