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The Labor of Text

Reading a novel you don't like is similar to unnecessary pain - it's painful and not necessary.

Okay, that was a stupid opening sentence. Bear with me on this one, folks.

After a semester-long hiatus from school, I began the second semester this school year with axes to grind - or to be more accurate, final papers to submit - with my former professors.

One of the aforementioned professors, whose class I took two years ago, required us to review a book without reference to any secondary text. The paper, then, must be grounded on our experience as a reader of books. This forced me to dust off one of my books that, for almost four years, I have refused to touch from my bookshelf because it bored the living shit out of me after a couple of chapters.


The reason why I forced myself into reading something that I find a pain in the ass to read is to hopefully get the book off my list. Working on a deadline should have instilled a sense of urgency in me to run through the pages of the book.

No offense to Eco (it turns out that Baudolino is a fine text from an objective point of view), but for that semester when I was supposed to finish this paper, I just can't get myself to analyze it for academic purposes. I finished the book, don't get me wrong, but I found it such a bore that I abandoned writing the paper. For that, I finished the semester with an INC for that subject.

Even though, I eventually got to submit the paper a couple of weeks ago, it still pisses me off for not getting this done earlier.

Oh well.

Buy Baudolino here.

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