Critique

I've been Catherine's critic for some time now. She writes fullbloodedly and sometimes reminds me of Neruda's translated poems. Catherine has promise, and someday you'll all read her.

But recently, Catherine's oneliners have suddenly changed their hue. She was quoting Anne Sexton and sometimes writing better than her, and believe me she can write a lot of good stuff if she wants to. But yesterday she came up with this absolutely unoriginal line:

"Fine, take your patience and stick it up your ass."

Now Northrop Frye would have none of this. He would definitely argue, and understandably so, that sticking something up one's ass is an archetype lodged in one's mind, that probably doesn't have anything to do with really being sodomized. It is that picture in your mind of the proverbial middle finger being raised in defiance, in contempt, in denial, the world over. (I don't know if the Chinese have some other meaning for it.) Only virgin minds of children and some adults like that of Mr Bean are perhaps unaware of the strength of the finger, of actually being able to tell your opponent to shove it.
So, even when you think you are writing something original and witty, you are essentially borrowing from that archetype which urges you, "go ahead, ask him to stick it."

No, I won't accept it as an original line at all.
Next time, think of some other orifice.