I had an inexplicable (maybe not so much) urge to reread this book because good news, it's AWESOME! I can never decide whether this or Invisible Monsters is my favourite Palahniuk book. I mean, Invisible Monsters is so good, but this is his first and ahhhh...
So I'm sure you've heard of this book. More likely than not, you saw the movie. At the very least, you've heard the first rule about Fight Club: don't talk about fight club. Pretty much a nobody office worker meets a guy named Tyler Durden. Tyler Durden is charismatic, interesting, rebellious--the narrator even says that Tyler is pretty much everything he wants to be. Which makes sense--but I'll spoil that later. And by the way, if you somehow don't know the ending, do not spoil it for yourself. Straight up read it. Doooo it.
So let's start!
So it starts out with the almost final scene--a lot like Invisible Monsters, actually, since if I recall that starts out with the scene that's second to last and the final scene is in the hospital... Sooo... Yeah. Anyways, this second-to-last scene is Tyler with a gun in the narrator's mouth. Tyler assures him that "'This isn't really death... We'll be legend. We won't grow old'" (11). The narrator tells Tyler that he's thinking of vampires. It's just kind of funny. Also, you're now thinking of Achilles. HAH!
"It's so quiet this high up, the feeling you get is that you're one of those space monkeys. You do the little job you're trained to do. Pull a lever. Push a button. You don't understand any of it, and then you just die" (12).
"That old saying, how you always kill the one you love, well, look, it works both ways" (13).
"Where would Jesus be if no one had written the gospels?" (15). I want to say Palahniuk goes into this a little more in Choke or something, but I could just be thinking of Desperation by Stephen King. Anyways, at the time I originally read this, this just about blew my mind.
"It's easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero" (17).
"This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you" (21). Okay, I'm going to back up and be a good book blogger here. The insomnia is how it all starts out. The narrator (who, by the way, is never named) hasn't slept for about three weeks and he begs his doctor to give him pills. The doctor refuses, and tells him if he wants to see real suffering, he should go to support groups--cancer support group, parasite support groups, and other groups for various mostly fatal diseases support groups. The narrator sort of... He doesn't exactly get off on it, but he starts feeling really alive afterwards. He loves it. He goes to all the support groups, and his insomnia seems to have cleared up, and all seems to be peaches and cream. Like he says--"This is better than real life" (22). Unfortunately, Marla Singer shows up. With her there he can't let go and cry with the dying people, and thus he can't sleep. After suffering like this again, he plans to tell her to bugger off, and this is around the time Tyler shows up.
Like was said, Tyler is charismatic, handsome, all of that... And they become fast friends. They move in together (they met on a business trip, and when the narrator came back, his apartment was quite exploded). Tyler explains some of his feelings about the world and all of that which I'll be parroting back to you soon enough, and he came up with the idea of fight club early on. But let's back up a bit, shall we?
So when he arrives at the airport he is first of all told that his razor went off and his bag and the bag had to be held up and checked for a bomb and all of that. Then he is told that his apartment was blown up. He's talking about all his Ikea furniture being blown up--"I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue" (43). "You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you" (44). On a lesser note: Settling for an Ikea sofa!? Ugh.
On the other hand, I just started thinking. I mean--it's almost a little.... Um, I can't think of the word. I don't think presumptuous fits. But it's almost a little something that the narrator would want this. Sure, who wants to be perfect, but still, then you see people sans limbs, or what have you... Then again, there's Brandy Alexander with her face blown off, and she's more than happy. Well, maybe not happy--but content. Satisfied. I guess it's more funny that the 'perfect' or at least healthy/normal people would want to destroy themselves, and mutilated people want the opposite (sometimes).
"What you see in fight club is a generation of men raised by women" (50).
"My father never went to college so it was really important that I go to college. After college, I called him long distance and said, now what? My dad didn't know. When I got a job and turned twenty-five, long distance, I said, now what? My dad didn't know, so he said, get married. I'm a thirty-year-old boy, and I'm wondering of another woman is really the answer I need" (51).
"At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves" (52). Again, Brandy Alexander and Shannon and all of that.
Marla. They talk. They trade numbers. One night the narrator calls her up and she says she's taken too many pills. She says she doesn't exactly mean to kill herself, that it's just "one of those cry-for-help things" (59). The narrator doesn't care. He goes to his support group, he goes to bed early. Tyler picks up the phone when she calls and goes to her. The two of them are up all night having sex, and the narrator dreams about it (only it's him, not Tyler, of course) all night. Anyway, after this night, Marla tells Tyler she wants to get pregnant and "have his abortion" (59). There's just something about that... Not disturbing, exactly, but weird. Unsettling, maybe? Disconcerting. That's the best I've got.
Oh, and Tyler called the cops before he went over to Marla's. Marla grabs Tyler to run out while the cops are trying to talk her out of suicide through the door to her empty room. Marla tells the police: "The girl who lives in 8G used to be a lovely charming girl, but the girl is a monster bitch monster... and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing so she won't commit to anything. 'The girl in 8G has no faith in herself,' Marla shouts, 'and she's worried that as she grows older, she'll have fewer and fewer options.' Marla shouts, 'Good luck'" (61).
So one day at fight club, there's a 'mister angel face', who I'm pretty sure plays a bigger part in the movie, but seeing him, the narrator goes half mad. "What Tyler says about being the crap and slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit rock bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale or dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground... For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born" (123-124).
Tyler reveals project mayhem that night to the narrator. He wants to destroy society basically--he tells the narrator to imagine that Seattle and NYC are rotting and rusting, that they've made an ex golf green into a farm of sorts, the remainders of mankind will use zoo cages as shelters from the released animals, having to hunt elk in what were once great cities... I think it's bulls--t. Completely. He wants the earth to recover. Maybe it's because the concept seems so impossible to me, but it just seems like utter crap. I think very easily the same society would rise, and history would pretty much repeat itself. I keep on thinking of Ayn Rand's Anthem. People would be wiped out if nothing else. The way I see it, people are so softened from the way we've been living for 200, 300 years, we literally can't survive out in the wild and such. Also, as a side note, "Colours of the Wind" came up on my shuffle. This is a really, really weird coincidence. And... It works strangely well. Woah.
I also think it's kind of funny in comparison to Invisible Monsters--I know, I won't shut up about that book but let it go for a second. One of my favourite scenes is when Seth is talking about the space needle and the "future via the 1960's" (I don't remember the exact page this is said, but it really stuck out to me, so...) He's talking about how people are giving their kids biblical names, soaking lentils for dinner, making their own shoes out of leather and all of that, and "they're walking around the ruins of the future the way barbarians did when they found Grecian ruins and told themselves that God must've built them" (99). Shannon says on the next page that "The future is just wasted on some people" (100). I don't think she's trying to be sarcastic or ironic or anything like that, but the elevator operator doesn't get how cool the future was supposed to be--how cool the future according to the sixties is. Maybe Tyler doesn't get it. Maybe he's pissed that that didn't work. Maybe he didn't even care. Maybe they're both thinking the same thing, it's just that their futures are so different. Either way, they were made by the same guy.
