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blargh, coursework
Jun. 16th, 2018 01:03 pmMy English course is reminding me of why I tended to annoy my English teachers until my senior year of high school and my first two years of college-- whereupon I frustrated my English teachers instead. *wry* Because I love reading, I can write articulately, I can spot the expected things in stories... and I think at least 85% of literary analysis is bullshit and that shows in my attitude. *sigh*
Also modern literary fiction tends to bore the shit out of me. I read for entertainment, not "meaning," and if a story doesn't grab me I flatly don't care. I want to read stories where stuff happens, with meaning and layers as a secondary thing to add flavor and resonance and whatnot, not stories where layers and symbolism and "the nature of humanity" or whatever are the primary point and stuff only happens as an afterthought. *deeper sigh*
Anyway, we've had four stories assigned so far: Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" (which was okay, but what I really want is a story that takes the title literally, because that would be amazing); Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" (which I guess is a classic but felt weirdly flat to me, perhaps because Vietnam is not a defining cultural experience of my generation and also I'm tired of men-and-the-nature-of-war stories); William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" (which I guess is best described as a Southern gothic sociological case study? anyway, it's dead obvious what happened from very early on so atmosphere and small-town willful blindness seem to be the main points); and Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (which is creepy as ever-living fuck and weirdly hypnotic about it, but I disliked the main character and wanted to know more about her family and friends early on to balance out the long snake-charming dialogue stuff that forms the bulk of the tale).
I have also been reminded that it's invariably best to read the stories before any of the introductory material.
...
In comparison, my Child Psychology class is fine. I think I like it better because I feel like I'm actually learning new and potentially useful information, instead of navel-gazing. I suspect I'd be less hostile to an English course whose textbook A) had a tone other than "let us teach you how to read properly because reading and writing are Serious Business, and how cute and childish of you to think that stories are primarily written to entertain people; goodness, how naive!" and B) contained genres I actively like instead of ones I kind of benignly tolerate. *deepest sigh of all*
Also modern literary fiction tends to bore the shit out of me. I read for entertainment, not "meaning," and if a story doesn't grab me I flatly don't care. I want to read stories where stuff happens, with meaning and layers as a secondary thing to add flavor and resonance and whatnot, not stories where layers and symbolism and "the nature of humanity" or whatever are the primary point and stuff only happens as an afterthought. *deeper sigh*
Anyway, we've had four stories assigned so far: Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" (which was okay, but what I really want is a story that takes the title literally, because that would be amazing); Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" (which I guess is a classic but felt weirdly flat to me, perhaps because Vietnam is not a defining cultural experience of my generation and also I'm tired of men-and-the-nature-of-war stories); William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" (which I guess is best described as a Southern gothic sociological case study? anyway, it's dead obvious what happened from very early on so atmosphere and small-town willful blindness seem to be the main points); and Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (which is creepy as ever-living fuck and weirdly hypnotic about it, but I disliked the main character and wanted to know more about her family and friends early on to balance out the long snake-charming dialogue stuff that forms the bulk of the tale).
I have also been reminded that it's invariably best to read the stories before any of the introductory material.
...
In comparison, my Child Psychology class is fine. I think I like it better because I feel like I'm actually learning new and potentially useful information, instead of navel-gazing. I suspect I'd be less hostile to an English course whose textbook A) had a tone other than "let us teach you how to read properly because reading and writing are Serious Business, and how cute and childish of you to think that stories are primarily written to entertain people; goodness, how naive!" and B) contained genres I actively like instead of ones I kind of benignly tolerate. *deepest sigh of all*
