Essay # 3: Leda and the Swan

   This story had a really entertaining sort of quirky, unruffled humor. It's in the form of an essay written by a high-school girl who goes to extreme lengths to explain and justify how and why she stole her sister's boyfriend. Written in a steady flow of detail-crammed sentences, it embodies perfectly the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of a typical love-struck teenage girl, whose amorous bamboozlement allows her to speak--or write-- unceasingly.
   It's extremely diverting in that it uses phrases like, "nasally obese". It keeps the reader fascinated with the inner workings of a girl's mind, but also hits on some more serious points. Such as: Stealing your sister's boyfriend might just be socially taboo....especially if she runs away after you do it.
   It brings to light the fluffy nature of some infatuations by illustrating how singular body parts, like "perfect gold arms", can completely capture the mind and allow it to look over the fact that "Said Owner of Magnificent Arms" is failing "trigonometry, chemistry, American history, and Spanish", and might have an average of three brain cells.
   Please read this story, people. It will teach you, (a) when weighing the options between stealing a family member's significant other and dating a speed-metalist with Jesus hair, choose the option that won't destroy your family member's sanity, (b) to go read "Leda and the Swan" by William Butler Yeats, because it's apparently about a rampaging rapist bird, and sounds quite interesting, and (c) how to royally entertain your professor with a gossipy monologue that might just earn you an "A" for entertainment.

Link: http://www.thesunmagazine.org/_media/article/pdf/363_Puchner.pdf