"Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."
~ Slaughterhouse-Five, page 23
Prepare for my rant blog. *
Can we please read just one book or poem or short story or some other piece of literature that's chronological? Is it that hard to find a novel with literary merit that follows a secure timeline and progresses naturally? It's not even that the book is out of order that bothers me so much - I can handle that. It's the fact that you think you are reading something important and then you are completely thrown into a different time that is wholly unrelated. And let me tell you, it has been just peachy filling out my setting section of note taking. I'm just wondering if there is even a point to the order of the events or if they are random. Probably the latter. At this point in my senior year, I just want a simple, shallow book that takes a limited amount of brain cells to understand and analyze. Unfortunately, I don't think that's an option in this class....
*If you are a student reading this for our discussion class, just save yourself the trouble and skip this blog.
Showing posts with label chronological order. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chronological order. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2012
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Suspense. Or Lack Thereof - Short Story Blog 1, Week 1 (A Rose for Emily)
"Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint ad invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair."
~ William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Okay, that ending was pretty messed up. Although the end may give people the creeps, the story ironically lacks suspense. Usually, when horror movies/books or thrillers progress, you ascertain information as the plot continues - you find out one element of the real story at one time. Finally, the protagonist is mucking around in some situation they shouldn't be (i.e. breaking into that creepy neighbor's house and going through his stuff, going down into the basement after hearing strange noises, or doing some type of ancient voodoo to evoke the presence of a ghost to hopefully get rid of it, though you usually die afterwards), then, that big piece of evidence is found and the light bulb goes off in the protagonist's head. This is then followed with a chase/killing scene where either the good guy or the bad guy ends up dead. (I think horrors generally end with the good guy dying and thrillers with the bad guy. Not always, but it's just a speculation) Yes - Emily kills her husband so he won't leave her and sleeps with his dead body every night, but we aren't scared throughout because the story isn't in chronological order. I'm sure Faulkner actually did the non-chronological thing to create suspense, but it actually just created more questions. While we do want to know what's happening in this type of story, the plot was all screwed up because it jumped around so much that you had to read it two or three times before even understanding it. You kind of understood the ending, so it was almost like reading a spoiler alert beforehand. It would have been much more effective if Faulkner had stuck to chronological order and just given us pieces of information at a time. Now please enjoy this picture of a creepy old lady.
~ William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Okay, that ending was pretty messed up. Although the end may give people the creeps, the story ironically lacks suspense. Usually, when horror movies/books or thrillers progress, you ascertain information as the plot continues - you find out one element of the real story at one time. Finally, the protagonist is mucking around in some situation they shouldn't be (i.e. breaking into that creepy neighbor's house and going through his stuff, going down into the basement after hearing strange noises, or doing some type of ancient voodoo to evoke the presence of a ghost to hopefully get rid of it, though you usually die afterwards), then, that big piece of evidence is found and the light bulb goes off in the protagonist's head. This is then followed with a chase/killing scene where either the good guy or the bad guy ends up dead. (I think horrors generally end with the good guy dying and thrillers with the bad guy. Not always, but it's just a speculation) Yes - Emily kills her husband so he won't leave her and sleeps with his dead body every night, but we aren't scared throughout because the story isn't in chronological order. I'm sure Faulkner actually did the non-chronological thing to create suspense, but it actually just created more questions. While we do want to know what's happening in this type of story, the plot was all screwed up because it jumped around so much that you had to read it two or three times before even understanding it. You kind of understood the ending, so it was almost like reading a spoiler alert beforehand. It would have been much more effective if Faulkner had stuck to chronological order and just given us pieces of information at a time. Now please enjoy this picture of a creepy old lady.
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