Ok, so you can accuse me of being elitist, or if you want, being a hypocrite because of my casual writing style BUT I do have some merit to my following statements.
I’ve finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and was somewhat disappointed. The story was fine, and the subject matter was extremely interesting, but overall it lacked a certain something. There was no subtlety to it, no style no grace. His storyline was simple and dare I say crude. Nothing exciting really happened, it didn’t feel like a story, rather a vehicle to put it subject in context.
Now don’t get me wrong, in NO WAY could I write a better novel. I am no writer, I am just saying I’m disappointed, especially since it’s the topic of EVERYONE and everything. I’ve seen countless TV shows about the subject matter, which is the main element to his novel, which by the way; most dispute the accuracy of his ‘facts’. I just don’t think it’s worthy of the praise it’s receiving. It’s a popular book, not nessesarily a good book.
On the topic of books leads me to another equally pointless note. How many stories are there? It seems like only a small handful, and the rest are retellings of the same thing. For example; Alice in Wonderland, and Frankestein. Now lets look at George Orwell’s ‘1984’, which by the way I think is an amazing book. You can definitely draw some parallels between ‘1984’ and ‘Frankenstien’. You all gasp!? Yes, it’s true. Frankenstien is basically about a monster created by man, unleashed on the world, and in the end leads to his own downfall. Frankenstien creates his monster, lets it loose on the world, and it kills him in the end (spoiler, sorry). In ‘1984’ the monster is The Party (The Communist Party by the way) and it is created by men. It is let loose on the world (capitalism is banned and the worlds 3 superpowers; Eurasia, East Asia and Oceania are all Socialist states). The monster grows powerful and greedy and all-consuming and in the end destroys it’s creaters (by killing the human spirit).
But you can argue that Frankenstien is more than that, it’s about acceptance and compassion and longing to be understood. Yeah, ok, I concede it’s that too. But ‘Godzilla’ is this story, so is Jurassic Park, so are most monster movies.
Another example; ‘Alice in Wonderland’. How many examples of this are there?! Millions. Although I can’t really think of any off the top of my head. ‘Spirited Away’? Well what is ‘Alice’? It’s a young character who goes to a mysterious land full of wonder (sorry about the literal translation there) and experiences all sorts of wonder, but wakes up and it was all a dream. Or was it!? ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘The Matrix’, ‘Alien’ (you all gasp again? Doesn’t Ripley fall asleep at the end of the film and when she awakes she’s not sure if it was real. I guess she is sure, but there are never any remains [don’t argue with me on this one!])
BUT the worst offender is ‘The Matrix’. It has both stories wrapped up in it. The monster is of course the robots and machines and stuff, which ultimately destroy most of the human race and current way of life. At the same time they just wanted to be accepted (via The Animatrix films) and of course they were created by man. ALSO Alice is not so sublety used in the the first film; The White Rabbit tattoo, eating the pills, the mirror and of the characters actually mentioning the story. And of course there is that whole waking up analogy and not being sure if it was real or not.
So I’m not really sure if I have a point or not, but I THINK I might.
Speaking of ‘1984’ reminded me of a conversation yesterday and many times in the past, about the death of the English language. If this is a single pet-peeve of mine, it’s that phone/SMS/chatroom text or replacing numbers for words (LOL, ROFL, B4, CUL8RM8) they’re not only annoying but insulting. I understand the need for it, it shorten the character count, reducing the cost, that’s fine, it’s the use of it on signage, on TV, in everyday language, even in books! Space is not an issue, don’t patronize me by trying to be modern. Young people don’t appreciate it. I don’t think. It might be cool at the moment but it continues or gets worse we may loose something important in our language; intricacy. I love that we have a thousand words for the same thing, or that a single word can mean multiple things, or that a single sound have multiple spellings. It makes it exciting, it gives me pride to be able to use these different words (don’t say it, don’t! I do use the proper words when I want to). What I’m saying is; if we continue to simplify the language to make it ‘more accesessable’ to the younger generations then we will loose the pride in our language. If everyone can speak at the same level (a lower level) how will we distinguish intelligence? How will we have pride in what we say and how we say it? AND if some people hold on to the current language they will instantly be the upperclass, looking down upon the masses. They will be the Inner Party and the Outer Party, you will all be Proles. Have fun, suckers!
The reason I bring this all up is because we’re working on a logo for a company called ‘Homes 4 Living’. It makes me cry. Not only does it have letter/number substitution, it also has a really lame and obvious sort of name. IDIOTS!
Ok, my rant is done now. I can’t believe you ate the whole thing.
I’m Comrade Scott, signing off.
