Stream of Consciousness

We had to read a novel that was written in the style known as "stream of consciousness." As I was reading people's comments on their interpretations of the novel and whether or not they liked reading "stream of consciousness" I started deciding for myself whether or not I liked it. I think I can understand why people write that way. You can write down whatever comes to your mind in whatever order these thoughts appear. I used to have to do this in High School for journals in my English class. If we couldn't think of anything to write about our teacher used to tell us to write down whatever came to our mind. But what if I don't think about anything or what if it doesn't make sense? Is stream of consciousness an effective writing style for the reader? While it may be perfect for the author because they don't have to spend a lot of time deciding what they want to write about it sucks for the reader because they have to make sense of the whole text which might be nothing more than a bunch of words.

How much is too much?

I had to read a poem this week where the speaker asked her lover to tell her over and over again that he loved her and how much he was in love with her. This isn't a bad thing...as one of my classmates pointed out, isn't it every girls dream to hear how much the man she is in love with loves her? YES! I love it when my husband tells me he loves me and so far I've never gotten tired of hearing it. Don't go thinking this is a great poem just yet though because I really didn't think it was. The tone is so needy and insecure that it made me feel pretty frustrated towards this woman. I think it's one thing to need to hear that you're loved and another to appreciate and want to hear that you're loved. The speaker in this poem sounded like she was going to fall apart and cease to be able to function if this guy didn't tell her how much he loved her every other second. I love it when Robert tells me he loves me but I don't need to him to tell me every other minute. There are other ways to know that he loves me and I think the fact that he shows me his love in a variety of ways and not just by telling me with words is important.