Diana's Diary

2001-04-30 - 11:15 p.m.

Thoughts from Kinsey Hall

I like being an English major, I really do. Most of the time. (Heh, I like being an English major less when I have a paper due soon.) I digress. But seriously, some of my fellow English majors bug the crap out of me.

Example: In my American Fiction class today, we were discussing Joanna Russ's Female Man. Hurrah. Well, this one guy says that it reminds him of Kurt Vonnegut. Well. As the Church Lady says, "Isn't that special?" Who cares? I've never read any Vonnegut. What's the point of making a comparison if a bunch of the people you're making it to aren't going to understand. So Russ and Vonnegut are similar...all right, here's the part where I get to ask my favorite English major-y question:

So what?

I hear people spout out stuff like this in my classes all the time. First off all, as I hinted, it's frustrating when people refer to unassigned works and assume we'll all know what they're talking about. Secondly, what, exactly, is the point of making this comparison? If you're going to bother to compare two things, you should at least bother to tell us why this comparison is important or interesting, or whatever. Don't just say, "X is like Y." Say something like, "X reminds me of Y, which is interesting, because X is talking about toaster ovens, while Y is lamenting the lack of sanitary seat covers in public restrooms. But because X and Y have such similar styles, we can see that toaster ovens actually have a lot in common with sanitary toilet seat covers." Or something! I don't know. I think this makes more sense in my head.

Or maybe I'm still irritated at the film class I took fall quarter, where a discussion of the movie The Big Sleep suddenly turned into a discussion of the book The Big Sleep, and since the plot changed a bit between the book and the movie, I had no idea what any one was talking about. (And NO, the book was NOT assigned, even as suggested reading. We should have been discusssing the film, dammit!)

Pardon me while I press the vein back into my forehead...

-Di

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2003-12-16 - Ow! My Nose!
2003-12-15 - 'Tis the Season...For Moving
2003-11-17 - Rush, Rush
2003-11-03 - Apartment Hunting Sucks
2003-10-22 - Apparently, "nauseated" is a good look for me.

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