The first really difficult literary text I read was Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. I thought it was a children's book - a fantastic adventure story - and I read it as that, but it was really difficult and I only just understood it - even just the surface story, not to mention the deeper allegorical meaning.
It was hard work but I kept going with it. I don't think I quite finished it (I can't really remember). I think I got to quite an advanced point in the text and just realised that the rest was going to be more of what I'd already read. I remember getting angry at it - angry at the book.
I know that it really enriched my literacy and my vocabulary, even though it was such hard work and I hardly understood it.
