Stranger than Criticism

How meta.

It's things like this that make me want to be an English PhD student, and yet at the same time I know very well that actually being one would have nothing to do with applying literary theory to popular movies and everything to do with wading through dense criticism and for that matter, dense novels themselves. Still, there is something so appealing in untangling the mysteries in storytelling. I think my handicap as an English major was always a lack of willingness to question the validity of the author's writing, creativity, strategy, technique, whatever you want to call it - I find it hard to give a bad review, basically. But my talent was my willingness to take it for what it is - to say to myself something akin to the following:

But that just may be what a critic is supposed to think; it’s what Jules Hilbert might say if he were writing this review from inside my head. And for all I know, he is.

Either way, I have this itchy finger when I read or think about literature, like when I read Jude the Obscure and lovvvved it. (And thought to myself, I should become a Thomas Hardy scholar!) And, I want to see this movie.