"'What you have to understand, is your father was your model for God... If you're male and you're Christian and you're living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God? ...What you end up doing... is you spend your life looking for your father and God. What you have to consider... Is the possibility that God doesn't like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that can happen'" (140-141). I think this may be true even if you're female. It seemed like an interesting concept in theory, but when I really thought about it in relation to me, it sort of held water. It doesn't make sense in some extreme cases though...
"If you could be either God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ...Which is worse, hell or nothing?" (141).
"The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. The farther you run, the more God wants you back... It's not enough to be numbered with the grains of sand on the beach and the stars in the sky" (141).
EDIT: You know what I just realized? The narrator tries so hard to break free of Tyler--and Tyler tries so hard to get him back. He doesn't want to be a part of fight club, and he doesn't want to be a space monkey... And Tyler maybe isn't God, but whoever is doing unto something or someone else might as well be God to them... I'm not saying it's a perfect fit, I just figure that I might as well point out the parallels.
"Oh, this is bullshit. This is a dream. Tyler is a projection. He's a disassociative personality disorder. A psychogenic fugue state. Tyler Durden is my hallucination. 'Fuck that shit,' Tyler says. 'Maybe you're my schizophrenic hallucination.' I was here first. Tyler says, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, well let's just see who's here last'" (168).
Ooooooops... There goes the non spoiler bit. Yeah, Tyler Durden is the narrator's alter-ego. The narrator describes Tyler as everything he's not--funny, charismatic, free, and so on--everything he wants to be. Which of course makes complete sense. He blames Marla for being the cause of Tyler's appearance--in some way he wanted her, kind of liked her. But he's not brave enough, cool enough, handsome enough or whatever enough to make a move on her or anything--maybe the real reason why his insomnia came back, why he didn't cry in front of her. He didn't want to seem weak in front of her, so he won't cry. Can't sleep because he's focused on her. Maybe? Okay, it's kind of weak but I'm writing this right now at 1 AM. Either way, it makes sense that he'd create his alter ego to be everything he's not and would want to be.
And while we're talking about the fact that TYLER DURDEN ISN'T REAL? When they fought in the parking lot that first time, the narrator says that after a while men started gathered around them and started shouting. Of course, you don't know that Tyler is a schizophrenic delusion then, so it seems like it's the normal crowd, egging two guys on. What it really is is the narrator beating himself up--so it makes sense that they would be yelling and freaking out. (But no-one did anything...?) And when Tyler has the gun in his mouth, the narrator explains that to anyone else it looks like he's holding the gun in his own mouth. I'd also want to mention that in that first fight, neither he (him?) nor Tyler kick each other. It's nearly impossible to kick yourself.
Then of course, when you realize that they're the same, all that repetition of "I know this because Tyler knows this" really makes sense.
"How everything you ever love will reject you or die. Everything you ever create will be thrown away. Everything you're proud of will end up as trash. I am Ozymandias, king of kings" (201).
Anyways. Here's me spoiling the end. He shoots himself. Now, I haven't seen the movie. Well--not all of it. I saw the first half, about. The only thing I really remember is the scene where the narrator's boss finds the fight club rules and Eddie Norton does an amazing job at giving the narrator's description of shooting up the office. Anyways, I believe the movie ends with the narrator actually shooting himself and the buildings exploding--keep in mind that I don't actually know. The book, however, has the shot--but the shot just rips up the other side of the narrator's face, and the buildings don't explode. (Well... It's implied that they didn't blow up.) There's one more chapter, too. It's kind of funny that it's not actually in the movie--well, if it isn't actually in the movie. In A Clockwork Orange, there's a kind-of sort-of epilogue chapter that covers Alex's life after he's been re-educated and released. He sees his old hellions as police men, married, grown ups--and starts wondering if it's maybe time for him to grow up too. It kind of takes away the steam of the book, I guess, and it was cut out of the movie, and even the original American printings of the book. This is kind of the same thing (in nature, at the very least). Tyler is gone, and we don't know if he'll come back. He's pretending he's dead, though really, he is in the hospital. He's referring to people as angels, and his psychiatrist as God in an effort to fool himself, even though he really truly knows that he is still alive.
"We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, 'No, that's not right.' Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything" (207).
The ending wigs me out. Like I said, he's in the hospital, and there are orderlies who have black eyes, cut-up faces, missing teeth, shaved heads--the obvious signs of fight clubbers. It ends with an orderly saying that he can't wait to have him (/them) back.
There's also a brief afterward by Palahniuk, sort of a reflection bit. It makes sense, Fight Club took off--even now it's insanely popular, and this is more than ten years later.
First of all, there's a big section on people's reactions to it: a man asks what Palahniuk's takes on women's statuses in America today are, someone said the book was a failure because it didn't touch on racism, some people thought the book was actually about interpretative dance, watching gay men have sex, and so on. You get the feeling--or maybe it's just me projecting onto Palahniuk--that he thinks this is utterly ridiculous. I mean... Women don't come into play. They hardly even matter in the book. (I wrote 'anymore' originally--Freudian slip?) As for the racism bit, Palahniuk does mention it--he (Tyler Durden) says it doesn't matter if you're black or white anymore, the only thing that matters is how much money/power you've got.
Some people got mad, saying they invented fight clubs in boot camp, Depression labour camps... "There have always been fight clubs, they say. There will always be fight clubs. Waiters will always pee in soup. People will always fall in love"(217).
MLA Citation information: Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. Norton: United States of America, 2005.
So that's Fight Club! I guess it's easy to see that I love this book. It really is awesome; Palahniuk is really awesome too. I don't think this is his best book--but it's pretty amazing. It probably has the strongest voice out of all his books (that I've read, of course). I actually heard he published something just recently....?
Answer to last post's cryptic lyrics: Warrior by Matisyahu
This post's cryptic lyrics: I'm knitting with only one needle, unravelling fast it's true. I'm driving only three wheels these days--but my dear, how about you?
Showing posts with label Invisible Monsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Invisible Monsters. Show all posts
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Monday, October 18, 2010
Junky by William S Burroughs
It's actually kind of funny that I should decide to reread this now, as my college is in the supposed heroin capital of the US. (It's also noted for the fact that it has the second highest amount of Victorian houses out of anywhere in the US.) Thus, as you can imagine, this book is about doing heroin, cocaine, and there's a little tiny bit of marijuana use as well... Other drugs too, but we'll get to that.
Okay, here we go, the start of the actual, original text:
So, this is William S Burroughs's first book, so it's not all... crazy. It's actually pretty readable, and really interesting. It's pretty much an account of junk usage over here, there, and everywhere. In our Rebels class an excerpt was presented to contrast Kerouac's On the Road--where Jack set up an optimistic, energetic picture of the time, William S Burroughs was darker, dimmer, and paid more attention to the dirt.
