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The Winner

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Clarissa

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OK, so remember the essay contest? The one with the essay I really loved? It didn’t win. The essay that won was the only one of the bunch that I didn’t finish reading.

Now, please, understand that I’m a literary critic. I’m trained to read every word. Skipping anything is so hard for me that it’s an effort not to read every word on a menu. But this essay I couldn’t finish. It was truism meets bromide meets platitude. Everything in it was so unimpeachably true and so excruciatingly obvious that I was assaulted by bouts of mouth-rending yawns with every new sentence.

Apparently, though, everybody else loved it. Nobody else on the jury was a scholar of literature.

To me, worthwhile reading is the kind that surprises me. If you can’t give me any fresh content, try for an engaging, exciting format. But these sad good-kid essays that rattle off trivial ideas one was told are correct drive me up a wall. 

This is why I love teaching Spanish. The material is so new to the students that the work they produce is free from the shackles of received truths. 

2 responses to “The Winner”

  1. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    People love hearing stuff they know already. It’s like listening to a fairy tale or a bed time story they know and love with the same rhythm, cadence, twists, turns, and ending. It’s very soothing.

    It was the worst of times, it was the best of times. The bootstrap factory did brisk business in the climbing wall capital of the county. For there was only goal–to climb. There was only one direction — up. There was nothing less to give than 110%. “Productivity is up and up!”said the foreman, pointing at the pie chart. “The sportsball team won again,” said his report. They cracked open a beer and a human skull. Brain was the ultimate refueling food after a long day of mining coal, climbing bootstraps & making pie charts. They were quite tired of winning and when the sun set, they’d be ready to do so again tomorrow. “That’s all folks,!” they waved at the factory cameras.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      No, you can’t do platitudes even when you try. 🙂 You wouldn’t win that contest. But that’s ok, I’d bomb, too.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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