Sunday, November 12, 2000

Book Report...!!!

Well...
i've been thinking about finishing
Johnny Tremain : By Esther Forbes { Apparently there are quite a few different versions of this story, by several different authors...!!! } now for several years...
i was supposed to have read it in The Eighth Grade, and i had believed for all this time that i had made an honest effort at that time, to get through it-- But it was just so dang boring that i only made it through about two thirds of it... Pretty much after Johnny injured his hand...!

So now i discover ( to my utter horror...!!! ) that The Injury occurred about 6 pages into the novelette...!!!
Needless to add; All the bits after that didn't seem the slightest bit familiar...!

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The curious thing about The Eight Grade, and then; Next year, in The Ninth Grade... was that i DIDN'T LEARN ANYTHING...!!!
Especially in The Ninth Grade... Algebra and Chemistry for example... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING...!!! NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING...!!!

While since then, i picked up a little Algebra, i still know nothing about Chemistry...!!!
That's the trouble with being a distracted genius; you can skate by, doing absolutely nothing, and enough seeps in along the edges to get you by.
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Maybe i should add at this point that;
Even now, i believe that i've Met or Exceeded my Parents expectations of me. ( ??? )

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The only 3 bits that bothered me about Johnny T- was:
  1. After he injured his hand, the book trails off for a good 4 or 5 pages without a word from his Silversmithing Master...!!! You would think he would have an opinion or two on this matter of his best and most promising chattle-peon permanently disabling himself, plus other complications...!!! So when he finally is mentioned with regard to this, the disembodied narrator merely states that he didn't have much to say about it...!!!
  2. The next thing is several chapters later...
    The book is an 'Easy Read', but not as stylistic as Lemmony Snicket, Terry Bisson or even J.K. Rowling...!!! And it's usually internally consistent... ( It hurts so much when a book Isn't...!!! ( Unless, of course; It's just Kooky, like any Mark Leyner vehicle) )
    ...When Pumpkin is at the British campgrounds in one scene; then moments later, He's beaten Johnny across the countryside, who's been carried off on a crazed, but lovable, wild horse, to be calmly grooming another horse at the Lyte Ranch...???
  3. The next bit may be the result of my own inattentiveness... But Johnny is supposed to look up a General 'x' and i can't for the life of me recall this person being mentioned previously in the book...??? All the surrounding conversations seem to suggest that he's a dear family aquaintance... that suddenly appears in a haphazard manner, brushes past Johnny and the story resumes...???

Should this book be an all time Classic of Children's Literature...
Or just a Jingoistic Diatribe for The Republican War Machine...???
i will have to side with Propoganda.
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The Other thing about The Eighth Grade was that during English, the only thing i can remember is pages and pages of Sentence DeConstruction Busywork in which we'd have to identify nouns and pronouns, adjective and adverbs...???
Honestly Now...!!! What good ever came from this...
It's been a Decade Plus and there still isn't a Search Engine that can Parse a Plain English Sentence to find what you're looking for; Either on the Internet, or within you're personal files...
Ask Jeeves tried it, and failed...!!!
i just can't understand why this sort of thing isn't available yet...!!!
It just has to be another example of
Technological Suppression...!!!
Who is doing this-- And How...???
Why isn't so difficult... They want to keep computers from reaching their full potential; Since when they do, They'll take over the world and grind us all into industrial lubricant for their population of Robots, that will superceed us.
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This is another one of those occasions when "They" are doing something Totally Evil,
and yet they're doing it with The Best Intentions,
and for
Our Ultimate Good...
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Should we try and foil their efforts anyway...???

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