Oh, and one more thing: the version I'm reading is the "50th Anniversary Definitive Edition", so I decided that this time around I'd read all the bonus materials (now that the fear induced by Naked Lunch is fading--heck, I might even reread The Yage Letters--well--no--) included. So if you're just reading along with me, hanging onto every miserable typed word, go out and get this version. I think it's really the only version that's available now, but even if it's not it's probably the cooler-looking edition.
The introduction in the beginning of the book is by Oliver Harris, it was written eight years ago. One of the most important things he says comes on the first page: "One thing you can say about any book by William S Burroughs, however, is that whenever you think you've got it pinned down, that's when it slips from your fingers" (IX). It's doubtful that truer words have ever been spoken. Though a better description of how one feels when reading Naked Lunch would probably be more like: It is forever slipping through your fingers and you will never grab it no matter how much you flail around--and it may just be better that way. But I'd say Harris is definitely correct in what he's said in regard to The Yage Letters. I haven't read Burroughs's other books, but this kind of makes me want to read Queer, so perhaps we'll see further...?
One thing Harris brings up that bothers me is his praising of Burroughs's writing--now, the praise doesn't bother me, don't get me wrong, but what he should praise bothers me. He quotes: "You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere" (X). The point, I saw immediately--it's ironic, because you need what doctors are supposed to have, but if you have it, doctors will trust you--and subsequently, give you what you need. I guess what put me off is that Harris dwells on it and gets so worked up about dissecting something that seems pretty obvious--well, I don't know. It just bothered me. Maybe I'm just like the casual observer as compared to the connoisseur: I know it tastes good, but I couldn't tell you why and thus I can't properly appreciate it. Or something like that.
"Junky did not follow that path of group myth-making, autobiographical fiction that characterized Beat Generation writing" (XV). I can only imagine because it lacks the optimism and vigor (and I mean this about the three of his books I've read in general) Kerouac exercised. When it is more upbeat than "I'm going to make you cry" Burroughs tends to be alone. Well... I guess that's true about Kerouac too, but... There's some subtle difference, though that may lie in my own biases. Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't more inclined to read Kerouac than Burroughs, in any case.
Okay, here we go, the start of the actual, original text:
Burroughs starts by describing his early life: "I recall hearing a maid talk about opium and how smoking opium brings sweet dreams, and I said: 'I will smoke opium when I grow up'" (XXXVII). I only bring this up because 99% of the time, opium sleep is supposed to be deep and undisturbed by dreams. Unless if the maid meant that the feeling induced by opium brought sweet dreams after the other effects wore off--I don't know. Whatever, I'm just nit-picking again. He heard what he heard.
"I read more than was usual for an American boy of that time and place: Oscar Wilde, Anatole France, Baudelaire, even Gide" (XXXVIII). Might I point out that all of these authors were reputed to be gay (and some were a little more than reputed). Burroughs was gay, though he practices a very odd dissociation--I mean, you know he's gay, he says he is, he talks about sleeping with other men--but he always refers to other gay men as "the/queers" and speaks of them--almost like a field researcher doing a case study. So, even though you know he's gay, you doubt it, because he sees other gay men as almost not human or a different species. Just kind of odd, I guess.
"I have never regretted my experience with drugs. I think I am in better health now as a result of using junk at intervals than I would be if I had never been an addict. When you stop growing you start dying. An addict never stops growing. Most users periodically kick the habit, which involves shrinking of the organism and replacement of the junk-dependent cells. A user is in a continual state of shrinking and growing in his daily cycle of shot-need for shot completed. Most addicts look younger than they are. Scientists recently experimented with a worm that they were able to shrink by withholding food. By periodically shrinking the worm so that it was in continual growth, the worm's life was prolonged indefinitely. Perhaps if a junkie could keep himself in a constant state of kicking, he would live to a phenomenal age" (XL-XLI). It's not difficult to believe that the drugs would preserve you. Might I mention that Burroughs lived to be eighty-three and Herbert Huncke (a junky who goes by the name of Elmer Hassel in On the Road, and "Hunk" or "Huck" in Desolation Angels, and appears in here and also there in other Beat writings) lived to eighty-one. It's kind of curious, and certainly interesting. On a side note, something about this section reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk--specifically Invisible Monsters when Shannon's ex is describing how every life is just a channel on God's TV and if he changes the channel we die--so we must never, ever get boring.
"I have learned the junk equation. Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life" (XLI).
"The effect was uncanny. You would see him one time a fresh-faced kid. A week or so later he would turn up so thin, sallow, and old-looking, you would have to look twice to recognize him. His face was lined with suffering in which his eyes did not participate. It was a suffering of his cells alone" (3). I love the fourth sentence in this, but it needed some sort of context. Clearly this is discussing the affect of junk and the lack thereof on a fellow named Jack--not Kerouac, just a random fellow named Jack.
"In 1937, weed was placed under the Harrison Narcotics Act. Narcotics authorities claim it is a habit-forming drug, that its use is injurious to mind and body, and that it causes the people who use it to commit crimes. Here are the facts: Weed is positively not habit-forming. You can smoke weed for years and experience no discomfort if your supply is suddenly cut off. I have seen tea heads in jail and none of them showed withdrawal symptoms. I have smoked weed myself off and on for fifteen years, and never missed it when I ran out. There is less habit to weed than there is tobacco. Weed does not harm the general health... I once kicked a junk habit with weed... Weed does not inspire anyone to commit crimes. I have never seen anyone get nasty under the influence of weed. Tea heads are a sociable lot. Too sociable for my liking. I cannot understand why the people who claim weed causes crime do not follow through and demand the outlawing of alcohol. Every day, crimes are committed by drunks who would not have committed the crime sober" (15-16) et cetera. He goes on to explain other--perhaps you wouldn't call them positives, but at the very least un-negatives, about weed. His one negative fact about weed is that someone high on it is "completely unfit" (16) to drive. Just thought I'd insert them here.
"The American middle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not. Gains went further. He was not merely negative. He was positively invisible; a vague respectable presence. There is a certain kind of ghost that can only materialize with the aid of a sheet or other piece of cloth to give it outline. Gains was like that. He materialized in someone else's overcoat" (35).
"'Herman [Huncke] was a beautiful kid when he first came to New York. The trouble is, he lost his looks'" (35).
"Walking around the city, I spotted several junk neighborhoods... I don't spot junk neighborhoods by the way they look, but by the feel, somewhat the same process by which a dowser locates hidden water. I am walking along and suddenly the junk in my cells moves and twitches like a dowser's wand: 'Junk here!'" (58).
At one point Burroughs goes to a gay bar--yet another example of him clearly showing his homosexuality (he leaves the bar with a fellow he plans on sleeping with) but yet again strangely disassociating himself from the other gay men there. ...Can I make a poor joke and say that this habit of his is rather... queer? Oh, gosh, I am hilarious.
In this scene he describes himself as getting "lobotomized drunk" (60). There's also some more humor in this scene: "I should have been more alert, of course, but I never could mix vigilance and sex" (60).
