Poetry . . . It's A Lovely Thing

Evidence: "Suddenly I realize/That if I stepped out of my body I would break/Into blossom." -James Wright

Sloppy Writing (Maybe Not)

After reading the previous post, I realized that my writing is not so bad. I think I communicated my thoughts fairly well. But there is always room for improvement!

Sloppy Writing

After reading the previous post, I realized that my writing is sloppy. The grammar is flawed and the progression of ideas needs improvement. How can I improve my writing? How can I more effectively communicate the ideas which arise in my brain? I do not know. I guess I will have to practice more often. I will also need to identify and correct my mistakes.

Book One: Storm and Banquet

And so the first book of the story ends. What a great narrative. The mixing of Greek legend with Roman myth and historical fact makes for a heady brew. I do not quite understand the motives of Juno yet. There were some references to the battle of Troy and how she resents something that occured there. I think she knows that the Fates have destined Aeneas and his people to be greater than Carthage, a land that she loves, and so she wants to prevent Aeneas from reaching Latium and founding a great power. I am in love with Venus (which is natural); she is so sweet and beautiful. I loved it when she went to her father Jupiter to cry about how her son Aeneas was being treated: what a dear mother. I also enjoyed the description of Libya with its enchanted forests and rocky coves. Dido is now giving a banquet and Cupid (in disguise) is going to cause her to fall in love with Aeneas. She asks Aeneas to recount his adventures since his defeat at the battle of Troy. The story progresses . . .

I sing of arms and of the man . . .

I am beginning to read a prose translation of Virgil's The Aeneid. I prefer a prose translation because I despise most attempts to translate Latin verse into English verse. It cannot be done! Plus, most "average" people like myself are turned off by narrative poetry; we simply don't have time for such things.

Judging Literature

Is it possible to judge a work of literature as good or bad? I suppose if there were a set of standards for what constitutes a good piece of literature then I could judge whether any given work did or did not meet those standards. Are there any such standards? I do not know. Let us imagine that there is. Let us say that all good literature needs to have the following: (1) proper grammar, (2) suspense, (3) the exploration of at least one universal human theme, and (4) a resolution. Using this criteria I would deem Hugo's Les Miserables an excellent novel. Salinger's "Seymour: An Introduction", on the other hand, would get a very poor rating according to these standards. This might be fine for me, but what if someone thinks that Salinger's story is brilliant? Would they be heretics? No, because my standards are only accepted by me (unless someone happened to agree). A work of literature is only as good as the standards say it is, and the standards are determined by anyone and everyone who cares to create them. Thus there is no inherently good or bad literature because there does not exist an immutable set of standards. All literature is expression. You cannot judge expression for the same reason you cannot judge a rose bush (unless you devise an artificial standard, of course).

Some Qualities of George Saunders' Writing

What are some of the qualities of George Saunders' writing? Firstly, his "plots" are sort of absurd. They involve events and situations that do not normally occur in our common reality (or at least in my perception of it). Secondly, he doesn't take the traditional path in trying to start with a boring exposition to explain the situation of the story. He begins the story's events immediately, without any intitial explanation. As the story progresses, the reader is given enough clues to figure out the situation. I like this technique because it requires me to investigate the setting by picking up various clues; this inevitably makes me want to continue reading. Thirdly, he has a good handle on interior monologue and stream of consciousness. Fourthly, he doesn't waste a lot of time on description (which I believe to be irrelevent most of the time anyway). He focuses on the inner dialogue or else the actions of the characters. I believe this to be effective because humans are drawn more to characters and events than setting and description.