Quickness

Quickness was one of Calvino’s principles that I connected with the most. He talks about how important it is to be economical in the way that information is presented to the reader. I have read many books that go on for pages on a subject that could have been addressed in one paragraph. I don’t think this adds anything to the story, but in most cases causes the reader to become bored and unwilling to finish the text. Calvino stresses in his book that it is important to look at the situation when deciding on appropriate means of expression. There are times when lingering on a subject for a long period of time may be a good idea, but at other times it is more appropriate to use speed in a narrative.

The rhythm of a story is extremely important because it influences the way that the reader interprets the text. By focusing on the principle of quickness we can better understand how getting to the point can make it much easier for the reader to understand a text. It is certainly easier to read a paragraph that gives you all of the information you need while keeping you entertained, as opposed to reading four pages to get the same amount of information. I have chosen an image of an arrow hitting the center of a target to represent quickness. I think that it shows the importance of getting to the point instead of lingering over unimportant details. Another way that the target can be viewed is by representing the understanding of the reader. If a reader is forced to read through a five page description of one event, they are more likely to miss the message being conveyed, and would not hit the center of the target immediately. Hitting the center of the target can represent the directness of the writer, or the reader achieving the intended understanding of the text.

Avoiding wordiness and intense language can help readers be more interested in literature and understand it better. I was thinking about a piece of literature to represent this principle and settled on a negative example to demonstrate what I understood to be quickness. The novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was one of the hardest books that I ever had to endure, and one of the main problems I had with it was getting through pages of meaningless description. I think that the book is so full of description that it lessens the impact of the work. If Defoe had been more direct I think that the reader would be able to understand the book much easier. He winds the reader in circles instead of leading them directly to the desired sense of understanding he is trying to get across.