Here is what I listen to all day:
Like.
It's, like, every other, like, word, like, ya know? There are even sentences that have no point at all: "I was, like, totally, like, ya know?" What the feck is that? What are you saying and how am I supposed to know what it's like? This one is also good: "It's like, I think it was, like, about this, but ... I'm not sure?" Then why say it? WHY?
This leads up to my ranting about Creative Writing. We read examples of good writing to help lead us on the right path. Today it was John Updike's "A&P" and James Joyce's "Araby". Updike, as usual, has great descriptions and a vivid background, but no flipping point. Fight with me if you like, but I've tried to read "Rabbit Run" twice and if someone can tell me for certain that it will eventually get somewhere, then maybe I'll try it again. Joyce has beautiful prose and - shock! horror! - a plot. Most of the class liked Updike. Three of us liked Joyce. Why?
"I think, like, he was, like, really kind of wordy. Like, I didn't get what he was saying most of the time, and I had to keep, like, re-reading some parts."
It's 4 pages long!
My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom.
I said god-damn. It's so wonderful.
Now, if it had been written as "I cried all the time for some reason" that would have been more acceptable to some of my classmates.
So, this, to me, is an alarming trend. We're getting the rule of "2 words good, 4 words bad" drummed into our heads and it gives me the fecking fear. Am I just really old fashioned, or is language dying? It's better to use simple words and less of them, because no one wants to spend the time learning the right words and what they mean.
I won't begin the rant about how they don't like stories that don't relate to them personally. I could go off on that all night.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
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2 comments:
I went through the same thing recently. Only it was Hemingway and Joyce. The hills were white elephants or some such crap. and Araby. Everyone liked Hemingway more except me. And A&P sucks ass no matter what anyone says. And people are always saying "like" in my class. "Its like, I don't know, like he does this or that and, like, I don't know." Thanks for sharing.
I have to admit, I like Hemingway's non-fiction, because he's funny without intent to be funny, whereas his fiction has way too much intention and, subsequently, irritates. One my classmates suggested that I hated Updike because feminists would naturally have a problem with a story like "A&P". Nice. I don't know how that explains my hatred of "Rabbit Run" and "The Witches of Eastwick", but there you are.
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