Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

So I decided to reread this book!  The last time I read it I was an angsty teenager.  This time, when I started I was feeling low and I was all, "Yeah, Holden, I can so relate!" but then by the halfway point I was like, "SUCK IT UP HOLDEN, OR YOU'RE GONNA GET A PURSE-SMACK.  AND DON'T BE THINKING THAT THE BEATLES PURSE IS GOING TO HURT LESS BECAUSE IT IS SMALLER.  IT IS MORE COMPACT AND IT WILL HURT TWICE AS MUCH."  Sooo yeah.  Long story short, it's been removed from the 'classics'/'books everyone should read' shelf and will be moved down to the regular shelf.  It's still a little cruel that it has to be next to a Goosebumps book, but oh well.  These things happen.
So tell me you know what this is about.  An angsty teenager fails out of school and goes back home and stuff.  It's another twenty-four-hour deal.  Fun times.
If you like South Park you've probably seen the Catcher in the Rye episode.  I think it's absolutely hilarious, even if that makes me sound like a bad person.  See, the Catcher in the Rye was once--and actually in some places it still is--considered a really controversial book because of the swearing and references to sex.  Listen.  Margaret Atwood is dirtier than Catcher in the Rye.  So Mr Garrison explains that this is the book that made Mark David Chapman kill John Lennon.  Butters finishes the book and he starts going crazy, like "Must... kill... John... Lennon", and he takes a knife out of the drawer.  He goes to his dad and asks him where John Lennon lives, and his dad says that John Lennon is dead, of course.  So he's like aww, man! and goes back to his room.  ...Okay, it's funnier on the show.  (And all the episodes are online, so...)
And we were discussing this one day in Intro to Lit and Mrs CF was talking about how scared she was to read it because, in her words, "Every weirdo is found with a copy of Catcher in the Rye!" She's worried that if she reads it she'll go insane or something.  I can relate, I'm scared to read Nietzsche for the same reason.


Sooooo let's go.
First, people tend to put this book's opening as one of the best book openings ever.  Here's the opening: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth" (1).  Excuse me?  That's not best.  It's new and different, but come on here.  Pride and Prejudice.  The Hobbit.  A Tale of Two Cities.  Just to name a few.  I highly doubt Caulfield had a crappy David Copperfield-esque childhood.  Also, Caulfield, don't compare yourself to David Copperfield, or your book to his.  Call me touchy, but that book is fantastic.  Let's be real with ourselves, Holden.

One of the first things--people--Holden talks about is his older brother DB.  He says his brother is an author and that one of his best stories is "The Secret Goldfish"--a kid buys a goldfish but won't let people look at it because he paid for it all by himself.  I wonder of JD Salinger actually wrote this story--though perhaps under a different title.  (There is actually apparently a book called The Secret Goldfish, but it was written in 2004.) And I'm thinking that perhaps this story might supposed to be symbolic or something, but to be honest... I'm not sure how.  I have trouble taking this book seriously.
I also wonder if DB is supposed to based off of an author JD Salinger knew, or just authors in general--DB moves up to Hollywood to presumably write scripts, and Holden says that he's become a prostitute.

Okay yeah, one of the most annoying things about Holden is when he says a fact--or what he believes to be a fact, and the next sentence is "it really does", or he'll state a belief or opinion, and say, "I really believe that."  And I just want to be like, "WELL OBVIOUSLY HOLDEN, THAT'S WHY YOU SAID IT!" I get that he's supposed to be an unsure teenager and wants to be sure we don't think he's a phony too and all of that but honestly, stop.  I could smack you upside the head.  Upside the gray part.  BAM.

"What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.  I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them.  I hate that.  I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it.  If you don't, you feel even worse" (4).  He means that people are saying by, making some kind of fanfare or something to show in some way they are aware that you're going.  This I agree with.
Also, that sad good-bye and bad good-bye made me think of Shel Silverstein.  Sorry, it's too late to unthink it now.

"'He just kept talking about Life being a game and all.  You know.'  'Life is a game, boy.  Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.'  'Yes, sir.  I know it is.  I know it.'  Game, my ass.  Some game.  If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right--I'll admit that.  But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it?  Nothing.  No game" (8). / "His opponent, the big blond boy, already knows this; there is a touching gallantry in his defense.  He is so sweet-naturedly beautiful, so nobly made; and yet his classical cream-marble body seems a handicap to him.  The rules of the game inhibit it from functioning.  He is fighting at a hopeless disadvantage.  He should throw away his useless racket, vault over the net, , and force the cruel little gold cat to submit to his marble strength.  No, on the contrary, the blond boy accepts the rules, binds himself by them, will suffer defeat and humiliation rather than break them... He will fight clean, a perfect sportsman, until he has lost the last game.  And won't this keep happening to him all through his life?  Won't he keep getting himself involved in the wrong kind of game, the kind of game he was never born to play, against an opponent who is quick and clever and merciless?" (53). This is from Isherwood's A Single Man, when George is watching the two tennis-playing teenagers.  Anyways, I see where Holden is coming from.  I know exactly what Holden is saying.  It's not so much that I disagree with him, it's just that after a while he gets annoying.  I get antsy, you know?  Like, GET TO THE BLOODY POINT ALREADY!  He just drags and drags after a while.


"People never notice anything" (9).


When he's leaving Mr Spencer: "After I shut the door and started back to the living room, he yelled something at me, but I couldn't exactly hear him.  I'm pretty sure he yelled 'Good luck!' at me.  I hope not.  I hope to hell not.  I'd never yell 'Good luck!' at anybody.  It sounds terrible, when you think about it" (16).  

So Holden bought an orange hunting hat with the flaps and all in NYC.  This kid Ackley starts ragging on him for it--saying it's a deer shooting hat.  Holden responds with: "'Like hell it is... This is a people shooting hat... I shoot people in this hat'" (22).  Call me crazy, but I actually saw it as a really cute scene.  The way I imagined him saying it... Kind of like a little kid.  It sounds little kiddish, the way he words it... Anyways, this might be why the book ends up in the possession of serial killers or inspiring them or what have you.  Problem: phonies.  Solution: shoot them.  It's the only reference to shooting I see... And instead of just quietly getting agitated by 'phonies' and trying to ignore them and avoid them, this passage could be the "Wait!  I have a better solution!" passage.  I don't know.  I'm not a serial killer. I'd make a pretty poor one at any rate. (PS. Aspiring serial killers out there: Holden is not being serious!  He is kidding.)

"He was always asking you to do him a big favor.  You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he's a real hot-shot, and they're always asking you to do them a big favor.  Just because they're crazy about themself, they think that you're crazy about them, too, and that you're just dying to do them a favor" (28).  Holden is talking about his roommate, who asks Holden to write him up a composition--even though Holden has failed out (though Holden is very talented in English and actually did pass that).  Holden does end up writing him a very nice piece about his dead brother's baseball mitt, but the roommate thinks it's stupid--so Holden just tears it up and throws it away out of agitation.

"Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad" (52).

So Holden leaves school, but instead of going home he wanders around NYC.  Eventually he goes to a club and starts talking to a lady... "The band was starting a fast one.  She started jitterbugging with me--but just very nice and easy, not corny.  She was really good.  All you had to do was touch her.  And when she turned around, her pretty little butt twitched so nice and all.  She knocked me out.  I mean it.  I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them" (73).

He also get agitated over the people clapping over the piano player--the player was trying to be really show-offy, and in doing so, he really screws the number up, The people were stupid and not realizing he was a screw up, and were clapping and all--Holden says if he was an actor or a piano player he wouldn't want these people to think he was good.  "I'd hate it.  I wouldn't even want them to clap for me.  People always clap for the wrong things.  If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet" (84).

And Holden sees a college fellow telling a girl about a fellow who committed suicide on pills while giving his girlfriend a feel.  He's shocked at that behaviour, and I don't blame him--there's a bit in Factotum where Henry sees a sailor doing pretty much the same thing to his girl.  I want to say that the sailor's victim was eaten by alligators or something weird like that, but yeah.  Tried and true way to pick up ladies?

"People are always ruining things for you" (87).

"It's no fun to be yellow" (89).

"One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something--it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid.  Some guys spend days looking for something they lost.  I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much" (89).

"You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains" (92).  Hehe.

Also, Holden describes a book he read about a fellow named Monsieur Blanchard.  Just for future reference: the book in question is (according to KGB and Amazon.com) is Warped in the Making: Crimes of Love and Hate.  Hm.  Seems interesting.

Holden also complains about how Catholics apparently are always trying to figure out if you're a Catholic too.  He's talking about how he met a fellow at one of the schools he flunked out of who he was having a great conversation with about tennis and stuff, and the kid clumsily brings up the subject of Catholicism--he asks Holden if he knows where the local Catholic church is.  Granted, the kid could have just been asking an actual question--you know, "Do you know where it is?" and so on.  Holden is a little bit of the unreliable narrator, so everything is bound to be slanted by what he thinks, and he could have just laid his own take on the situation--the definition of the situation and all of that.  Still, whether Holden was right or not, he says you could tell--it seemed like you could tell--that the boy would have enjoyed the conversation even more if they were both Catholic.  "That kind of stuff drives me crazy.  I'm not saying it ruined our conversation or anything--it didn't--but it sure as hell didn't do it any good" (113).

Holden starts driving me nuts about when he starts complaining about actors.  I understand his complaints about actors who are too good--whose acting attempts to be real end up being too real and end up looking ultra-rehearsed anyways.  But then he talks about how he's always worried because he's scared even good actors will do something phony in the next instant.  That bothers me.  Everybody has a bit of arrogance, I admit that.  But jeez, chill out!  He's like the super-hipster.  HE IS THE ORIGINAL HIPSTER.

And Holden goes to the museum and starts talking about how he's always loved it: "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.  Nobody'd move.  You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole... and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket.  Nobody'd be different.  The only thing that would be different would be you.  Not that you'd be so much older or anything.  It wouldn't be that, exactly.  You'd just be different, that's all.  You'd have an overcoat on this time.  Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner.  Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger.  Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom.  Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them.  I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean.  And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it" (122).  I totally know how he feels.  There's something incredibly reassuring about going to museum you know like the back of your hand and having it be the same, even if you haven't been there for a few years.  For example, I could probably go through the Peabody museum blindfolded and still be able to tell you exactly where everything is (except for that new caveman bit and the room that has monthly exhibits, of course)... But like the dinosaurs, the ancient animals, the contemporary animals, the birds... I guess the crystals and geodes too, but I never much pay attention those things... Oh, and the kid's room!  But I'm too old for the kid's room.  But I could describe that room in perfect detail if need be.  I need to have kids so I have an excuse to go into the kid's room... Or borrow kids.  I like that better.  So... Yeah.  (Of course, it goes both ways.  When they change something it can be shocking and even devastating, though fortunately they've mainly changed the geological exhibits, and like I said, I'm not exactly invested in those.)
...He goes on and says... "I kept walking and walking, and I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to.  I thought how she'd see the same stuff I used to see, and how she'd be different every time she saw it.  It didn't exactly depress me to think of it, but it didn't make me feel gay as hell, either.  Certain things they should stay the way they are.  You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.  I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway" (122).  (Phoebe is his little sister, by the way).

"If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?  Nobody" (125).  Men, this goes for you too.  (PS. Holden goes on a date!)
On his date, he starts attempting to explain what about society and people he's so fed up with.  The girl of course doesn't get it, but it made me start thinking.  I mean, they're the normal our society and culture is stupid blah blah blah that anyone can spit out, but then Holden starts talking about going off to live in the woods.  Now, let me back up a little.  A few months ago, the book Into the Wild happened to come up in conversation during Intro to Lit.  Every kid--except me--hated it.  I admit that Christopher didn't act smartly--in fact he acted the opposite of smartly--but I still liked and admired him.  My teacher adequately ripped him apart, especially on the fact that it never explains why he was so agitated and had to leave.  In the movie they have to make up things.  She actually had a really good phrase to describe his unexplained feelings, and I can't remember what it was... It was like "cul de sac ennui", or something.  I sort of thought about it, but I put it out of mind for whatever reason, probably too busy to think about it really.  But, when I read this part... my first thought was automatically, oh my God, he's Holden Caulfield.  Which ended up sort of ruining him in my eyes--he's not some Christ figure, he's not some big hero or idol, he was just a confused, disenchanted kid who didn't know what to do--so he did what he did.  So... Yeah.  I'm not saying that this book inspired Christopher--it isn't even mentioned--but I guess that maybe it proves that Salinger got the teenage brain down pat.

