Litterature

[Liniah]

I got in a random discussion about absurdist litterature the other day at the diner. My friend (Kevin) was a big fan of Waiting for Godot and I remember it as being one of the dumbest and most pointless things I've ever read. Usually he and I can have good discussions about a lot of things, but for some reason my dislike of this litterary work really got him annoyed, which I thought was very strange. At any rate, I haven't read it in 10 years. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? Has anyone read it more recently than I?

[DV8]

I do love your ability for ironic typos.

On topic, I haven't read Waiting for Godot, so I can't say anything about it.

[3278]

I haven't read Waiting for Godot, although it's short-ish and almost certainly available online, so I suppose I could. My experience has often been, however, that much of the "great literature" of previous ages really does bore the living shit out of me. I didn't have the benefit of a classical education; somehow, I managed to avoid reading nearly everything you'd call a "classic," from Divine Comedy to Catch-22. [I've read some Aristophanes, but how can you not? The Frogs is some funny shit!]

When Eva lived with me, she - beneficiary of an excellent classical education, particularly by US standards - she was astonished to learn how little I'd read, particularly given my penchant for reading, and my, you know, reasonably smart demeanor. We discussed it a great deal, and my position runs a little like this: for most people, the lessons which could be learned from the classics are sufficiently learnable through more modern sources, either due to outright theft of the lesson, or because the lessons Melville had to teach us have already permeated the collective culture.

There's a lot to be said for reading the classics, but I don't find it necessary in order to be informed in regards to the lessons they had to teach us, and usually, I find reading the original work is generally so god-awful uninteresting as to completely obscure the message, anyway. But I have some very specific expectations for how the English language is used, so that's perhaps a strong cause, as well.

[Van Der Litreb]

Catch-22, by the way, is probably the funniest book I've ever read, and I think you'd appreciate the absurdity of it.

[Liniah]

Here's a random excerpt:



VLADIMIR:
We're waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON:
(despairingly). Ah! (Pause.) You're sure it was here?
VLADIMIR:
What?
ESTRAGON:
That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR:
He said by the tree. (They look at the tree.) Do you see any others?
ESTRAGON:
What is it?
VLADIMIR:
I don't know. A willow.
ESTRAGON:
Where are the leaves?
VLADIMIR:
It must be dead.
ESTRAGON:
No more weeping.
VLADIMIR:
Or perhaps it's not the season.
ESTRAGON:
Looks to me more like a bush.
VLADIMIR:
A shrub.
ESTRAGON:
A bush.
VLADIMIR:
A—. What are you insinuating? That we've come to the wrong place?
ESTRAGON:
He should be here.
VLADIMIR:
He didn't say for sure he'd come.
ESTRAGON:
And if he doesn't come?
VLADIMIR:
We'll come back tomorrow.
ESTRAGON:
And then the day after tomorrow.
VLADIMIR:
Possibly.
ESTRAGON:
And so on.
VLADIMIR:
The point is—
ESTRAGON:
Until he comes.
VLADIMIR:
You're merciless.
ESTRAGON:
We came here yesterday.
VLADIMIR:
Ah no, there you're mistaken.
ESTRAGON:
What did we do yesterday?
VLADIMIR:
What did we do yesterday?
ESTRAGON:
Yes.
VLADIMIR:
Why . . . (Angrily.) Nothing is certain when you're about.
ESTRAGON:
In my opinion we were here.
VLADIMIR:
(looking round). You recognize the place?
ESTRAGON:
I didn't say that.
VLADIMIR:
Well?
ESTRAGON:
That makes no difference.
VLADIMIR:
All the same . . . that tree . . . (turning towards auditorium) that bog . . .
ESTRAGON:
You're sure it was this evening?
VLADIMIR:
What?
ESTRAGON:
That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR:
He said Saturday. (Pause.) I think.
ESTRAGON:
You think.
VLADIMIR:
I must have made a note of it. (He fumbles in his pockets, bursting with miscellaneous rubbish.)
ESTRAGON:
(very insidious). But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? (Pause.) Or Monday? (Pause.) Or Friday?

[Van Der Litreb]

(confusedly) Ah! So these are my immigration papers? (pause) Or are they? (he scratches his balls) Well, I suppose it's possible. (with sudden clarity) But they weren't here yesterday, so how can I be sure? (resignedly) Perhaps, (pause) I should see if they are still here (pause) tomorrow. (introspectively) Time is a merciless apple.


-Waiting for My (fucking) Visa, by Van der Litreb.

[DV8]

Brilliant!

[Liniah]

(confusedly) Ah! So these are my immigration papers? (pause) Or are they? (he scratches his balls) Well, I suppose it's possible. (with sudden clarity) But they weren't here yesterday, so how can I be sure? (resignedly) Perhaps, (pause) I should see if they are still here (pause) tomorrow. (introspectively) Time is a merciless apple.


-Waiting for My (fucking) Visa, by Van der Litreb.

Holy shit, I laughed so hard I started to cry.

[Crazy Elf]

My friend (Kevin) was a big fan of Waiting for Godot and I remember it as being one of the dumbest and most pointless things I've ever read.

That's the point of it. It's supposed to be dumb and pointless.

[ak404]

Or if you were a trained reader, you'd look at the road that those two schmucks are sitting by and recognize the irony.

The road is supposed to take or lead you to new places, but the entire play takes place in the very same spot, even as the two characters are talking about all the things they're going to do once Godot gets there. If they don't know Godot that well, why bother waiting? Thus a road of possibility remains open to them, yet they do not take it. Ta-da.

[Crazy Elf]

Yeah, like I said, dumb and pointless. By the time it took the "trained reader" to figure all that out, <i>they</i> could have gone out and done something useful.

[3278]

And I guess that's a lot of my problem with literature: it's a longhanded, and often not particularly clear, means of communicating some point most of us already know for one reason or another. When you couch your message in obscurity, you risk that the message will be misheard; I comprehend the value of making your audience work some things out for themselves, but there is certainly such a thing as being too cryptic, and certainly such a thing as being too verbose.

[Van Der Litreb]

You may want to skip Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, then. Talk about being overly verbose.
But then, a lot of literature of that time was like that. It's as if they had just discovered adjectives and adverbs.

Read Catch-22, though. Really.

[Crazy Elf]

And <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i>. That book is entirely awesome. I'm not a fan of a lot of Dickens' work, but that one is awesome.

[ak404]

Yeah, like I said, dumb and pointless. By the time it took the "trained reader" to figure all that out, <i>they</i> could have gone out and done something useful.

Except it's not a book. It's a play. It's meant to be watched.

[Crazy Elf]

"Trained watcher" then. Amounts to the same thing.

[AtemHutlrt]

Or if you were a trained reader, you'd look at the road that those two schmucks are sitting by and recognize the irony.

The road is supposed to take or lead you to new places, but the entire play takes place in the very same spot, even as the two characters are talking about all the things they're going to do once Godot gets there. If they don't know Godot that well, why bother waiting? Thus a road of possibility remains open to them, yet they do not take it. Ta-da.

I guess, then, that I'm glad I'm not a trained reader -or watcher- because that's a pretty fucking banal theory.

[Serious Paul]

No, no-trained or not you're on the mark Atem. What was it Tom Brokaw said? " An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger."