I am not really sure what I’m supposed to talk about for this last post. I guess, I will just talk about my paper…and the readings overall. My paper ended up taking much more time than I expected it to because I kept expanding upon my thesis, which probably wasn’t a good idea as I got too much into trying to support my own opinion with the text than trying to support a rather more obvious thesis statement. It did make me think more about The Crying of Lot 49 than I had before, though, and I ended up not thinking it was a complete waste of time on Pynchon’s part in writing it. I didn’t really like the book any better, but I developed my own understanding of why he might have created the book as he did–hopefully I wasn’t far off in my interpretation of this.
Throughout the class, I think I enjoyed reading Gulliver’s Travels the most simply because I have never been a fan of short stories, and I rather preferred the allegorical style in which he wrote the book. Also, I rather agreed with some of the principles about human nature, so it was a more enjoyable–and straightforward–read. Even though Philip Dick (I couldn’t remember if it was Philip Dick or Dick Philip on the exam!) seemed to have similarly cynical notions of the direction of human nature, I didn’t really enjoy the plots and characters themselves as much. I guess I’m just more drawn to fantastical satire than futuristic warnings. My least favorite part o the class was probably the bit that involved the S+7. That just irritates me that people think they can put utter nonsense out there and have people read it. Why should I read something that doesn’t even have a hint of meaning or wasn’t even made to be enjoyed–just to mock the fact that you’re reading it really? I might have missed the point, but even Lewis Carroll’s nonsense was written with the intention of it being somewhat enjoyable and being able to have multiple meaning, even if they weren’t meant by the author. I just don’t like to waste my time reading something that I could have done myself (such as the S+7 to the pledge of allegiance…that’s just an obvious and unnecessary statement, I think). Anyway, the class overall encouraged me to really use not just my own interpretations in evaluating literature, but to be sure that there is obvious evidence for it in the physical text–not just implications of the text.
—-Yikes! I saved this as a draft on Monday and forgot to “publish” it!!! I hope it’s not too late!!! I’m really sorry!