Anyways, the date flops because the girl is basically a phony in Holden's eyes.  Truth is, she's the one doing the thinking--well, I see both sides.  Yeah, it's good to do spontaneous things.  It's fun.  It's life-changing.  But at the same time, Holden is like, let's just get up and go!  Move somewhere far away, I have $180, and all of that... Which is a stupid decision.  Anyways, Holden gets agitated for her thinking things through, and tells her she's a pain in the ass, and yeah.  There goes the date.  So Holden leaves, drinks some more, and decides to sneak into his house and visit Phoebe.
"I'm not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about.  I mean she's only a little child and all.  But she was listening, at least.  If somebody at least listens, it's not too bad" (172).
Anyways, the title comes from the fact that Holden misheard that old bit, "If a Body Meet A Body"... He thought it was "If a Body Catch a Body".  He tells Phoebe that that's what he wants to do--he imagines that there's a big playing field of rye on a cliff somewhere.  There's thousands and thousands of kids, and if one starts veering off-track, he can catch the kid and keep them from falling off the end.  I don't... I don't get it.  Last time I read it I was all, "Holden's such a great guy, protecting those kids!" But now, I'm missing something maybe.  I'm just like, that's great Holden... But it's stupid as hell.  Maybe there's some fantastic display of humanity or symbolism or something I can't quite get. Maybe it's supposed to be symbolic of him keeping kids from veering off in life like he seems to have or something.  Maybe he feels like he's fallen down a precipice.  And at the same time... It's like, what makes it so great?  I mean, when someone is in trouble, most people's first inclination is to help the person out.  I would stop kids from falling off a cliff too.  Why are we throwing Holden a big party?  Everybody gets excited over this part and I just respond with what I've just written--you know?  Maybe I'm just particularly obtuse today.

So Holden tells Phoebe he's going to leave, and Phoebe offers him her Christmas money.  He feels guilty about it the next day and goes to her school to leave a note for Phoebe.  While he's there, walking in the hallways: "I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another 'Fuck you' on the wall.  I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something.  It wouldn't come off.  It's hopeless, anyway.  If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the 'Fuck you' signs in the world.  It's impossible" (202).

"Don't tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody" (214).


So... There's the book.  Like I mentioned, it's being moved to the regular shelf, but it still is worth a read so your hipster friends don't beat you up.  Well, maybe not the hipsters in your life, but I'd read it at least to say you've done it.  Really, you look like a dunce if you've made it out of high school without reading this.  It's not half-bad, but Salinger has done better.  So... Yep!


MLA citation: Salinger, JD.  The Catcher in the Rye.  Bantam Books: New York, 1981.
(This is actually sort of disappointing.  I thought this edition was much older... Though it does look like it's from the seventies, so I guess the date makes sense...)


Actually, have I explained what phonies are?  Okay, we're not done yet then.  Phonies are those people that you feel better than, whether you actually are or not.  They're the sort--well... Hm.  They seem like they don't get 'it' or 'you'.  People that maybe blindly follow society and the 'big man's' ideas without question.  So, a hipster would probably say I'm a phony.  Like I said, Holden Caulfield is the original hipster.  I don't have a better way of putting it.


Also, on an unrelated note--I love animated shorts from film festivals and all of that.  On a whim, I searched for one that scarred me for life as a child.  I was both pleased and horrified, of course.  Enjoy!   It was nominated for something in the Sundance film festival x years ago too, I guess.


Last post's cryptic song lyrics: Blame it on the Tetons by Modest Mouse
This post's cryptic song lyrics: I save my grace with half-assed guilt and lay down the quilt upon the lawn, spread my arms and soak up congratulations

Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac

Whooooo. Here we go! Hopefully this post won't take too long, because I just bought the Two Towers videogame, and I'm really excited about hitting that up. Well, it was a short book, so...

This book regards Gerard, Jack Kerouac's older brother, whom he saw as nothing less than a saint--the book is written with all the admiration and awe and love of his childhood under Gerard. The book begins with some anecdotes about the elder brother, sort of to get an idea of him I suppose at times other than his dying days, which makes up the bulk of the book. I should probably mention that Gerard died at age nine (Jack was four at the time). So yeah, lots of hero worship, which is completely understandable, and maybe some indulgence and fantasies on the facts--again, not surprising, and even if there was, would Jack himself even have known? So I guess it can be argued that there's an unreliable narrator thing going on, but even if it is is it really... Does that make sense? Because maybe it's not the truth but it's what Kerouac remembers so for him it's the truth even though in actuality it's not... Yeah...

Well, like I said: hero worship. An early anecdote regards Plourdes, an always-hungry boy from a family too poor to properly feed him. Gerard fed him--Kerouac then claims that on a recent visit back to his hometown (Lowell, MA) he saw Plourdes again, fat and full and healthy--thanks to Gerard? is Kerouac's musing. He then adds "Without Gerard what would have happened to Ti Jean?" (5). (Ti Jean was how he sometimes referred to himself in his books.) And more: "[Gerard's] heart under the little shirt as big as the sacred heart of thorns and blood depicted in all the humble homes of French-Canadian Lowell" (7). I've never really understood the heart of thorns thing (I assume it's more of a Catholic thing) but I assume it's intended to be Jesus's heart--so, there we go, it's clear what Kerouac means to say about Gerard.