"A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait" (72).
At one point Burroughs is in prison for his drugs. The copper refers to him as Mr Lee. When he originally published the book, he published under a pen name--well, a few pen names, depending on when it was being reissued... But my point is (to the best of my knowledge, unless if it was some old nickname for him or some such) that the name Lee--Bull Lee full, Old Bull Lee--comes from On the Road. Just thought it was interesting. Also, I almost wrote 'On the Roast'. ...
On criticizing a hospital's psychiatrist: "He was not effeminate. He simply had none of whatever it is that makes a man a man" (82).
"In Mexico your wishes have a dream power. When you want to see someone, he turns up" (95).
"The meaning of 'manana' is 'Wait until the signs are right'" (95)/ "For the next week that was all I heard, Manana, a lovely word and one that probably means heaven" (On the Road by Jack Kerouac, page 195).
"Once a junkie, always a junkie. You can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit" (97).
Burroughs criticizes the "war on drugs" often as well (though I don't believe it was known as exactly that until later) as you've already seen. This image he tears apart isn't that prevalent anymore (I can't even think of the last time I even saw a drug-PSA commercial actually, so maybe it is and the fact that I've watched TV maybe twice in the last two months nullifies my statement), but if you've ever watched eighties drug PSA commercials, it seems that only kids do drugs, and also guys who can change into snakes. "Safe in Mexico, I watched the anti-junk campaign. I read about child addicts and senators demanding the death penalty for dope peddlers. It didn't sound right to me. Who wants kids for customers? They never have enough money and they always spill under questioning. Parents find out the kid is on junk and go to the law. I figured that either Stateside peddlers have gone simpleminded or the whole child-addict set-up is a propaganda routine to stir up anti-junk sentiment and pass some laws" (120). High five, William S Burroughs! Logos!
Page 121: the word haberdashery is used. And it continues to be pretty much the best word in the English language.
"When you give up junk, you give up a way of life. I have seen junkies kick and hit the lush and wind up dead in a few years. Suicide is frequent among ex-junkies. Why does a junky quit junk of his own free will? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go back to junk permanently any more than you could stay away from it before. Like a man who has been away a long time, you see things different when you return from junk" (127).
Burroughs concludes the original 'story' part of the text with the discussion of yage. He mentions that Russians are also experimenting with yage to see its effects on the personality and the work--namely to turn a person into an unquestioning and obedient worker. I feel the need to mention that Nazis attempted this sort of drug experimentation with cocaine mixed into--I believe--martinis to increase stamina and willingness to work. Oh Stumbleupon, where would I be without you?
Anyways, the 'story' part of the text concludes as such: "Kick is seeing things from a special angle. Kick is momentary freedom from the claims of aging, cautious, nagging, frightened flesh. Maybe I will find in yage what I was looking for in junk and weed and coke. Yage may be the final fix" (128). Oh hey, lead-in to The Yage Letters. (Though that book wouldn't be published for another ten years, but shush.) ...I honestly can't tell you if it was the final kick or not, because really all I remember is that he talked about an HG Wells story and included a drawing of his that was supposed to be the great being but looked suspiciously similar to female genitalia.
Burroughs includes a glossary at the end as well. "Beat" means to takes money from someone. Special significance then, in the proclamation that "We are the Beat generation"? Not sure.
"Hep or Hip... Someone who knows the score. Someone who understands 'jive talk.' Someone who is 'with it.' The expression is not subject to definition because, if you don't 'dig' what it means, no one can ever tell you" (130). What he means to say is, either you're on the bus or you're off the bus.
Oh, and the glossary reveals that muggles was slang for marijuana back in the day. This shines a whole new light on the Harry Potter series, I must say...
And then several indexes are included.
Appendix I is the ripped apart and reseeded twenty-eighth chapter of the original manuscript of this book. It mostly has to do with orgones (just google it, I don't even know how to simply explain them) and his orgone collection box (which I'm pretty sure is briefly mentioned in On the Road). It also talks more about the constant shrinkage and growth of cells as being that which keeps a man alive for longer--more quotes similar to the one regarding the worm way, way back in the beginning.
"Possibly all pleasure is basically relief from a condition of need, or tension" (137). (The popular version of this quote is "Perhaps all pleasure is only relief".)
"Perhaps the reason for the short life of the American business man is that he experiences no cycle of shrinking and growth. He does not exercise, he is never hungry. His life is a one-way process. When his organism reaches maturity it can only start dying" (137).
"Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life" (138).
Appendix II is one of many of the various introductions to the text. It's got ten facts that prove propaganda 'facts' wrong. "Addiction ruins the health and leads to early death. As I read in a magazine article, 'Morphine addicts have numbered days on earth.' Who hasn't?" (141). Very Vonnegut-ish in tone, if you ask me.
"I do not intend to correct popular misconceptions about junk by presenting the facts that are already known to anyone informed on the subject. I am using the known facts as a starting point in an attempt to reach facts that are not known" (143).
The other Appendixes are various introduction by various fellows. I like Allen Ginsberg, but he cannot do this sort of thing for beans. He's very eloquent--but he cannot stay collected for a solid piece of writing. Case in point, the contents of one of his parenthesis: "a point I argued with as much as I could in his Doubleday office, belt felt faint surrounded by so much Reality... mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors... my own paranoia or inexperience with the great Dumbness of Business Buildings of New York" (155). The ellipses were there to begin with, by the way. But it's kind of like "No, Ginsberg! Focus, FOCUS! Come baaaaack!" He's got a few examples of good focused phrasery, though:
"...Bill was too diffident to make such extravagant theater of self" (154).
"Certainly these books indicated we were in the middle of an identity crisis prefiguring nervous breakdown for the whole United States" (155).
Woah, whooo. We made it. I happen to be rather fond of this book, though it has put in me a fear of needles that I never had, even when I was a little kid. Descriptions of junkies shooting up and blood-filled needles.... Nope, no thanks. It's rather interesting, in any case. I'd suggest a read-through if the subject interests you. If not... Then don't. And don't worry, I'm not a drug addict. Yet. (Remember where my college is!)
Works cited/MLA stuff: Burroughs, William S. Junky. Penguin Books: New York, 2003.
Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma that isn't even really that necessary because she guessed it correctly: Life on Mars by David Bowie
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: They can't be satisfied, like junkies running dry
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tears roll out the eyes and though I cry I hold the wheel steady
Heyyyy y'all! (Does anyone even remember that song?) Let's see.... For some reason I feel it important to warn you that regardless of what I read in November, I'll be posting very little because of NanoWrimo, or whatever it's called... I should... I should figure that out. But fear not! For I am in the midst of three books currently, and today you get to enjoy An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, which is in my humble opinion, a fugging good book. (Ohohoho BOOK HUMOR!)
