Discussion - Week Two - Middle C - Chapter 10 - 20

[Jim]

This discussion covers Chapter 10 – 20, pg. 98 – 197





To avoid spoilers, please limit comments to page 1 - 197

[Nicole]

My favorite parts continue to be the dialogues with various other characters. In addition to Mr. Hink there is a conversation with his mother about whether or not his father was a coward and what he might or might not have been afraid of, and also a conversation with the rector that made me laugh pretty hard on the tram and caused the other tram riders to look at me funny.

I think there is also something going on in this part, or possibly in general, with identity. His mother has a whole thing about how women gain or complete an identity when they change their names at marriage, as well as a theory (shared I think by the narrator) that her husband changed personality when he changed his name.

Then there's also this:
But if Paul Pry were to open him like a tin, what sort of selves packed so closely would he see? The tin would be empty, not even oily, it would have a tinny sheen, and light would fly from it as a fly flies from disappointment--that was what he'd see. Not a single self or sardine. Well...not exactly. There had been an unprotected period...Joey had had quite a checkered past, a quite romantic former life in fact: an escape over many borders hidden in a womb, survival of the Blitz, ocean voyage, slow trains, bad buses...charity...dinky gifts...humiliation...ah...piano lessons. A tiptoe through the tulips. With Mom. During that time, he'd simply been who he was. Hadn't he been? Hadn't he been a habit hard to break?

This book is turning out to be a real treat. I'm so glad I decided to spring for it and participate in the read (I was considering saving the all important shelf space and just getting Omensetter's Luck from the library later on -- will definitely be getting that at some point next year now -- but this is better).

Also, on the I loved this sentence front (I cannot stop myself):

Skizz izz not a whiz, he imagined he heard Chris Knox scoff.

Yeah.

[Nicole]

Also, what to make of the fact that Joseph is obsessed with man's inhumanity to man while meanwhile, in his own backyard (literally), his mother is constantly working with life and beauty and possibly even a form of creation in her garden? The dirt he dug in was as infertile as news--in fact, it was news.

What, also, of the sentence futzing? On the one hand, the content, which doesn't really vary, is misanthropic and depressing. On the other, the act of rewriting is, itself, a creative act, one possibly engaged with beauty rather than atrocity, witness the version which takes an entire page and is a delight to read. What's, you know, up with that?

[Gregsamsa]

You're spot on with the death/life contrast in Joseph and his mother. It gets played for some comic effect later.

[Rebecca]

I KNEW I'd get some deeper insight through the comments folks are taking the time to post here - thank you! Especially Nicole at this point. I didn't need any assistance to enjoy Gass's writing - the end result of his "sentence futzing", that has been everywhere commented-on, is delightful! But some of the details I knew I'd see too dimly or miss entire layers, like the essential contrast between how Joey and Miriam see life and human potential, revealed in their hobbies and personal interests.

I also enjoyed Jim's opening sketch of Rudi Skizzen in Week One's discussion as having a "prophet's vision and (a) technicolor dreamcoat". I'm still digesting the sort of authorial slight-of-hand I feel was employed behind Rudi's character. Right now he feels more like stage-setting of dubious purpose, now-you-see-him-now-he's-history, and all I'm left with is a slight case of reader's whiplash. I'd love to know more of how others see Rudi's import in the story.

[Matthew]

I find Joey's misanthropy and general malaise tends to make him actually doubt his own abilities. I find that he is actually good and knowledgable in some senses, although his masking his own lack of current knowledge and skills tends to deprive him of lots of things too.

In terms of Rudi, Joseph seems to act in ways that he would think (fantasize seems a more apt term) his father would appreciate, i.e. creating his own identity, laying low, out of the public eye. And yet because of this he becomes his own worst enemy in a lot of ways. His own inabilty to adhere to something means he can't even gage his own abilities.