Another comparison drawn between Gerard and Jesus: Gerard found a hurt baby mouse and made him a little basket and bed to nurse him back to health. The cat of the Kerouac household found the basket and of course ate it--Gerard and Jack cry over the incident, and Mrs Kerouac attempts to explain that the cat couldn't help it, it was simply its nature, et cetera--even though Gerard (according to Jack) understands all of this, he takes the cat and holds it by the jowls and yells and lectures at her. Kerouac, frightened by this unprecedented outburst, connects the feelings he had witnessing this to what one would have thought when Jesus in the Temple turns over the moneychanger tables in a rage. (The story commonly being called the 'Cleansing of the Temple'; you can look it up.)

Often in the anecdotes and even when the descent to Gerard's death begins, Gerard often laments upon the fact that he is not in heaven, for their he will have birds, people will not harm mice or each other, he will have a wagon pulled by lambs, and so on--it's kind of... chilling, I suppose is the best word, because he does die, he does end up in heaven. His wish was granted. Jack, actually, so excited that his brother will finally receive all of these great things (and will no longer suffer in the mortal coil), runs and dances down the street when his brother dies, shouting such gleefully--because he understands: it's sad his brother has died, of course, but he is receiving his award. Her didn't seem to even be aware that there was any ill meaning attached to it. (Of course, he is only four so he probably wouldn't have really understood the concept of death in regards to a human anyway.)

"We are baptized in water for no unsanitary reason, that is to say, a well-needed bath is implied--Praise a woman's legs, her golden thighs only produce black nights of death, face it--Sin is sin and there's no erasing it--We are spiders. We sting one another. No man exempt from sin any more than he can avoid a trip to the toilet" (31). Regarding the women--a double-meaning possibly, in that sex is supposed to be considered a sin (Right? Someone help me on this one) or at least lust, and that from what is produced from between those thighs--a baby, who continues the chain of suffering and sin in another facet, and so on... I point out his condemnation--it's a little too strong of a word but unfortunately I can't think of a more appropriate one--of women yet again. In... Dharma Bums? Desolation Angels? ...He says the "girls here make shadows taller than the shadow of death" (or essentially that) and tends to generally view women as... well, unnecessary, a cause of unnecessary suffering and such (no surprise, considering his take into Buddha and such), though of course that never really stops him from pursuing them, even when they're clearly mad, like whatserface (Elliot's mother) in Big Sur.

Jack, imagining Gerard's thoughts as he runs through an icy winter rendition of Lowell: "--Not a soul in sight, a few cruds of old snow stuck in the gutters--A fine world for icebergs and stones--A world not made for men--A world, if made for anything, made for something dead to sympathy--Since sympathizing there'll not be in it ever--He runs to warm up--" (42).

At one point Jack remembers a Halloween where his mother dressed him up as "a little Chinaman" (47). I was going to make some joke about HP Lovecraft being freaked out, until I remembered that though he was a New Englander, he lived in Providence, RI. Aww. Then I got weirded out, because it's kind of strange to think they were alive at the same time, you know? Obviously they weren't working at the same time, but still.

Gerard was a sickly child, I guess, and it wasn't unusual for him to get a bad dose of the flu in the winter. So when he got so ill he had to leave school, the nuns kind of knew the drill. Anyway, according to Jack, on the day of his final day of school, he had fallen asleep in class because breathing trouble at night kept him from sleeping well. Sister Marie wakes him up and he tells her dreamed of the Virgin Mary and adds, "'dont be afraid my good sister, we're all in Heaven--but we dont know it!'" (54). A doctrine easily recognized from Kerouac, from his other books. Projected by Kerouac or what actually happened, I don't know. Kerouac says most of his ideas came from Gerard--and I trust this, even if in this case he could be considered an 'unreliable narrator'.

"God made us for His glory, not our own" (59).

Kerouac writes about how even though his brother his sick and dying, he still teases, plays with and loves his brother and how he (Jack) took it all for granted, of course, and was "going to be made to appreciate it, like a Fallen Angel" (67). That is, basically, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone". Or that he had always been made, like from the beginning in his form to appreciate it eventually--not that it would come as though something new. Or it just seems new, even though it was always there, because he was never actually aware of it...

"An old dream too I've had of me glooping, that night in the parlor by Gerard's coffin, I dont see him in the coffin but he's there, his ghost, brown ghost, and I'm grown sick in my papers (my writing papers, my bloody 'literary career' ladies and gentlemen) and the whole reason why I ever wrote at all... [is] because of Gerard, the idealism, Gerard the religious hero..." (112). So by 1956 he was already getting fed up with it all... Big Sur wouldn't even be due for another five years... (He died in '69, victim of alcoholism and exhaustion and depression all playing off one another.) Might I also add that his little aside in parenthesis sounds like anyone of Stephen King's washed-up author characters' asides.

Like I said earlier, he doesn't quite understand death or why anyone would be upset at it. At Gerard's funeral he can't understand why anyone would cry, but cannot express the reasons why he wouldn't cry, why anyone wouldn't cry, because he is only four--but he's not upset because Gerard has gained his divine gift, "it has come, has always been with us, the formalities of the tomb are ignorant irrelevancies most befittingly gravely conducted by proper qualified doers and actors and Latin singers" (127). And, an odd thought just came into my head... In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, he says time as the aliens see it (Tralfamadorians) is everything happens at the exact same second, even if what is happening is being performed by the same person doing something else... but wouldn't what Kerouac has said properly describe that too? The divine reward is forever because it is eternal life and if everything is happening forever in that one moment... You see? Could it work?

Well, there you have it. I quite enjoyed the book--I'd be surprised if anyone put it down and said they didn't, or at least said that they weren't touched by it. As for recommending--I would--but it would probably mean more to a person who's read some of Kerouac's other works first, and not just his best-known, On the Road.

MLA citation information: Kerouac, Jack. Visions of Gerard. New York: Penguin, 1991. Print.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Kids with Guns by the Gorillaz

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Whatever happens to you, whatever happens to me, I hope that I'll fall asleep knowing that you'll always be the story with no ending

Leave! Now! And never come back!

