I’m bored in the U.S.A
How did it happen?
– Father John Misty, 'Bored in the U.S.A.'
Recently I found myself teaching Donald Barthelme’s now classic postmodern story “The Balloon” to undergraduate students in an American literature survey. When I canvassed for reactions to the piece, I was surprised to hear a majority of the students describe the story as “boring.” Barthelme’s surrealistic tale, in which an enormous balloon inexplicably appears over a large swath of Manhattan one day and elicits a bevy of citizen reactions, isn’t exactly what one would call dull. That’s a little like calling Dali’s drooping clocks tiresome. Nevertheless, the story’s dizzying language, weirdness, and lack of plot failed to keep some students’ attention.
But my students were in good reading company. In The Pleasure of the Text (1973), even Roland Barthes admits he sometimes becomes bored while reading, though boredom’s threat also ensures his readerly bliss. Yet what is indicative of the reader’s aesthetic freedom for the sophisticated Barthes, can feel to the novice reader like confusing chaos. The initial moral of this story about a story might be somewhat obvious: one person’s boredom is another’s obsession.
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