Jake's comments
(member since Jun 17, 2009)
Jake's comments from the Q&A with Dave Cullen group.
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In an earlier post, you asked for people’s emotional experience reading the book.
For me, Columbine's most gripping passages were not those retelling the shootings. Rather, my most emotional responses came in response to background and explication. I appreciated your choice to go without pictures. But I didn’t feel the book spared me any shock or grief in doing so. The eeriest image for me has no photo: Eric’s moonlit dream (p. 135). I’m not sure why, but that dream was the most evocative paragraph in the book for me.
Over the course of my reading, I felt regular doses of anger, sadness, empathy, and pessimism. Some things cooled my emotions though. For instance, it helped to read about police procedures, especially related to containment and “practical choices” SWAT had to make (p.143). Other passages produced strong but valuable responses. Cassie’s back-story floored me. But as you fleshed out her portrait, she became more compelling and endearing than the rapturous persona ladled up by media and churches.
Sheriff Stone pissed me off. I even cussed and name-called him in my margin notes. I suppose there is a guy there worth understanding, but I didn’t come away with any positive feelings for him. Another passage that drew my ire was Reverend McPherson’s willful defiance of empirical evidence (p.287).
On the bottom of page 301 I jotted, “Way to go Patrick!” I also laughed with assent when I read of students and teachers wearing “Bite Me” shirts (p. 271). Elsewhere I was humbled by Ann Marie’s pragmatic thoughts on forgiveness (p. 338-9).
I felt oddly calm as the killers reentered the library at the very end. Perhaps knowing the worst was over allowed me to relax. Maybe I was numb. Regardless, I felt more tension reading Brian Rohrbough’s wrangling over the memorial than I did beholding Eric and Dylan’s suicide four pages prior. That seems strange to me in hindsight, but it is where I was personally by the final pages.
Bottom line: thank you for a book that is thorough and balanced throughout.