Well, I have officially completed my waltz with Lord of the Rings. It... has... finished! Wait, wait. Before I start on how in love I am with this series, I need to curb my excitement to share my excitement about the other cool thing that happened to me today: well, I was at an estate sale and happened to pick up my cousins' old copy of Slaughterhouse-Five from '78. Nelson even wrote in it a little, providing illuminations such as "[My sister] is a turd". Oh, you! Anyway, it's... it's pretty cool... because it's not all generic-like, like basically all the buyable (new) Vonnegut books are now... so... yeahhh.



Yeah, but, back to that waltz and all. (Where did that even come from?) Oh wow. Oh wow, yes, it was incredible. I'd be lying if I said I believed the third book to be as good as the first two (I have to say, I believe The Two Towers is my favorite) but that hardly matters because oh my God this series. I was practically jumping out of my skin to finish the book (and likewise, I am so to finish this post) so yes, I'd see the end--but also, to put it in the Classics* shelf. Let's goooo!



Again, I feel no need to summarize or reiterate why there's no real need to summarize, or shouldn't be. Come on, even I had seen the movies! And I'm pretty sure that, before the events of the last month or so, I was the only person on this entire planet who had never read the trilogy.





"And upon its thrust-out knee was the Guarded City, with its seven walls of stone so strong and old that it seemed to have not been builded but carven by giants out of the bones of the earth" (8). Ignore the fact that 'builded' looks weird--Tolkien purposely writes to sound archaic, and built is probably just the more modern rendition of the word (sounds Tudor, if you ask me...) Why I quote it is because I just really like that phrasing--"bones of the earth". It sounds so cool!

"'Which question shall I answer first?' said Pippin. 'My father farms the lands round Whitwell near Tuckburough in the Shire. I am nearly twenty-nine, so I pass you there; though I am but four feet, and not likely to grow any more, save sideways'" (29). I know, you're sick of me saying it, but the hobbits are just too adorably awesome. Can I please just marry all of them. No, it wasn't really a question... it's happening.

"'Where will wants not, a way opens, so we say'" (70). Again, that whole Tolkien is making up--or in this case creating a root--of sayings thing. Of course, in this case, it'd be the root to "Where there's a will, there's a way". I think.

"'But in desperate hours gentleness may be repaid with death'" (80). I feel like this, in some respect, sort of shows Denethor's corruption, or confusion, for he is not completely evil, but he's very... muddled. Denethor is Boromir and Faramir's father. But what I mean is, well, you know how Boromir attempted to take the Ring? A few paragraphs later, Denethor says to Faramir that he wished Faramir had died in Boromir's stead which is pretty bad to begin with, and then he goes on to say that Boromir would have "remembered his father's need" and brought him a "mighty gift" (80; both). Of course, the Ring. Which is also pretty bad. But going back to that first quote... Back in the medieval days, honor was your god. You never struck an unarmed enemy, you never struck at the back, you never took advantage in 'cowardly' blows, et cetera. If I'm correct (we'll see what Marky Mark has to say on all of this) then we can equate this sort of honor with the 'gentleness'. So, what Denethor is essentially saying is, "don't spare, kill whomever however and to hell with your chivalry and honor trash". Which is bad, because the king is supposed to be the holiest of holies, and always uphold that sort of thing... uh... yeah. Sorry if this is coming out convoluted. Did I mention it's one AM?

"'Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must'" (95). Denthor, you may be a little off in the head, but that's pretty much the coolest line in the book(s).

"'But tell me, are you hurt, or wounded?' 'No,' said Merry. 'Well, no, I don't think so. But I can't use my right arm'" (136). So... that's a yes, then?

Okay, this may be a spoiler, as I can't remember how this scene plays out, or if it plays at all, in the film. So be forewarned. But, Pippin is pretty much in the midst of the madness of the battle and instead of hiding or trying to escape, he decides he'll spend his last bit of life fighting (Northern courage!) and starts attacking all he can reach. Right before his stamina is completely spent: "...it heard voices, and they seemed to be crying in some forgotten world far above: 'The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming!' For one moment Pippin's thought hovered. 'Bilbo!' it said. 'But no. That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it is ended now. Good bye!' And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more" (177). I loved this because of the reference, all of that tying in and such--I don't know, something resonated with me. I also loved it because had Pippin actually died, his last thought would have been "Good bye!", which is sort of funny. Like, he had just enough to wish us all farewell... No, he didn't say anything heroic. Just bye. Yeah, I'm surprised he could focus that much, too.

"Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be" (186). Well, we know the Ring seduces people by tempting them with what they want. Power, armies, women (Sauron definitely did it for the girls). Sam loved gardening. He loved plants and flowers and fruits. The flaming sword thing is great, but that's just icing on the cake--what he'd really like is the plant life, and to be such a successful gardener. I understand all of this, but it doesn't make the image in my head any less goofy. Tolkien certainly didn't intend it that way, but it can't be helped. Sorry, JRR!

"'Don't orcs eat, and don't they drink? Or do they just live on foul air and poison?' 'No, they eat and drink, Sam. The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own'" (201). I find this interesting and note-worthy in light of Tolkien's religion; he was Christian. (Incidentally, he re-introduced CS Lewis back to Christianity.) Now, I cannot site exactly the source--though I feel very strongly that it's a footnote from Paradise Lost--that Satan cannot create, he can only pervert what God has already made. The line is almost completely the same. Just pointing that similarity out, there. (Fun fact, in an attempt to google the exact quote, I came upon this Yahoo! Answers question: "Can Satan read our minds/know our thoughts?" Maybe it's the fact that it's 1:26 AM, but I found this quite hilarious.)

Oh, here we go, get ready for some serious foreshadowing. Gollum unsuccessfully attempts to accost Frodo and he just snaps: "'Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the fires of Mount Doom!" (237). I see what you did there. And less so, Gollum works a little more to seal his own fate: "'Let us live, yes, live just a little longer. Lost lost! We're lost. And when Precious goes we'll die, yes, die into the dust'" (237). Yeah, you will. Well, if by 'dust' you mean fiery lava-y death. Ooh, now I'm getting mean though. I really do feel bad for Gollum, even if he's a shifty little nasty creature, he certainly is pitiable. And Samwise Gamgee being incredibly mean to him doesn't hurt his pity-factor. Sam, this is why we can't be friends, which is kind of a shame, because you're so sweet otherwise.

