Would you like your tub soasted?
I mean... Would you like your sub toasted?
I've come to the realization that I have to cut back on my talking to myself aloud- it confuses people. They look at you kind of funny. It's rather embarrassing. Well, actually, it's more embarrassing when after you talk to yourself and they give you a weird look, you laugh, because it's so amusing. They only look at you weirder.
I had a fabulous day today, how about you? Lots of great stuff happened! Time and space don't allow me to go into details, there's far too many, and quite frankly, I can't remember them all. But it was perhaps a combination of ice cream and "America the Beautiful" along with everything inbetween that made it so magnificent.
On a different note, Herman Melville is perhaps one of the most long-winded authors around. He at least makes the top ten list. I mean the guy is great and all, he just takes a long time to tell you something and even longer to re-tell you. He'll then spend even longer to reiterate the point, just to make sure you didn't miss anything. For example, in his famous novel "Billy Budd", he spends the first two chapters saying that Billy Budd is a handsome sailor. Two whole chapters! Later, he spends a solid 7 chapters referencing spilled soup and explaining it's significance. Whoohooo! Not to get me wrong, I do enjoy the book, as the plot is very interesting. Although, maybe Mr. Melville should have considered condensing. Or maybe that's just my 21st century-westernized idea. On second thought, if he did actually condense "The Handsome Sailor", it'd be about as long as one paragraph total, two max. So it probally is better this way. We're reading it for class and last night's assignment was to find a literary ciritcism of the novel. On boy in my class brought in this great article by some lady- ok, a raging feminist- who believes that "Billy Budd" is not a social allegory, but in fact, an allegory about family. She claimes that obviously Billy really represents a special needs daughter. Obviously.
My only question is: how did 2 centuries of scholars miss THAT??
I've come to the realization that I have to cut back on my talking to myself aloud- it confuses people. They look at you kind of funny. It's rather embarrassing. Well, actually, it's more embarrassing when after you talk to yourself and they give you a weird look, you laugh, because it's so amusing. They only look at you weirder.
I had a fabulous day today, how about you? Lots of great stuff happened! Time and space don't allow me to go into details, there's far too many, and quite frankly, I can't remember them all. But it was perhaps a combination of ice cream and "America the Beautiful" along with everything inbetween that made it so magnificent.
On a different note, Herman Melville is perhaps one of the most long-winded authors around. He at least makes the top ten list. I mean the guy is great and all, he just takes a long time to tell you something and even longer to re-tell you. He'll then spend even longer to reiterate the point, just to make sure you didn't miss anything. For example, in his famous novel "Billy Budd", he spends the first two chapters saying that Billy Budd is a handsome sailor. Two whole chapters! Later, he spends a solid 7 chapters referencing spilled soup and explaining it's significance. Whoohooo! Not to get me wrong, I do enjoy the book, as the plot is very interesting. Although, maybe Mr. Melville should have considered condensing. Or maybe that's just my 21st century-westernized idea. On second thought, if he did actually condense "The Handsome Sailor", it'd be about as long as one paragraph total, two max. So it probally is better this way. We're reading it for class and last night's assignment was to find a literary ciritcism of the novel. On boy in my class brought in this great article by some lady- ok, a raging feminist- who believes that "Billy Budd" is not a social allegory, but in fact, an allegory about family. She claimes that obviously Billy really represents a special needs daughter. Obviously.
My only question is: how did 2 centuries of scholars miss THAT??
posted by Sarah @ 11:42 PM
2 Comments:
At 9:21 PM,
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At 11:50 PM,
The Village Idiot said…
Hahaha! You got spammed! You should enable that thing where you have to type in random letters to prove that you're not a spam robot...
Anyways... Thats a criticism that even my illustrious high school english teacher missed. However, I almost fell off my bar stool/desk chair when I read it. From what I remember of Billy Budd, page numbers can be deceptive! It was a LONG short story.
As to how 2 centuries of scholars missed it... well, raging femenists were often locked up for insanity before the modern era. I would think it would be rather hard to publish from the confines of a straigh jacket... but thats just me. I'm not a feminist.
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