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Originally Posted by GreggusXMachina zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. It has plot, theme, character the whole shebang |
I thought Zen was as boring as fuck. But it does have all of the above.
Heart of Darkness. Very good. Very short. The Great Gatsby is also very good, very short.
Something I've not read yet, but looks like it might be worthwhile is "The Motorcycle Diaries" written by Che Gueverra when he was in his early twenties;- exploring Latin America on a Norton 500. Soon to be a major motion picture. Natch.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that the examiners will actually read, or care, about your essay. They will go through it and give you a tick for every salient point or appropriately used big and clever word. Pick a book that you will enjoy being stuck with for a year and that the examiners will not find offensive. Don't go for anything controversial or try to prove a point. Like I said, they barely read the thing anyway, therefore it's not worth the effort. Save your ire for when it matters;- your twenties.
So, no character development for, say, Patrick Bateman, even though it would be quite good fun (" It is at this point in the novel, where he inserts a rat into the whore, we see the character reaching a new level of sado-psychotic maturity that transcends his previous, almost juvenile, sociopath/stalker traits. hehe)
Avoid Sci fi and fantasy novels (this should be a general rule of thumb for life, not just essay based). Even good sci fi and fantasy is looked down on by the examiners. Play their game. We all know Dune is one of the best books ever written. Don't do your essay on it. You'll just lose marks.
Naturally, your teenage brain knows better than my jurrasic twenty four year old brain, and therefore you will reject this advice in a hissy fit of self importance. That's cool, I wouldn't expect anything less. But bear in mind that even though these exams and essays seem really big and important and you can't see round them right now, soon they will be a distant memory and you'll realise that no matter how much people told you how important they were, they weren't THAT important. You'll always get better grades than your parents did anyway. This is due to the way the Government skews statistics rather than anything to do with generational intelligence or educational methods.
Of course, if you are feeling really up for it, hate your english teacher anyway, and know you are smart enough to pull it off, you should go the whole hog. Critique the Bible. Examine the character development of God Almighty (angry young deity. Floods, fire brimstone, plague. Then his son dies in a tragedy, and he is forced to come to terms with this and re-evaluate his beliefs) lots of plot. A real chance to pull three thousand years of blinkered theology to bits. Go on. You know you want to.
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