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| Prickly scholars. |
Admittedly, it was the quirky title that immediately caught my attention and made me want to read this story. In the postmodernist tradition, conventional narrative forms are thrown out the window in favor of embracing the absurd as a kaleidoscopic reflection of the fragmented vision of reality. The emphasis is placed on incoherence, the preposterous, disarray and chaos. This total lack of so-called realism further highlights the tension between fiction and reality often found in Barthelme's work.
The plot makes absolutely no sense and I suppose that's the whole point. All you really need to know is that it does contain porcupines, although not cute ones dressed in graduation robes as seen in the above image. I just thought it was cute. In this story, these animals are more of a nuisance and thousands of them are being herded across campus grounds by an older man with aspirations to be a famous musician on the Vegas strip. The dean of the university decides to take matters into his own hands by shooting them all with a Gatling gun on his wagon, that is very reminiscent of the famous scene in the original Django movie (not the Tarantino version). See? Complete nonsense.
Every aspect of this story is baffling and left me confused. Is it a supposed to be parody or satire on academic life? Also, why porcupines? What are they suppose to represent or symbolize? Beats me. Any underlying sociopolitical commentary went completely over my head. By now, I am used to his particular brand of outlandish humor but it didn't quite resonate with me as much. Nevertheless, it's short enough and slightly amusing at times to not be a complete waste of time.
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