The book is about a guy, Colin Singleton(ex-child prodigy), who has dated girls only by the name of Katherine. Nineteen to be exact. (Technically eighteen, but you'll see. But it explains why two girls on the cover are the same, which really bothered me before it reveals that fact, though I did suspect.) The book opens after Katherine XIX broke up with Colin, and he's cruised, heart broken, and depressed. His friend Hassan convinces him to go on a road trip, and they end up in Gutshot, Tennessee.
"'Singleton, you need to believe in God worse than anyone I ever met.'" I just like the way this sounded.
Oh, man. This book proved how today's society has messed up everyone's brain no matter what. Colin thinks back on all the Katherines whose bras he'd ever seen, and the number is four. My first thought was honestly, only four!? Duh, he's like nineteen. But I was honestly shocked. I mean, it's not like I'm a promiscuous whore or anything, or the culture of CT is a Feel Good, Inc-esque place, this I feel comfortable blaming on the media and everything. I'm honestly embarrassed about my reaction to that...
"He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible." So, that's basically when I realized John Green is awesome.
Oh, there's a scene where Hassan and Colin are being introduced to a group of kids (and by kids I mean other nineteen-year-olds) and they pretend they're French visitors and Colin has tourettes. And hemorrhoids. The reason why I liked it so much is, other than the fact that it was hilarious, it made me think of Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. Only, instead of pretending to be a visiting Italian duchess with her lady-in-waiting and servant boy they were French kids. Also, they weren't drug-cruising, and no one was undergoing sexual reassignment surgery nor was a secretly gay guy hopped up on estrogen pills or an ex-model with no lower jaw. You know, the usual.
I also love it when Colin gets annoyed at a rooster's cock-a-doodle-doo coming, quite literally, at the crack of dawn. They start at three in the morning and don't stop until seven. I actually don't find it that bothersome being that I owned a rooster and now I could sleep with it no problem. But poor Colin! That must have sucked! I think with Tyson it happened so gradually I lost maybe seven hours of sleep altogether tops.
"'I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.'"
"'...Son, if there's one thing I know,' and Colin thought about how old people always like to tell you the one thing they know, 'it's that there's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.'"
"'We're really boring.' 'You've got to stop saying that, or people will start believing you.'"
"The French verb aimer has two meanings. And that's why he liked her, and loved her. She spoke to him in language that, no matter how hard you studied it, could not be completely understood.'"
"'It's funny, what people will do to be remembered.'"
"If the future is forever, then eventually it will swallow us all up.'" And, a sentence or two later: "The future will erase everything--there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible."
"And they drove on. Lindsey turned to Colin and said, 'You know, we could just keep going. We don't have to stop.'...Colin pressed down hard on the accelerator, and he was thinking of all the places they might go, and all the days left in their summer. Beside him, Lindsey Lee Wells's fingers were on his forearm and she was saying, 'Yeah. God. We could, couldn't we? We could just keep going.'"
Soo. I guess there wasn't much insight here, but this book was simply a closed circuit. It doesn't really call for introspection, I guess. It's straightforward, but it reverberates. I can't wait to steal Looking for Alaska from Meg.
Let's see... my dad is a Charles Dickens fan, Emma. Apparently, in my case, the apple does fall far from the tree.
In other news, my website, aka my Twitter is now on my profile. Besides that shameless plug... well, you know what Twitter is for, I guess I don't have to explain. Content warning: I'd say PG-13. And ignore the porn spambots that follow me. THEY WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE.
The book is about a guy, Colin Singleton(ex-child prodigy), who has dated girls only by the name of Katherine. Nineteen to be exact. (Technically eighteen, but you'll see. But it explains why two girls on the cover are the same, which really bothered me before it reveals that fact, though I did suspect.) The book opens after Katherine XIX broke up with Colin, and he's cruised, heart broken, and depressed. His friend Hassan convinces him to go on a road trip, and they end up in Gutshot, Tennessee.
"'Singleton, you need to believe in God worse than anyone I ever met.'" I just like the way this sounded.
Oh, man. This book proved how today's society has messed up everyone's brain no matter what. Colin thinks back on all the Katherines whose bras he'd ever seen, and the number is four. My first thought was honestly, only four!? Duh, he's like nineteen. But I was honestly shocked. I mean, it's not like I'm a promiscuous whore or anything, or the culture of CT is a Feel Good, Inc-esque place, this I feel comfortable blaming on the media and everything. I'm honestly embarrassed about my reaction to that...
"He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible." So, that's basically when I realized John Green is awesome.
Oh, there's a scene where Hassan and Colin are being introduced to a group of kids (and by kids I mean other nineteen-year-olds) and they pretend they're French visitors and Colin has tourettes. And hemorrhoids. The reason why I liked it so much is, other than the fact that it was hilarious, it made me think of Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. Only, instead of pretending to be a visiting Italian duchess with her lady-in-waiting and servant boy they were French kids. Also, they weren't drug-cruising, and no one was undergoing sexual reassignment surgery nor was a secretly gay guy hopped up on estrogen pills or an ex-model with no lower jaw. You know, the usual.
I also love it when Colin gets annoyed at a rooster's cock-a-doodle-doo coming, quite literally, at the crack of dawn. They start at three in the morning and don't stop until seven. I actually don't find it that bothersome being that I owned a rooster and now I could sleep with it no problem. But poor Colin! That must have sucked! I think with Tyson it happened so gradually I lost maybe seven hours of sleep altogether tops.
"'I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.'"
"'...Son, if there's one thing I know,' and Colin thought about how old people always like to tell you the one thing they know, 'it's that there's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.'"
"'We're really boring.' 'You've got to stop saying that, or people will start believing you.'"
"The French verb aimer has two meanings. And that's why he liked her, and loved her. She spoke to him in language that, no matter how hard you studied it, could not be completely understood.'"
"'It's funny, what people will do to be remembered.'"
"If the future is forever, then eventually it will swallow us all up.'" And, a sentence or two later: "The future will erase everything--there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible."
"And they drove on. Lindsey turned to Colin and said, 'You know, we could just keep going. We don't have to stop.'...Colin pressed down hard on the accelerator, and he was thinking of all the places they might go, and all the days left in their summer. Beside him, Lindsey Lee Wells's fingers were on his forearm and she was saying, 'Yeah. God. We could, couldn't we? We could just keep going.'"
Soo. I guess there wasn't much insight here, but this book was simply a closed circuit. It doesn't really call for introspection, I guess. It's straightforward, but it reverberates. I can't wait to steal Looking for Alaska from Meg.
Let's see... my dad is a Charles Dickens fan, Emma. Apparently, in my case, the apple does fall far from the tree.
In other news, my website, aka my Twitter is now on my profile. Besides that shameless plug... well, you know what Twitter is for, I guess I don't have to explain. Content warning: I'd say PG-13. And ignore the porn spambots that follow me. THEY WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Unzip my body, take my heart out...
So that last post was actually finished on the 20th, for the record.
