Better as a Movie

While reading Pedro Paramo, by Juan Rulfo, I was having trouble keeping all the stories in the work straight.  The story jumps around from scene to scene throughout the story.  The structure makes the plot of the story difficult to follow, not to mention that most of the characters are dead yet still part of the story.  My suggestion is that the story would be easier to follow if it were in movie form rather than in the traditional structure that it is currently written in.  This suggestion makes more sense than originally thought because of the fact that Rulfo also wrote movies.  And upon further discussion, I found out that Pedro Paramo was put into movie form, but only in Spanish.  I would enjoy seeing the work as a movie but I would not be running to the theatres to see it on opening night.  All in all, Pedro Paramo is a good work for readers who like piecing a story together and possibly reading the story a second time to fully grasp the meaning of the work.

What's The Point?

After reading the short story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” I was left with one lingering question.  The question was:  what’s the point?  What is the point of the story?  What message did the story send to the reader?  Who benefits from reading this story?  Overall, the story has a nice flow and is a pleasant read but it ends in a way that turns me off.  I understand that not all stories have a happy ending, but if it is not going to have a happy ending at least have a clear message to the reader.  Hopefully the message will be one of caution or something to learn from so the reader doesn’t make the same mistake.  But this story did not provide anything like that, in my opinion.  The messages of this story, or at least the messages that I can see are: don’t shoot guns, don’t work hard and make money and reward yourself, no matter what you do you can never get ahead in life, always listen to your mother.  These messages provide nothing substantial that a person can gain from this story, and that is a bit disheartening.  It is disheartening because after reading a story, a reader either wants a happy heartwarming ending or a message to learn from.  But this story did not provide either, so a work that could be very good is now average a best and it is a work that I would not just suggest to a person if they were looking for a good read.  If the story ended a little differently then I would suggest this to a friend.  After reading this story I got the same feeling I get when I go to a movie that is really good but has a crappy ending which hurts my view of the whole movies, just like the ending to this story hurts the whole work.