I felt so bad for Bilbo. When all (sort of) is said and done, Frodo meets back with Bilbo, who's practically become a senile old man. It's kind of disheartening. I know I'm not big on The Hobbit, but I really really really love Bilbo!

Oh, and my problem with the end. After (spoiler!) Faramir is wed, I was kind of like... "And they all lived happily ever after!" Ten pages later: "Happily ever after!" One mini-plot later: "I AM GOING TO BLUE SKIDDOO INTO THIS BOOK AND PHYSICALLY HARM SOMEONE." Yes, I understand the bit about Hobbiton was necessary. You may or may not remember this, but I believe I mentioned the goings-on in Isengard were meant to reflect what had happened to Tolkien's sleepy little home as industrialization and I believe the war increased. Well, Saruman is allowed to escape and moves onto Hobbiton. Hobbiton is reclaimed for the hobbits and the destructive forces are driven away. This is meant to symbolize what he wanted to do--take his home back to what it had been, make it beautiful again, fix it. I can appreciate it in that light. But I'm not a big fan of how it actually played out; I liked Marky Mark's summary much more enjoyable. I think I may just have a problem with JRR Tolkien's endings or how he wraps things up. I mean, Smaug's death and after turned me off to the whole of The Hobbit as a kid, and I still wrinkle my nose past that certain point. And this--well, similarity. I didn't detest the whole ending, but that tad bit bothered me intensely. I think he tries to write in that little extra bit of conflict at the very end, when the reader (or at least when the reader is me) is trying to wind down. The war with the goblins in The Hobbit--and this battle for Hobbiton--you see what I mean? They're kind of nestled in, even though the basic conflicts are basically over and done with: Smaug is dead and the Ring is destroyed. QUEST IS COMPLETED, GO HOME. Though, according to Marky Mark, the goblin war is necessary to show Bilbo's growth, and I guess the bit with Hobbiton provides closure with the Isengarders. Fine. You win this round, Tolkien.

"'I wish I could go all the way to Rivendell, Mr Frodo, and see Mr Bilbo,' said Sam. 'And yet the only place I really want to be in is here. I am that torn in two.' 'Poor Sam! It will feel like that, I am afraid,' said Frodo. 'But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be'" (335). Oh yeah; Frodo's definitely matured. You can tell just by the way his speech has changed. He sounds older and wiser (though if I recall he was always Sam's elder, by twenty years or so, or perhaps I'm thinking of his age in relation to Pippin or Merry). You know? This is the sad sweet goodbye word. While we're talking about sweet things, while I'm thinking of it, I love Legolas's and Gimli's friendship. Big hugs all around? Yes? Sounds good!

For the most part, I skimmed the appendixes; the only parts I paid tight attention to was the story of Aragorn and Arwen. For the most part, any other really riveting things had already been outlined by Marky Mark. So... yes...

Well, there you have it. Go read the series; I commandeth thee. Really. I can't imagine a reader disliking it, unless if they didn't like to read or didn't like fantasy or what have you and in that case I respond with hey. Why are you even reading this blog then? Huh? Yeah. That's what I thought.



Oh, and just as a note, I finished this book hiding from the law, AKA teachers. I signed out early to visit a Brit lit class (I would) and remembered there was a student teacher. I didn't know where to go, so I hunkered down in a hallway that I thought would be secluded and began to read because I really had no other choice. It turned out, the hallway just happened to have rather heavy traffic that day, but absolutely no one even batted an eye to my being there (not even either teacher that came upon me); they were even less surprised to find that I was reading up there. And, even lesser surprised than that, to see I was reading Return of the King. It was actually pretty pleasant. I'm going to start doing it more often.





*The 'Classics' shelf is a special shelf designated for books that have not only won my favor, but that I turn an objective eye on and decide whether they should be considered important or rereadable for future generations, and many other odd ins and outs. It's just how I roll.



PS. For those curious about the titles for these LotR posts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-1RPDqJAY
Just because it's funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yqVD0swvWU

PPS. Just kidding about that 'never come back' thing! Really!




EDIT: So, I was kind of right about the thing with Denethor. Marky Mark has told me that, yes, Tolkien honored the medieval honor system highly (greatly?) and by including Denethor admonishing Faramir for showing mercy, Tolkien is saying, "This guy is a worm and definitely not honor-worthy". Only he said it with eloquence and a lot of paragraphs that were dense but apparently I was still able to understand. And apparently Denethor's quote about burning is just proving himself that he's a coward, which I didn't understand when I first wrote this up, but after reflecting on this do: he'd rather give up and kill himself. Well... I still think it's a cool quote. So there.

Who watches the Watchmen?

I finally got Watchmen back from Jackii, so I can write a review on the best comic ever! (Well... you know... there's always Hellsing...)
But first: at the mall today, they had an old-fashioned metal lunchbox with Rorschach on the front. I thought it was kind of funny, so for whatever reason, I opened it--there was a thermos with him on it on the inside too! Awesome!

(Watchmen is a what-if deal if masked heroes from the '40's were real and fighting crime--it was briefly brought back in the mid-sixties, and the story is set in the eighties after the 'masked vigilantes' were outlawed--the story centers around those ex-heroes. Do I really need this here? Does anyone honestly not know about Watchmen?)

Anyways, let me say this. People love the V for Vendetta comic. (I bring this up because Alan Moore created them both.) Frankly, it left me a little cold. The movie, I could get behind, but the book... uh, why'd I buy that again? Cleaning out my room, it just apparently disappeared, and to be honest, I'm not heartbroken. But this... If someone stole my Watchmen comic I'd be pissed. This is a work of art. Everything exists for the story, for juxtaposition, nothing is just hanging there. Down to posters and tags on walls, what's playing on the TV (the clearest example is when [SPOILER!] Dreiberg and Laurie are having sex and the commercial of Veidt is playing in the background) what people are even doing, items in the room--it is all intertwined. To work everything so well and so finely is amazing, even if Alan Moore is a little... kooky. Honestly, while you read it try your best to pay attention to everything--and trust me, that's impossible. Fourteen times later, and you're still noticing new things. For one thing, I finally kind of understand that subplot with the missing author.

Anyways, I'm going to be the jerk who is like, "of course the book was better!" It really was. For one thing, there is not enough Rorschach. You get zero of his back story, which is some serious BS, because to be honest, he's my favorite. The Black Freighter is completely cut out. I don't think Hollis was murdered? And, of course, the squid is gone. But, to be fair, you'd have to be God Himself to make a movie level up at all to the book. God help 'em, the directors tried. Especially with trying to show how Jon views time. (Wonder if the Slaughterhouse-Five movie did it any better, or even attempted to?) I don't agree with--well, a lot of what was shuffled, but let's be honest, it would really be impossible, unless you enjoy movies that are even longer than Gone With the Wind. (Should that be in quotation marks or something?) And, as much as I love this, by hour seven I'd be ready to shoot myself. There's only so much you can take of anything, and the film seems too, for lack of a better word, gaudy, to be able to be coped with for hardly longer than the three it is already. I was ready to jump out by the last half hour. Vidro was getting annoyed because I kept on jiggling my legs and squirming around in my chair in efforts to stave off insanity. Okay, okay, don't add the squid or whatever, just film Rorschach's back story and give it to me. Oh, wait, do change the scene where he kills the guy who stole a little girl and fed her to his dogs. That scene was unnecessary to change.

Problems With Character Changes in Movie
Dreiberg--He was not fat enough. This is honestly the number one complaint among fans. Where was his pot belly? BS, guys.
Veidt--Instead of having Ken-doll good looks, he looked like an odd little Swedish man. You know who he reminds me of? That white-haired guy in the Venture Brothers, the one with the New York accent and wears the white shirt, and he's basically always the short guy with the eye patch? Yeaaah. Definitely. The phrase 'odd bird' comes to mind. Also, his outfit change really annoyed me. I don't know why, but I got PO'd like hell.
Rorschach--Not ugly enough. Everything else was fine, but he just wasn't ugly enough. And, as upset as the end with him made me when I read the book; no matter how hard I tried, I just didn't care in the movie.

Oh, and now that I think of it, the Hiroshima Lovers. Man, I was trying to be fair, but now I just can't stop...

Anyways, things in the book.

If I were to write everything worth mentioning, I'd basically be rewriting the book only without the part where it's good.
Well, the book opens with the murder of Edward Blake, aka The Comedian, ex-'hero'. Anyways. "'Jeez, y'know, that felt good. There don't seem to be many laughs around these days.' 'Well, what do you expect? The Comedian is dead.'" It's not particularly important, but there are a hundred and a million little lines like that that just stick--to me, at least. This isn't Journalism class. I don't have to be objective. : ) Be glad I'm only cutting it down to a few...

"'Somebody has to do it, don't you see? Somebody has to save the world...'" Ah, the line that unintentionally inspired Veidt to do what he did. Again, aside from that, I just like the line. Somebody does have to, but who knows if they exist. Who knows if it can be.

Oh, the scene where Eddie Blake breaks into Moloch's house drunk. You know how up there I said you still notice and realize new things every time you read it, no matter how many times you read it? I get this now. I don't think this was brought up in the movie either, though at this point the only things I remember are how weird Veidt looked and that scene where they shoot the hippie girl in the opening. Oh, and when they implied the Comedian killed JFK. But anyways, warning, book spoiler ahead: Maybe I'm stupid not to have realized this sooner, but Eddie discovered the 'squid'--that's why he got drunk. That's why he was killed. Like, I got that Veidt killed him because he swam onto his secret island or whatever, but it never occurred to me that Veidt killed Eddie because Eddie found out about the squid and what it was for.

"'Was offered Swedish love and French love... but not American love. American love; like Coke in green glass bottles... They don't make it anymore.'" From Rorschach's journal, the love offered is, of course, from prostitutes. There's something I find very poignant about this line from his journal. It's sad, and maybe it's true. But. The very last lines of his journal on that page, too: "'Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.'" Sometimes I wonder if Rorschach is really sociopath, which he is must likely to be written off as, or just someone with an iron grip on their emotions. Because sociopaths can imitate feelings, and when he's just Kovacks, he doesn't even try--he's as wooden as the maple tree in the front yard. Cold as ice. Well, not always--when his 'face' is taken away, he becomes enraged and desperate--and as Rorschach, he's obviously feeling hope, and it's hard to imagine someone being deficit of every single emotion... Then, at the end, he is the most upset of them all. And I guess it's obvious he feels he doesn't really exist without his 'face'... So maybe he can only really be human at times when he distances himself most from humanity. Uhm, does that make sense, really? I'm trying my best, here. Man. Now I have 'Shores of California' stuck in my head.

"'Blake understood. Treated it like a joke, but he understood. He saw the cracks in society, saw the little men in masks trying to hold it together... He saw the true face of the twentieth century and chose to become a reflection, a parody of it. No one else saw the joke. That's why he was lonely.'" "'He suits the climate here: The madness, the pointless butchery... As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding. Blake's different. He understands perfectly... and he doesn't care.'"

Ah, how Jon views time. I believe I alluded to this in my post about Slaughterhouse-Five. If not, it is exactly how the Tralfamadorians in that book view time. Everything is happening at the very same second forever and ever amen. Forever and ever is really just one second in eternity's great clock, really. Eternity is really that one second though, I guess, so all that proved really was that I suck at metaphors, huh? Uhm but yeah. The reason why that view so sticks with me is because of that British guy in Boston that first told that view of time to me--he said it was from the book Conversations With God. I've been meaning to read it since last October, but I always forget about it when I go to the library or B&N or where ever. So whenever books mention this, I always get excited. So far? Two. Two books have this theory. Haha.

"'I sat on the bed. I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that is avoiding the real horror. The horror is this: in the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else.'" The Rorschach test becomes a metaphor for death for Rorschach's psychologist. Unsettling, upsetting, alone, but even more so that Kovacs is correct, in this strange way. Sick?

