Been looking for and failing to find this kind of a book for the better part of my life – never once thought to ask; I feel silly.
Essentially, I’m looking for any novel that follows a student, and their quest to become better in their chosen field. It doesn’t have to be a university setting per se, it could also be a hobby, or whatever else.
Let me give some examples. I think the first of its kind I read was **The Green Years, by Archibald Cronin**. I don’t remember it well, but I recall some obsession with nature journaling/collecting rare eggs in the second half? An example people might recognize more easily is **Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley**. This is actually my favorite book of all time, but the part I want to recall for this post is the very early moments, when Victor is absorbing all of the ‘knowledge’ of those old alchemy books, only to be told that they’re nonsense, and then move on to greedily devour everything his teachers throw at him. On that note, I also love the idea of a devoted teacher. That’s actually why I started reading **The Secret History, by Donna Tartt**, because I loved the idea of an ambitious student, trying to get into this exclusive club, lead by a passionate teacher that all the rest of the faculty seems to hate, but that book ended up being very little about that at all, which was a little sad.
To make a long story short, I love studying, and I’d like to read a book about that kind of a character. I hope this makes sense, and thank you so much!
by SadSmiles2