I’m finally tackling S, JJ Abrams’s complicated book-within-a-book mystery; on the internet’s suggestion, I’m starting off by reading the base novel, Ship of Theseus. Not even one chapter in and oh. My. God. It’s exactly the type of pretentious, heavy-handed nonsense that English majors and college professors go nuts over. The “original” margin notes in pencil could’ve been notes I made at 21. The over-underlining, the Christ imagery, the references to scholarly works; even now, I’m wondering how the actual protagonist isn’t even touching on the Greek mythology (the amnesiac lost in the town as Theseus lost in the Minotaur’s labyrinth) smacking him in the face. I don’t know if it’s by Mark Dorst’s design, but I’ve never seen college catnip like this. Like, of course you love this, actual protagonists, you’re twenty-something lit students! I’m actually dying right now.
Edit: I’m not mad, it’s funny to me. It’s like looking at at a picture of your awkward teens and wondering what you were thinking with that weird haircut.
by Locksley_1989
8 Comments
Its funny because you’re clearly projecting your own pretentiousness onto the book
It’s very rare that a books fault is in the hands of a reader. This is one of those cases.
“Could’ve been notes I made at 21”, sorry sir, but aren’t the notes along the side supposed to be written by people in their early 20s?
This feels like reading a YA novel about a 16 year old girl, then being mad about the fact that she is acting like a 16 year old girl.
I was so excited for this book because I thought it would really take me on a cool mystery full of fun discoveries with all the notes and ephemera, but, man, what a major let down.
>pretentious, heavy-handed nonsense
is exactly the kind of stuff English professors *don’t* go nuts over. I’m not fan of literary critics, but come on, at least be annoyed at them for things that are real.
>I’ve never seen college catnip like this
Then you’ve never been to college
I haven’t read it so I can’t speak for how good it is, but I am so sick of people starting things (books, movies, whatever) and jumping on the internet to make sweeping judgments long before they’ve even finished. MOST fiction is designed to come together at the end and you’re not even giving it a chance to do what it’s trying to do!
Like, all this tells me is that you have no patience or attention span. It says nothing about the book at all.
I concur.
All of this was in the description. You’re complaining that it has references to scholarly works? And that’s pretentious? And that the notes made by a college senior sound like a 21 year old ? You’re the one who sounds pretentious.