So...
One fo my classes for spring semester is a literature class. I love literature, love to read, yes, I am a nerd.
So the first book we are going to read is Cervantes' Don Quixote. Ok fine - I have never read it, so I have no idea what to expect or even think about it. At first thought, I think the name is retarded, that is my first thought.
So I pick up this book from the bookstore and this fucking thing has 800 pages. 800. Pages. (Desperately hoping for some wicked 1600's sex scenes here...) and the first 34 pages of the book is the "Editor's Note". The next 21 pages is an introduction and explanation. I don't get this...what, you failed so miserably as a writer that we are 'blessed' with NOT reading YOUR book, but reading your fucking INTRO into a book. You aren't good enough to write your own, so we will let you take up 55 pages of THIS book, just to add to your resume.
And yes, I am required to read that. Why? Why dear Professor, are you making me read 55 pages of someone elses blowharded shit who I don't give a flying fuck about? Thank you, Samuel Putnam, for your translation and editors notes, but your opinions about what I SHOULD think about this book are null and void.
So first assignment, we read 253 pages, last week and then this week we are writing about it and discussing with each other (online class IUPUI)...and we get commentary about what a "great, pivotal piece of work this is" and blah blah blah. I look to next week, we fucking end up skipping pages 253 - 456. What? Why? Why, because this is simply a story about a moron who contiually fucks up over and over and the story is OLD after page 150?
If this is supposed to be such a pivitol piece of literature, why arent we reading the whole thing?
If this is supposed to be such a pivitol piece of literature, why did you instruct me to read the entire 55 page intro (written by some asswipe) but NOT the actual literature piece???
Am I missing something?????
To Cervantes credit, I must say, in what I have read so far, yeah its pretty good, and I can see why people enjoy it. Clearly it is a total "male-book", especially during the shitting scene. Literally, that shocked the hell out of me. For those of you who haven't read it, it IS classic, this scene. Don Quixote is trying to rest on his horse for the night and he has his squire, Sancho keeping watch. Sancho all of a sudden realizes, he needs to shit. Badly.
So what is a squire to do? Well he unbuckles his breeches to take a shit right there by his master...hoping the master won't hear or smell. Ummmmm....
Don Quixote hears it, and then smells it....but is so retarded, he tells Sancho, "Oh it must be your fear I smell" .....LOL Riiiiiiiight.
All I can say is, that's alot of fucking fear....
Another scene, Don asks Sancho to check his mouth to see how many teeth he has left, after a fight, and Sancho goes over to look and feel in his mouth, and yeah....Don pukes all over Sancho...
Needless to say, I can see the mass appeal to the book - it is dirty and grimy and funny, and WAY over the top. But for fucks sake people, can we not just read and enjoy something? Why do i have to read some jackasses thoughts on why DQ's character continues to exhibit "dramatic irony"????? Why does it matter? Does it change the book? No. Does it change how it ends? No.
At any rate, I am now trying to make the decision if I try and speed read through the 200 pages we are instructed to skip (I WILL FEEL LOST IF I DON'T) before next week, or just go along with the masses in this conforming literature class.
I need the micromachine man...
LMS
