If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

CVCS is the written/theory part of our course at college. And it's not my favorite. Some of it is really interesting, but most of the time it just seems like they are trying to draw imaginary circles round things, that can't actually apply, and at the end of the day don't mean anything. So this year it's all Modernism/Postmodernism. And everything seems to be to do with Modernism or Postmodernism so I should really know what they are. But a semester in, and I'm pretty much still clueless. I start to think I'm getting somewhere, but then if I had to explain it to anyone else, I wouldn't be able to at all.

Plus don't get me started on the readings they give us. For example, if this means anything to anyone, please let me know.

Anyway. I was talking about this with my studio work tutor, ie. not a CVCS tutor, and he told me some examples of Postmodern novels I should read. So I read the New York Trilogy and loved it, therefore I was looking forward to reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. But I feel like I've been reading it for MONTHS and I'm only just approaching half way. Maybe it's because I haven't had any time to just sit down and read, I've just had snatches of time between things, on my lunch breaks at work etc. But then the way it's written, it stops and starts and stops and starts. There is the first chapter in which you, the Reader, sit down to read the book. And then the second chapter is the first chapter of the book being read. But then there is an error with the printing of the book. So then it's the first chapter of another book. Then another book, then another book, with chapters in between about the Reader. And this Reader finds all these first chapters of books really interesting. So he is trying to find the out what all these other books are that he reads the first chapter of. Perhaps the problem is that most of these First Chapters, I don't find particularly gripping. And if they are, then that's all you get. I guess that's the point, this frustration. But it's just no fun.

I will finish it though. I'll keep going, and maybe i'll change my mind.