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.