The Cream of the Crop

It may be best to not to start with the one of best, but screw that. The following essay was the first essay we found that was truly a piece of (anti?)art. Although written by a high school freshman, the hilarity of this is still appreciable even beyond the level of simply bad writing. I understand that everybody writes poorly at some time or another and that the "first draft of anything is shit," but this goes beyond that. I remember one essay I wrote freshman year where I introduced a point by saying, "clearly, fairly obviously, ..." which perhaps belongs among the essays in my three overstuffed binders of bad writing. So, I invite anyone who reads this to appreciate the joy of bad writing in all of its humor without feeling I sit on my high horse.

Analysis:
This is a beautiful piece that begins weakly, like most freshman-level English papers. But, once we are introduced to Roy Hobbs (main character) in the fifth sentence, we begin to see there is something special about this work. The always nonstandard capitalization of "The Alchemist" leaves the reader tense and excited--what could it mean to be "the alchemist"? This is contrasted with "The Natural", whose title deserves to be capitalized normally--"why?", the reader is forced to contemplate, would the author choose such symbolic typography? I don't think we ever learn the true reasoning, which leaves the reader to constantly and recurrently contemplate the work's true meaning, like any good art should.

Moving into the first body paragraph, I do not have an emotional response to his first quote, until he tells me that it is powerful and that it, of course, ties into the language of the world. The two footnotes leave me with confusion in the same manner as the capitalization. Where do they point to? Why is one a subscript and one a superscript?

Towards the end, the author begins to write more personally. I completely understand that "life itself is a goal to attain" and understand that that is why he is alive (2). I certainly am alive so that I can achieve life. We are then given a very personal admission from the author. That is, he is still learning "right from wrong and good ideas from bad ideas" (2). I cannot agree more.

With the unintroduced quote from Roy Hobbs, we are finally led into gaining a true sense of the author's thesis about how the language of the world talks to us. Oh wait, just kidding, the universe "doesn't conspire to help anyone on their personal journey outside of Hollywood" (3).

Rating:
10/10

This is one of those essays that no matter how many times I read it brings me to tears. I particularly enjoy reading it out loud to an excited audience. Once I have reached second half of the second page, I find myself unable to talk, as tears run down my face, and find making words nearly impossible. I present to you one of the crowning achievements of a year and a half of recycle-bin diving and paper pile scavenging: