I got four C's in college, one of them in Freshman Composition. I got an A+ in Advanced Composition, and the prof was sad he couldn't give double plusses. I think my problem in Freshman Comp was utter bafflement with the assignments. "Write about your favorite television show." Huh? Write what about it? "Write about your weekend." Mmm, I did laundry, I worked on my heavily Mary Sue Star Wars fic (didn't know the word then).
Advanced Comp was "Something descriptive." "Something that really happened to you" (I completely faked both of the essays on real events, both of them got A++'s, hee. I ficced my own life). I could do that.
just--does the thing tell a good story? Does it illuminate some facet of life? Heck, if nothing else, did it move you to some authentic emotion--even if it was just being so mortally offended that you threw it across the room?
... Because my reading for this course has swallowed my brain (the best state to be in, for me), I'm just cracking up right now because you kinda sound utterly like the 1960s, "against interpretation"!Susan Sontag.
(And she's so
not
about the avoiding any of the academic-predecessors stuff, that's not her style. She throws around names and works with enough frequency and causality to intimidate anyone.)
you kinda sound utterly like the 1960s, "against interpretation"!Susan Sontag.
"Ack!" said my brain. "I'm channelling the philosophy of someone I've heard of favorably in an intellectual capacity!" I have the strangest hillbilly mind. You can get the girl out of Greene County, but you can't ...
Seriously, dude, you should read that essay! You would love her. You could just skim the names of people you don't already know about. It's what I do. Because I am bad.
Where would I find this essay?
Uh, I don't know. Lemme google a line from deep within it and see if it's reproduced online anywhere.
Woo the first. (It's only an excerpt though.)
Woo the second.
Bookmarked for easy reading when I get home. Thank you, La Liz.
And I have never in my life read Susan Sontag. Met her once (when the earth was still cooling) and knew that while I might agree with her on a lot of stuff, her writing was almost cert-guaranteed to drive me batshit.
