Entertaining. Informative. Insightful. Educational. And damn funny!
I often had heated arguments with my English and English Lit profs about what the author was trying to tell us. I maintained that they didn't necessarily have a motive or reason. Maybe they were just entertaining the reader. There doesn't have to be deep meaning in every word or sentence. Sometimes a word is just a word. My grades suffered because I would not accept the facts. That being educated and knowledgeable people, scholars and PhD's, had deemed it so, and I must toe the line. I feel vindicated after reading your words. Thank you.
Lots of people seeing lots of stuff that ain’t there and might never have been.
That is the only justification for the existence of most haiku.
I once went to an art exhibit where one of the pieces was a work boot nailed to to a fence post that was wrapped in rusty barbed wire. Our art critic referred to it as “a magnificent commentary on the suffering of those held in bondage.”
I can recall one scholarly type back in college holding forth about how the Hobbit was an allegory about how innocent English boys went off to destroy the empire ruled by the Dark Lord of Naziism.
This was presented as fact. As THE reason Tolkein wrote the book.
The book was published in 1937, and may well have represented some of Tolkein’s experiences serving in WW ONE, but this gomer had completely imprinted a different narrative and was delivering it as fact.
I don’t know much about the whys and how’s of writing, but I do know that when I was supposed to fill 36 column inches three times a week, I came up with something.
Entertaining. Informative. Insightful. Educational. And damn funny!
I often had heated arguments with my English and English Lit profs about what the author was trying to tell us. I maintained that they didn't necessarily have a motive or reason. Maybe they were just entertaining the reader. There doesn't have to be deep meaning in every word or sentence. Sometimes a word is just a word. My grades suffered because I would not accept the facts. That being educated and knowledgeable people, scholars and PhD's, had deemed it so, and I must toe the line. I feel vindicated after reading your words. Thank you.
Lots of people seeing lots of stuff that ain’t there and might never have been.
That is the only justification for the existence of most haiku.
I once went to an art exhibit where one of the pieces was a work boot nailed to to a fence post that was wrapped in rusty barbed wire. Our art critic referred to it as “a magnificent commentary on the suffering of those held in bondage.”
I can recall one scholarly type back in college holding forth about how the Hobbit was an allegory about how innocent English boys went off to destroy the empire ruled by the Dark Lord of Naziism.
This was presented as fact. As THE reason Tolkein wrote the book.
The book was published in 1937, and may well have represented some of Tolkein’s experiences serving in WW ONE, but this gomer had completely imprinted a different narrative and was delivering it as fact.
LOL! I too had heard the Nazi Hobbit theory. Utter rubbish!
I don’t know much about the whys and how’s of writing, but I do know that when I was supposed to fill 36 column inches three times a week, I came up with something.
I believe that to be the natural progression of writing.
It is Darwinian in journalism — instead of survival of the fittest, you only survive if it fits.
Or maybe it is more like Sheherezade’s 1001 Arabian nights. The Sultans will let you live as long as you can come up with another good (enough) story.