Anyways, here comes the other two books I finished while away: Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
First, Invisible Monsters. I have to lead a book club discussion so I guess I'll just type my reaction in form of the questions I wrote for people to respond to, and this way we can all see how much I suck at this. PS. If you didn't read the book, you will be extraordinarily lost.
1. Just to recap: Why did Shannon do it? Would you have done it too? Did you think it was a stupid thing to do?
Shannon wanted out on the fashion model life. She wanted the "opposite of a miracle", like her brother. "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut." (Favorite line. Ever.) I wouldn't have had the balls to do it. And was it stupid... hell, it's braver than most anyone could do. I guess it's stupid, because she actively wrecked herself, but in doing so she lived for real.
2. Liked the style it was written, what with all the jumping around? It isn't that weird, actually. For all the flip flops and sudden changes, it flows better than most straightforward books.
3. "No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it at all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention." (page 22) Did you end the book with that feeling? Any questions on what you felt you missed? The first time, and even the second time, yes. But number seven, you pretty much have it all by that point. No questions.
4. What do you think the main idea of the book was? The only way to really live is to destroy yourself (short from killing yourself). Only when you fall that far can you really ever know yourself and say you've lived.
5. I believe that the main idea of the book was the "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut" sort of deal. Destroy yourself and by doing so, you can truly exist. Do you agree? Indeed, I do.
6. Any particular quotes you favored? Why? Care to discuss? "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut." I think I've quite exhausted that. And, I'm paraphrasing a quote: "If being born makes your parents God, then puberty makes you Satan for wanting something better." It's true. "Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct." "Jump into disaster with both feet." That one's my yearbook quote. The second one. (They allow two, right?)
7. Who was your favorite character? I honestly don't have a favorite. Manus, while drugged up on premarin and vicodin and stuff delivered the most 'Chuck-bombs' (revelations by way of Chuck Palahniuk) so I guess you could say I loved him for that... and maybe him the most... but not really. I didn't really have a number one.
8. Least favorite? Shannon's parents piss me off. They're goddamn spineless cowardly half-baked idiots.
9. Any strong reactions to Shannon's parents? I WOULD ENJOY BEATING THEM WITH TIRE IRONS.
10. If you were Shannon, would you have let Sean back in the house? I'd like to say I would, but keep in mind, Shannon hated her brother. So if I was her... probably not? I doubt she would've known that ignoring him that one time would have been forever... well, a long time at least. So no, if I was her I probably wouldn't have let him back in. Acting as me, however, I would have.
11. Did you like the ending? Indeed.
12. Did you like the book itself? Favorite Palahniuk : )
Have I writ a review on this already? I feel like I have. In any case, it's my absolute number one Palahniuk book annnd yeah. I can't really think at this moment, but here are my favorite scenes because I love you?
(When she first meets Brandy) "Those Burning Blueberry eyes look right at me the way no eyes have all summer. 'Your perception is all fucked up,' Brandy says. 'All you can talk about is trash that's already happened.' She says, 'You can't base your life in the past or the present.' Brandy says, 'You have to tell me about your future.'"
This next one includes the quote you've read so many times in the last post you'd probably beat me if you read it again. Onto the next!
This is my absolute favorite scene, and I love it so much I am willing to give myself carpal tunnel trying to type it:
"According to Seth, the future ended in 1962 at the Seattle World's Fair. This was everything we should've inherited: the whole man on the moon within this decade--asbestos is our miracle friend--nuclear-powered and fossil-fueled world of the Space Age where you could go up to visit the Jetsons' flying saucer apartment building and then ride the monorail downtown for fun pillbox hat fashions at the Bon Marche. All this hope and science and research and glamour left here in ruins. The Space Needle. The Science Center with its lacy domes and hanging light globes. The Monorail streaking along covered in brushed aluminum. This is how our lives were supposed to turn out. Go there. Take the trip, Seth says. It will break your heart because the Jetsons with their robot maid, Rosie, and their flying-saucer cars and toasters beds that spit you out in the morning, it's like the Jetsons have sublet the Space Needle to the Flintstones. 'You know,' says Seth, 'Fred and Wilma. The garbage disposal that's really a pig that lives under the sink. All their furniture made out of bones and rocks and tiger-skin lampshades. Wilma vacuums with a baby elephant and fluffs the rocks. They named their baby "Pebbles".' Here was our future of cheese-food and aerosol propellants, Styrofoam and Club Med on the moon, roast beef served in a toothpaste tube. 'Tang,' says Seth, 'you know, breakfast with the astronauts. And now people come here wearing sandals thy made themselves out of leather. They name their kids Zilpah and Zebulum out of the Old Testament. Lentils are a big deal.' Seth sniffs and drags a hand across the tears in his eyes. It's the Estrace is all. He must be getting premenstrual. 'The folks who go to the Space Needle now,' Seth says, 'they have lentils soaking at home and they're walking around the ruins of the future the way barbarians did when they found Grecian ruins and told themselves God must've built them.'"
Yup, all of that build up for that. It's a great scene. It's a great book. Go read ittttttttt.
I'll do Slaughterhouse Five tomorrow. I'm exhausted!
(edit: added picture)
I put the book on its belly for the first time and was so put out by actually seeing the two covers side by side I had to record it:
Weird, huh? I actually saw a funny poster once that had the picture, and at the bottom (when the picture was to the big-nosed lady) and it said something like 'Before beer: no way' or something, and then when you turned it so it looked like the attractive woman it said something like 'after five: definitely!'
Anyways, here comes the other two books I finished while away: Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
First, Invisible Monsters. I have to lead a book club discussion so I guess I'll just type my reaction in form of the questions I wrote for people to respond to, and this way we can all see how much I suck at this. PS. If you didn't read the book, you will be extraordinarily lost.
1. Just to recap: Why did Shannon do it? Would you have done it too? Did you think it was a stupid thing to do?
Shannon wanted out on the fashion model life. She wanted the "opposite of a miracle", like her brother. "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut." (Favorite line. Ever.) I wouldn't have had the balls to do it. And was it stupid... hell, it's braver than most anyone could do. I guess it's stupid, because she actively wrecked herself, but in doing so she lived for real.
2. Liked the style it was written, what with all the jumping around? It isn't that weird, actually. For all the flip flops and sudden changes, it flows better than most straightforward books.
3. "No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it at all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention." (page 22) Did you end the book with that feeling? Any questions on what you felt you missed? The first time, and even the second time, yes. But number seven, you pretty much have it all by that point. No questions.
4. What do you think the main idea of the book was? The only way to really live is to destroy yourself (short from killing yourself). Only when you fall that far can you really ever know yourself and say you've lived.
5. I believe that the main idea of the book was the "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut" sort of deal. Destroy yourself and by doing so, you can truly exist. Do you agree? Indeed, I do.
6. Any particular quotes you favored? Why? Care to discuss? "Rip yourself open, sew yourself shut." I think I've quite exhausted that. And, I'm paraphrasing a quote: "If being born makes your parents God, then puberty makes you Satan for wanting something better." It's true. "Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct." "Jump into disaster with both feet." That one's my yearbook quote. The second one. (They allow two, right?)
