The Gift Of Rediscovering

If I could pick one character in Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit From The Goon Squad to give to things to I would have to choose Alex. Now I’m aware that birthday presence are normally nice and sweet things, but I’m not like that. I would provide Alex with the gifts of a backbone and himself. First a backbone, I know I know, not mine to give, but I’m giving it. “Alex felt unable to explain to Lulu the beliefs he shared with Rebecca”(321). Although the phrase at first seems trivial it’s a major point of interest to me. The words “felt” and “unable” are placed right next to each other making it seem as though Alex wants to tell Lulu, but his feelings stop him. If this was the case though then Alex would have just told her after the feeling passed. All though never tells her never corrects her witch is a Direct characterizes of him not being able to stand up for him self. This being the case I would give Alex a back bone the ability to stand on his own two feet. Giving Alex himself seem strange, but Alex him self says, “’I don’t know what happened to me’”(339). This directly characterizes Alex as loosing him self. Some where in all his years of life Alex lost touch with the person he was and became the person that he lives as now.
I presume I see some one like Alex, some one who sold out and I want to give him back what he had. I believe everyone should live the way they wish to live. If that means standing up for them self’s, and re-finding them self then that what they have to do. I believe Alex needs to grow a spine once agene to find his old self, once he finds that old self-maybe then he can feel hole agene. One Character in one book, that’s all Alex would be seen as. I feel thought that ever one no mater who they are has the right to find themselves whatever time in life they are. We can’t back track in life we can’t go back and do it agene, but we can rediscover, and that’s the real gift I want to give Alex to rediscover life.

Not So Funny After All

In Jenifer Egan’s novel A Visit From The Goon Squad, a novel wining the Pulitzer Prize, I found my self laughing or chuckling at almost ever turn. When Scotty so plainly thought “I’d toss it on the counter so causally, daring the gal to challenge me”(108) I could no longer hold in my laughter. Scotty’s use of “daring” and “challenge” make what he thinks about doing seem a huge adventure, in reality Scotty’s only dropping of laundry. The juxtaposition between reality and the fiction in Scotty’s head amuses me completely for its utter seeming lack of reality, until I read the last line. “And she would make it new again”(108). The use of it a non specific now instead of the use of the word suit proves /Scotty’s not just some delusional lunatic, believing laundry a huge feet. It seems to me Scotty doesn’t strive for a clean suit but the suit is symbolic. The suit and Scotty are one. Scotty longs to make himself knew agene like he does ever single week with his suite. In this short fraise Scotty proves how want to erase the past, like the cleaning does, to make himself knew agene.

At first I found Scotty’s obsessive suit cleaning amusing and interesting. When I looked deeper though I found in Scotty, what ever one wants. To erase. Scotty wanted to let go of the mistakes he had maid and be a clean and new agene. Scotty’s struggle is a common human struggle. I’ll admit there are things I wish I could go and erase that I’ve said or done; but I’m not a suite. I can’t send my self away for cleaning to become new agene. Why Scotty’s story for me turned from funny to pain came from his inability to realize the only way to move on form those moment is to let go. So yeah Scotty for me started of as funny, in the end though the punch line wasn’t Scotty but human imperfection and longing.

Adults the wisest? I think not.

Lou a character from Jeniffer Egan’s noval A Visit From Thee Goon Squad, or rather her compilation of stores that connected by one charter and never time. Egan a novelist featured in the New York Magazine who first lived in Brookline and San Francisco. Lou though a character Egan develops and redevelops in the matter of three chapters. At times I wish I could take Lou and pound into his head the things his missing. As an eighteen year old its surprising that I can find these moments with a “grown “ “adult”. He “cant tolerate defeat” “He has to win” “Albert is nothing…What matters now is that Mindy understands this”(79). Egan ‘s incredible strong diction in the use of “can’t” “has to” “nothing” reveals the characters she’s creating. A character needing do mince, needing control of something, and needing to assert his power through control of a human. Egan revels this farther when stating “But Charlie does know her father. He’ll marry Mindy because that’s what winning means”(80). Egan uses Lou’s daughter to magnify his problem. His addiction presents so promptly that his own daughter sees it.
I want to rip Lou from the pages Egan fills and tell him everything he misses by only looking for control in his relationships. Yes he gets to be the hero of ever situation, but what has Lou sacrificed for it? He misses so much, a daughter starving for attention, a son with wisdom beyond his years “’I don’t think those ladies were ever watching birds”’(83). I want to tell Lou how destructive he’s being, how selfish he’s being. A few pages later though Lou a miner character in a story some one else lives the role of the main character. Some how though I still want to tell him Lou you have no control let it go and just live, but he’s just a character in a book that for three hundred and thirty one pages has life through me.