Let's read "Our work and why we do it" together. A short 7 page story by Donald Barthelme

Because I have no fucking clue what any of this story means. I read it and it was reading. But what was it's purpose? I think I might be too stupid for barthelme.

I like the style, but some of the printing jargon confuses me. What exactly is a slug, hammer, and press in this context?

Press I'm assuming is a printing press

I don't get it

Lit take the time to read 7 pages lmao

as always with Barthelme theres a lot of symbolism and playfulness with the meaning of things

The whole system represents being a writer; He needs to put words into a paper, make the ink flow, even if its bad, even if doesn't seem to make sense anymore. The car with the headless lady and the driver who ignores her Rich mindless people living meaningless but loud lives surrounded by people who don't even care about them The hammer and vodka are Strength through hate and cheap escapism The leather he points later in the text Is the meat. Human meat. Represents emotions. Because being a writer means you are a human after all. And the next step of the company is to produce the leather, making ''human'' meat, faking emotions and feelings When he talks in the end about the company excellence and prosperity Is talking about how either the literature culture will ever survive no matter what, or could be a analogy to workers who always taught their work would never cease to exist, since he mentions using the hammer to protect the company

I got some headaches because the angle of some pages but thanks for sharing, gonna sleep now. I probably took a lot of interpretations wrongly and missed a few so don't take my opinion so seriously

I liked that a lot. It's about the love of a thing and a doing and how shitty and great that can be all at once.

You might need to have had a job where you get your ass kicked all night to really empathize, but suffice to say it's the sort of love and hate you might feel for a platoon leader who keeps leading your sad ass into the very worst of the worst for no reason but gets you out every time.

On another level you could say it's something of a dance with the ideas of communism and capitalism. From both sides, really, unless you'd like to give it a slant. A communist might say it's about capitalists' infatuation with the very men that hold their chains and whips. From a capitalist perspective I'm having a hard time differentiating the possible viewpoint from what I've already said about love of a job, but I do get the sense that it's there. If that makes sense.

Fairly straight forward from a revolutionary perspective; reformists are trash, and he hates himself for ending up necessarily in league with them by making a living from writing.

You oversimplified the hammer.

If (you) enjoyed it enough to transmit it, youre not 'too stupid.' Getting at the best lit (and the worst lit) often takes time. I wondered at printer's errors and the fiction that the characters were in charge of this hack job. There's more to it of course, but let simply liking it remain enough for now.

euclase is a horrible person because she made a living as a typographer, says she's "better than the old masters", and is a horrible tumblr lesbian. Everything she says is shit talk and rude, there are no "formalized modes of digitalphotorealism". and now its fucking eliciaforever. Seriously fuck you

fuck barbara kruger as well the first thing I saw

so randum XD

I have no clue what it means desu senpai and everyone seems to have different opinions so that means it's a shit story and barthelme is fucking garbage kys.

>Human meat means emotions
>Liking shitty job
>Revolution
Lmao shut your mouths your fucking plebs.