7. Who was your favorite character? I honestly don't have a favorite. Manus, while drugged up on premarin and vicodin and stuff delivered the most 'Chuck-bombs' (revelations by way of Chuck Palahniuk) so I guess you could say I loved him for that... and maybe him the most... but not really. I didn't really have a number one.
8. Least favorite? Shannon's parents piss me off. They're goddamn spineless cowardly half-baked idiots.
9. Any strong reactions to Shannon's parents? I WOULD ENJOY BEATING THEM WITH TIRE IRONS.
10. If you were Shannon, would you have let Sean back in the house? I'd like to say I would, but keep in mind, Shannon hated her brother. So if I was her... probably not? I doubt she would've known that ignoring him that one time would have been forever... well, a long time at least. So no, if I was her I probably wouldn't have let him back in. Acting as me, however, I would have.
11. Did you like the ending? Indeed.
12. Did you like the book itself? Favorite Palahniuk : )
Have I writ a review on this already? I feel like I have. In any case, it's my absolute number one Palahniuk book annnd yeah. I can't really think at this moment, but here are my favorite scenes because I love you?
(When she first meets Brandy) "Those Burning Blueberry eyes look right at me the way no eyes have all summer. 'Your perception is all fucked up,' Brandy says. 'All you can talk about is trash that's already happened.' She says, 'You can't base your life in the past or the present.' Brandy says, 'You have to tell me about your future.'"
This next one includes the quote you've read so many times in the last post you'd probably beat me if you read it again. Onto the next!
This is my absolute favorite scene, and I love it so much I am willing to give myself carpal tunnel trying to type it:
"According to Seth, the future ended in 1962 at the Seattle World's Fair. This was everything we should've inherited: the whole man on the moon within this decade--asbestos is our miracle friend--nuclear-powered and fossil-fueled world of the Space Age where you could go up to visit the Jetsons' flying saucer apartment building and then ride the monorail downtown for fun pillbox hat fashions at the Bon Marche. All this hope and science and research and glamour left here in ruins. The Space Needle. The Science Center with its lacy domes and hanging light globes. The Monorail streaking along covered in brushed aluminum. This is how our lives were supposed to turn out. Go there. Take the trip, Seth says. It will break your heart because the Jetsons with their robot maid, Rosie, and their flying-saucer cars and toasters beds that spit you out in the morning, it's like the Jetsons have sublet the Space Needle to the Flintstones. 'You know,' says Seth, 'Fred and Wilma. The garbage disposal that's really a pig that lives under the sink. All their furniture made out of bones and rocks and tiger-skin lampshades. Wilma vacuums with a baby elephant and fluffs the rocks. They named their baby "Pebbles".' Here was our future of cheese-food and aerosol propellants, Styrofoam and Club Med on the moon, roast beef served in a toothpaste tube. 'Tang,' says Seth, 'you know, breakfast with the astronauts. And now people come here wearing sandals thy made themselves out of leather. They name their kids Zilpah and Zebulum out of the Old Testament. Lentils are a big deal.' Seth sniffs and drags a hand across the tears in his eyes. It's the Estrace is all. He must be getting premenstrual. 'The folks who go to the Space Needle now,' Seth says, 'they have lentils soaking at home and they're walking around the ruins of the future the way barbarians did when they found Grecian ruins and told themselves God must've built them.'"
Yup, all of that build up for that. It's a great scene. It's a great book. Go read ittttttttt.
I'll do Slaughterhouse Five tomorrow. I'm exhausted!
(edit: added picture)
I put the book on its belly for the first time and was so put out by actually seeing the two covers side by side I had to record it:
Weird, huh? I actually saw a funny poster once that had the picture, and at the bottom (when the picture was to the big-nosed lady) and it said something like 'Before beer: no way' or something, and then when you turned it so it looked like the attractive woman it said something like 'after five: definitely!'
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The dashboard melted but we still had the radio
Finished Slapstick. It was no Breakfast of Champions or Galapagos, but it was certainly no Hocus Pocus (gehh). It was in the middle then, I guess.
Summary: I realized I've been writing these reactions like everyone has read the book. So, Slapstick is the memoir of America's last president, at the end of it all, which Kurt thought up whilst en route to his uncle's funeral with his brother. Also a tribute to his sister.
In the beginning, in his forward, Kurt talks about how originally, his family was very much in touch with their German background. It was a strong family knit. Of course, the second world war rolled around and suddenly it was frowned upon to be German or to be related to anything German in any which way. Lacking that, the family just kind of... dissolved. They stuck together, but the culture and real backbone was gone--and the family became a nothing cog in the American machine. And since something so important for family was missing, Kurt and his siblings had no problems leaving the land their generations had been raised up on and being nobodies somewhere else. It made me sad, but at the same time, it's kind of the truth. I think culture's an important bit of family, which probably makes me sounds like an old lady... but it's the truth. It's what really helps you feel close, other than that, what have you got? Half the helix, and what's that anyways? I mean, even living away from aunts and uncles and stuff. When it's like that, it's like you're spending your holidays with strangers. My family--well, my mom's side--all lives really close, except for an aunt and cousin or two. But it's nice. I always feel comfortable, and you always feel like you're home. And there is a certain culture and certain traditions to be procured from this. The farm, the way we celebrate holidays, et cetera. But on the other hand, there's my dad's side: other than one of my uncles, after my poppy died it's been very distant. And they are basically staged fifteen minutes away. But there's hardly anything from them. I can't feel close to them--I don't even think of them as family, hardly. I know they are, but there's such a difference between them and my mom's side it just doesn't seem like we're really related. I go to my grandma's house and I just want out. Is that awful? It doesn't help that she hates my mom. What I'm trying to say is, I think Kurt is right. The culture makes the family makes the bonding makes everything else. I know I'm going to be a wreck in college. I'm going to miss my mom's side. But I get nothing from my dad's side, other than hanging out with an uncle on that side, who I really do love. But other than that? Nothing. I won't see any need to go back. I feel awful, because I mean, that's my only grandma I'm talking about, but at the same time I don't. Just because you're blood doesn't make you family. Anyways. It's not exactly what Kurt was saying, I guess, but I think they parallel. Sort of.
Another thing just in the intro that made me a little sad--"'Are the kids up there nice?' he said. 'Yes, they are,' I replied. He is an airline pilot now. They are all something other than children now." Well, maybe not sad. Again, those damned wheels of mortality keep on moving. ("All the kids you loved have grown real old")
Okay, one guy was named Withers Witherspoon. Look me in the eye and tell me that's not awesome. Good luck.
Kurt again expresses the idea that intelligence is unnatural and freakish. "The brain is far too big to be practical".
The main character says that he and his sister had the ability to be happy all the time and they were. Then he says "Perhaps even in this we were freaks". It is hard to believe anyone wants anybody to be happy in this world sometimes.