And, actually, as I reread the included pages after that chapter, the short essay entitled 'My Parents', 'written' by Kovacs, I found an interesting point--which, by the way, may lead into a spoiler, so you have been warned--Rorschach likes President Truman, and praises him highly at the very beginning of the book. Kovacs's mother told him as a child (it is written here) that she threw his Father out because he loved Truman, and she did not. But he ends this essay talking about Truman, saying "He dropped the atom bomb on Japan and saved millions of lives because if he hadn't of, then there would have been a lot more war than there was and more people would have been killed. I think it was a good thing to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.'" Ah? And keep in mind the ending of the book--so upset and in such despair that he had Jon kill him. I think maybe it's an idea that you can think and say you follow, but deep in your heart you know if it happens you could never believe in it, or put your entire stock in it, or when it does happen you hate it and are disgusted by it even. You know? Maybe?

"'"End of the world" does the concept no justice. The world's present would end. Its future, immeasurably vaster, would also vanish. Even our past would be cancelled. Our struggle from the primal ooze, every childbirth, every personal sacrifice rendered meaningless, leading only to dust, tossed on the void-winds. Save for Richard Nixon, whose name adorns a plaque on the moon, no human vestige would remain. Ruins become sand, sand blows away... All our richness and color and beauty would be lost... as if had never been.'"If I could count the times this sentiment has been spoken of, going all the way back to Animorphs... Well, it is truth. I guess this really would be of the 'no truer words have ever been spoken' category. It could also be considered end of time, I guess, since time and free will appear to be entirely human inventions. Oh dear, I've gone and depressed Emma...

"I did it thirty-five minutes ago."

....

"I did it. I did it!"
This scene described and the scene when the squid 'lands' and the aftermath is what sold me. Mookie talked quite extensively about it in a panel of his I attended at my second Connecticon... I think it was something like "Making memorable heroes and villains"? But yes. As sick as it is, those scenes were what drew me.

"'Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.'" Poor Rorschach.

"'Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.'"

The end makes me nervous, as I believe it was intended to do. Whenever I read a comic I find myself adopting patterns of speech and thought, and I guess it's true again. Guess.

Anyways, this is a damned good book. Much better than the V for Vendetta comic. Better than most 'real' books. Five out of five, Alan Moore's a genius.

I'll be on my best behavior, taking shots for Mother Nature

Okay, so, Slaughterhouse Five: I reread it because it was on the reading list for my school. But honestly, what was Marky Mark thinking when he put this on here? You have certain questions to answer, and they're all something along the lines of "how did the character change by the end of the book? What is an important event that causes the turning point of the book?" et cetera. But you can't do that for Slaughterhouse Five because it jumps around like Invisible Monsters. Actually, none of these books on the list really fit well to those questions. Figures, the one year we get books that don't belong in the pail we get a crappy set to answer to and I can't even get the extra credit. (Seriously, I've read like half this list... and you know what, I bet it's just the books I did read that don't fit. My luck.) Man, why can't we read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay like the UConn class kids? That would be a fun book to do this, or really any other project, on.

Anyways, this book isn't nearly my favorite of Kurt's. It's a good introduction to him, I guess, and had I read it first I might like it more, but the first I read was Breakfast of Champions, and as you know by now, I consider that to be basically the cream of the crop. Well... after Galapagos. Anyways. It's right in the middle of the range, with Galapagos right in front and Hocus Pocus at the other hand. I guess you'd say it's mediocre, but that sounds too mean. Well, I guess it's the truth, though.... Ah, I don't know. Think what you want about them, I'm not God.

Well, first: this confused me when I read this book the first time, but this book is the "famous book about the war".

A major point in the book is not only that Billy is unstuck in time, it's the way Tralfamadorians view time: Everything is happening at once. The past, present, and future do not exist: time is not one precise moment after another it simply is. I guess it's kind of like believing in predestination, only everything you have done and will do (well, is being done) is preordained, down to the very last millisecond. If you have read Watchmen, think of how Doctor Manhattan views time. It's like that. I guess it's also basically saying 'sucks to free will'. Wait, this quote may help: "When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments." Which, with that mind, the argument could be that when someone thinks of a memory, they are for a moment viewing time as it really is, occurring all at once. Or something? I'll stop now. I could talk myself blue in the face about this, really. This is a theory I hold in high regard because when I first learned about it (not from this book or any other, a random British guy in Boston told me about it) my jaw almost disengaged and dropped at my feet. It was so novel it shocked me right into minor enlightenment, there. Anyways, I digress...

"Among the the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, present, and future." Yeah, so basically it's a big middle finger to the idea of free will... Okay, yeah, and later Billy talks to a T who talks about all these papers on planets he's studied and planets he's visited and such, and basically he says that "Only on Earth is there any talk of free will". And on one level, if free will is just an illusion, it's kind of a relief, I guess. No one can really be blamed for sins, and everyone goes to heaven? Well, not even that, because if this theory is true, one, it'd make a cool Twilight Zone, two, there would be no heaven and hell because no one would be dead, not really.

And, Kurt Vonnegut made his own observation on the New Testament, mainly on the story of Jesus. An alien studies the Bible but doesn't like this area of the New Testament. He "supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes." Yeah, I see this one. Pilate had him crucified and oops, he's burning in Hell. (Wait, actually, that doesn't make sense. Pilate was necessary for Jesus to be martyred and ascend to heaven... Pilate was the good guy? Wait, that makes Judas technically a good guy too! Hey!) Wait, wait, now I've lost my train of thought. Uh. Crap. But yeah, I guess Judas was kind of a hero or at the very least a good guy, cause he was the catalyst in Jesus's death and it was necessary for Jesus to die... man! Don't demonize Judas, guys. He was working in God's plan! Destiny, guys. I mean, don't be giving him out high fives and stuff, but he couldn't help it. No free will. God planned this one. (If I was Jesus I'd be really angry about that one.)

Huh. I guess there wasn't much to respond to. Which I guess is good, because my last two posts are longer than a giraffe's neck.