Monday, January 24, 2011

The Peekaboo Paradox

The first thing I noticed about this article was its conversational writing style. The story is driven heavily by long periods of dialog that move the various themes throughout. Much of this is due to the fact that the writer and The Great Zucchini seem to have a relationship that exceeds the typical writer-subject relationship. The two seem as very close friends, sharing secrets as well as hanging out for prolonged periods of time. It makes for a more interesting story, but at times made me question the validity of the author's words. Though the piece was fairly neutral, it would be hard to believe that someone so close to GZ would ever put him in a bad light, aside from calling him "a complete idiot".

When reading this article, I lost interest quickly once I discovered it was about a children's entertainer, perhaps the most unappealing topic I could imagine. However, my interest peaked at two crucial turning points in the story. The first was when the author revealed that this seemingly petty profession was making Eric Knaus $100,000 a year. When this is mentioned it raises the stakes. The reader knows that this man must be exceptional at what he does. The second moment is when it is revealed that Knaus has a gambling problem. It brings much needed conflict into the story. Obviously, not many men want to entertain children for a living, so I figured there was a darker past behind this man. These points in the story are crucial because they would not have maintained my interest without them.

This article begins by relying on a single question to pull the reader in: Who is The Great Zucchini? The appeal of this question held my attention for a few paragraphs, but I honestly would have stopped reading before it got interesting had this not been a class assignment. There are multiple stretches in this article where i lost sight of where the story was headed. One minute it was a discussion about a struggling children's entertainer. The next it was about Eric Kraus trying to hook up with strippers.

This story would have been much better if it were about 1000 words shorter. It just seems drawn out for no particular reason. It has a solid beginning and a circle kicker in that Kraus is doing what he loves again at the end of the piece. Perhaps the point of the story is that regardless of all the issues that Kraus struggles with, he can still make a difference in many lives as The Great Zucchini.

No comments:

Post a Comment