"'I love you, Eliza,' I said. She thought about it. 'No,' she said at last. 'I don't like it.' 'Why not?' I said. 'It's as though you were pointing a gun at my head,' she said. 'It's just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don't mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but "I love you, too"?'" Thank you.
Later on, Eliza (the final president's sister) is angry, understandably, that her family abandoned her. She is asked if it would help to know how upset her mother would be over that fact, and Eliza asks "How could that help?" If you're going to feel guilty about it, don't do the thing in the first place. One of my general rules. I'm going to be an unpleasant mother/wife/teacher.
"If I drank too much, I might spill the beans to everybody: That the life that awaits us after death is infinitely more tiresome than this one." Eternity must be unpleasant. I know I must sound jaded, talking about mortality and eternity and religion like nothing, but let it be known, if I had to choose, I'd cling to eternity with both arms desperately. I'm only human, and even though deep down I know I'd regret it in the long run, I'd be too desperate for life. But. Back to the quote. I'd back Kurt on this one.
"There was a time in our childhood when we actually agreed that we were lucky not to be beautiful." Remember Invisible Monsters? Brandy talks about how jealous she was of the ugly girls--never having to worry about their appearance and spend hours upon hours primping and preening. Image was never a problem, since it was a futile effort. After her 'accident'--yeah, Brandy was better for the wear. She was one of those girls, and never did she have to worry again. Magic.
So, the book was right in the median. Pre-rereading Slaughterhouse Five, I give it the #3 in my favorite Kurt Vonnegut books. It's a quick read too, even quicker than Vonnegut's books usually are. Maybe two hours tops? Could it have even been that long? It didn't seem that long...
As for Doctor Zhivago, I'm around page 70/80. I think Boris Pasternak is quite eloquent, but what about the Zhivago!? They began with him as a young boy at his mother's funeral, stuck to him for a bit, then appeared to merge into a different plot--they've just returned to Yura Zhivago. I understood the separate plot piece, and I guess it must come into play later, but it was like.... So... about the guy this book is named after.... Anyways. He's still fairly young. Not a doctor yet. Awesome.
Summary: I realized I've been writing these reactions like everyone has read the book. So, Slapstick is the memoir of America's last president, at the end of it all, which Kurt thought up whilst en route to his uncle's funeral with his brother. Also a tribute to his sister.
In the beginning, in his forward, Kurt talks about how originally, his family was very much in touch with their German background. It was a strong family knit. Of course, the second world war rolled around and suddenly it was frowned upon to be German or to be related to anything German in any which way. Lacking that, the family just kind of... dissolved. They stuck together, but the culture and real backbone was gone--and the family became a nothing cog in the American machine. And since something so important for family was missing, Kurt and his siblings had no problems leaving the land their generations had been raised up on and being nobodies somewhere else. It made me sad, but at the same time, it's kind of the truth. I think culture's an important bit of family, which probably makes me sounds like an old lady... but it's the truth. It's what really helps you feel close, other than that, what have you got? Half the helix, and what's that anyways? I mean, even living away from aunts and uncles and stuff. When it's like that, it's like you're spending your holidays with strangers. My family--well, my mom's side--all lives really close, except for an aunt and cousin or two. But it's nice. I always feel comfortable, and you always feel like you're home. And there is a certain culture and certain traditions to be procured from this. The farm, the way we celebrate holidays, et cetera. But on the other hand, there's my dad's side: other than one of my uncles, after my poppy died it's been very distant. And they are basically staged fifteen minutes away. But there's hardly anything from them. I can't feel close to them--I don't even think of them as family, hardly. I know they are, but there's such a difference between them and my mom's side it just doesn't seem like we're really related. I go to my grandma's house and I just want out. Is that awful? It doesn't help that she hates my mom. What I'm trying to say is, I think Kurt is right. The culture makes the family makes the bonding makes everything else. I know I'm going to be a wreck in college. I'm going to miss my mom's side. But I get nothing from my dad's side, other than hanging out with an uncle on that side, who I really do love. But other than that? Nothing. I won't see any need to go back. I feel awful, because I mean, that's my only grandma I'm talking about, but at the same time I don't. Just because you're blood doesn't make you family. Anyways. It's not exactly what Kurt was saying, I guess, but I think they parallel. Sort of.
Another thing just in the intro that made me a little sad--"'Are the kids up there nice?' he said. 'Yes, they are,' I replied. He is an airline pilot now. They are all something other than children now." Well, maybe not sad. Again, those damned wheels of mortality keep on moving. ("All the kids you loved have grown real old")
Okay, one guy was named Withers Witherspoon. Look me in the eye and tell me that's not awesome. Good luck.
Kurt again expresses the idea that intelligence is unnatural and freakish. "The brain is far too big to be practical".
The main character says that he and his sister had the ability to be happy all the time and they were. Then he says "Perhaps even in this we were freaks". It is hard to believe anyone wants anybody to be happy in this world sometimes.
"'I love you, Eliza,' I said. She thought about it. 'No,' she said at last. 'I don't like it.' 'Why not?' I said. 'It's as though you were pointing a gun at my head,' she said. 'It's just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don't mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but "I love you, too"?'" Thank you.
Later on, Eliza (the final president's sister) is angry, understandably, that her family abandoned her. She is asked if it would help to know how upset her mother would be over that fact, and Eliza asks "How could that help?" If you're going to feel guilty about it, don't do the thing in the first place. One of my general rules. I'm going to be an unpleasant mother/wife/teacher.
"If I drank too much, I might spill the beans to everybody: That the life that awaits us after death is infinitely more tiresome than this one." Eternity must be unpleasant. I know I must sound jaded, talking about mortality and eternity and religion like nothing, but let it be known, if I had to choose, I'd cling to eternity with both arms desperately. I'm only human, and even though deep down I know I'd regret it in the long run, I'd be too desperate for life. But. Back to the quote. I'd back Kurt on this one.
"There was a time in our childhood when we actually agreed that we were lucky not to be beautiful." Remember Invisible Monsters? Brandy talks about how jealous she was of the ugly girls--never having to worry about their appearance and spend hours upon hours primping and preening. Image was never a problem, since it was a futile effort. After her 'accident'--yeah, Brandy was better for the wear. She was one of those girls, and never did she have to worry again. Magic.
So, the book was right in the median. Pre-rereading Slaughterhouse Five, I give it the #3 in my favorite Kurt Vonnegut books. It's a quick read too, even quicker than Vonnegut's books usually are. Maybe two hours tops? Could it have even been that long? It didn't seem that long...
As for Doctor Zhivago, I'm around page 70/80. I think Boris Pasternak is quite eloquent, but what about the Zhivago!? They began with him as a young boy at his mother's funeral, stuck to him for a bit, then appeared to merge into a different plot--they've just returned to Yura Zhivago. I understood the separate plot piece, and I guess it must come into play later, but it was like.... So... about the guy this book is named after.... Anyways. He's still fairly young. Not a doctor yet. Awesome.
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