This is a rant about "The Assignment" by Friedrich Durrenmatt, or as I call him, Some Swiss Guy, an author that is an example of how many literature has a major problem, one that I am trying to show in this post, a problem that many people might have seen, a problem that many people seem to twist, and change, and shift, and warp until it becomes, in their minds at least, an actual literary point, and what is this problem I hear you ask, well, you may be able to guess from this sentence, for, if you were to imagin this going on for four entire gorramn pages, it would get kinda old, don't you think?
Yes, every chapter of "The Assignment" is a run on sentence. These are chapters ranging from two to five pages in length.
And I could go on and on about other problems in this book. The complete lack of character. No setting, really...its all talking heads. The fraggling tangents. These sentences jump all over the places, making them nearly impossible to follow!
Now, see, this is just an example of my biggest problem with lots of literature they force down our throats at school.
The GIMMICK.
Ah yes. The Gimmick. Sometimes, it seems that lots of literature has to have a gimmick just to be considered literature. Anyone think that gimicks detract from the message, becuase...because, isn't it hard to get a message across when ALMOST NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL YOUR BOOK IS SAYING!?
I think its time we take a step back and notice that books like the Assignment are, well...crap. Bad grammer. Bad formatting. Bad plot, characterization, setting and...writing, in general.
And, to make things even worse, the message its trying to push into my brain isn't that bad. Its interesting and something you should probebly think about. But its hard to think around the voice screaming, "Where are the periods! Where are the names! Where are the quotation marks! Where is the action, the characters! Why is this nothing but talking heads in a vauge, pointless fog, vaugely refeering things that don't matter in context or out of context?"
Fortunately, I have just found that the Assignment is only *recommended* reading.
I recommend you try it. Who knows, maybe I'm just a philistine.
But, I personally think that lierature needs to not just have a good message. It needs to be a good goddamn book too, or I'm going to just return it.
Yes, every chapter of "The Assignment" is a run on sentence. These are chapters ranging from two to five pages in length.
And I could go on and on about other problems in this book. The complete lack of character. No setting, really...its all talking heads. The fraggling tangents. These sentences jump all over the places, making them nearly impossible to follow!
Now, see, this is just an example of my biggest problem with lots of literature they force down our throats at school.
The GIMMICK.
Ah yes. The Gimmick. Sometimes, it seems that lots of literature has to have a gimmick just to be considered literature. Anyone think that gimicks detract from the message, becuase...because, isn't it hard to get a message across when ALMOST NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL YOUR BOOK IS SAYING!?
I think its time we take a step back and notice that books like the Assignment are, well...crap. Bad grammer. Bad formatting. Bad plot, characterization, setting and...writing, in general.
And, to make things even worse, the message its trying to push into my brain isn't that bad. Its interesting and something you should probebly think about. But its hard to think around the voice screaming, "Where are the periods! Where are the names! Where are the quotation marks! Where is the action, the characters! Why is this nothing but talking heads in a vauge, pointless fog, vaugely refeering things that don't matter in context or out of context?"
Fortunately, I have just found that the Assignment is only *recommended* reading.
I recommend you try it. Who knows, maybe I'm just a philistine.
But, I personally think that lierature needs to not just have a good message. It needs to be a good goddamn book too, or I'm going to just return it.