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Bubblegum: Inans and Botimals and Scientists OH MY (Sections I & II)
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What Would My Bamboo Floors Say?
I choose to believe that inans speak to Belt Magnet. This stance defies logic, and even his mother believes these conversations are hallucinations. Maybe I'm averse to the term "psychotic disorder not otherwise specified" and need something more definitive in order to buy in. Maybe I want the story to be about a boy/man with rare super powers. Maybe I like what the inans have to say and want to know what objects in my home and office would say. Maybe I almost always prefer to find a way to reuse/rehome old and worn, but still useful, objects in my own life and if the objects had a say they would confirm that I am following their wishes and making the right decisions. Maybe I recently threw away a cat-scratched office chair at the dump and I had an undeniable feeling of guilt - the poor maroon chair still rolled, it could still cushion a human body working at a desk or another cat looking for a home mani-pedi.
"That's what gave me comfort. It made no sense, but faith never does." This is the best quote from this book to back up my feelings about inans speaking.
Old Abandoned Stuff vs. Super Cute Robots
I was surefire convinced that Belt was doing the right thing in helping swingsets meet their end. I had a radical change of heart about this topic after the eleventh swingset. Number eleven communicated such depth of feeling and stress and fear that my whole perception of the situation changed. Also, the horrible snowball effect to the carport and the spade was just too much to bear. After this scene I became paranoid that Belt's gate is too intermittent and unreliable to know for certain that everything the swingsets are trying to communicate is actually getting through. I was forced to conclude that it really was improper for Belt to kill swingsets after all.
From the beginning of this story I was vehemently opposed to redacting Curios. Please don't harm the adorable living robots, especially because people seem to be doing this for recreational purposes. Can't you have a lovely tipple instead? Also, I'm still not clear on how people engage in this specific activity as a group. What is going on here? The explanation of why and how is so foggy and incomplete. I'm hoping for some clarity as I continue this story.
I Didn't Like That Very Much
The scene that made me sad enough to cry was the Star Wars ice cream party.
The scene that caused me to not like a character that I previously liked a lot was a stray toe on a bosom at a pizza lunch party in a sex club. I was ever so disappointed, but I should have braced myself when I discovered who her mother was.
Favorite Quotes
"I don't know what my granddaughter here was thinking, but I know she'll never pull this fink shit again." No one likes a narc.
"It was Sonny Corleone beating Carlo by the garbage." We JUST re-watched this movie, so I had to include it.
"Cigarettes helped you wait for the next thing, allowed you to move and hold your ground all at once."
"It smelled like a pouch of grape Big League Chew." I definitely remember this, can you still buy it?
"How could I possibly be such a fool when all that I ever seemed to do was think?"
"What seems to be insensitivity on your father's part is just as likely oversensitivity on yours."
Favorite Words
Vertiginous feeling, a crescentic array of trailers, eternal unanswerables, prolix, glistering, piquant, girl-nards, soulgaze, intracranial fizzing, and eleventy squidillion.
Favorite Character
Ms. Clybourn is who I want to be when I grow up. A lady of leisure with an awesome Southern accent who easily forgives troubled children for damaging her spade and spikes her Crystal Light with vodka.
A close second for favorite character is creepy sex offender James from the Friends study. He says the darndest things.
-"But it was not my intention to trick you, reader, into thinking of me as a human being". Bubblegum hits all different things with an anthropomorphic sledgehammer. What does it mean if a swingset has a self conscious; does it also have a soul? Aristotle indicated that humanity may be defined by our pursuit of knowledge for its own sake -- but how different is that from a pet who would seek knowledge to better amuse its owner? Near the end of this section I found myself shedding tears as all the wild tangents and bizarre characters stepped aside and Belt's story became firmly rooted in harsh normality.
I could list 100 questions I want answers to or expound on the moral quandaries I've contemplated so far, but I think I'll let those things stew for now and get right to answering questions.
Inan talk? Yes, I believe Belt does communicate with inans and that he will find another person who shares the ability later in the story. I have no way of backing this up, it's just a gut feeling.
Swingset vs Curio murder? I do feel a stark contrast between the two, but specifically in regards to Curios I have some outstanding questions.
My first line of thinking is that if you believe Belt is hallucinating and inans do not have a consciousness (that anyone is aware of) then there is a clear difference. This assumes that Curios have a self-consciousness and I'll discuss that more later.
In my case I do believe that the inans have a conscious. I would change "murder" to assisted suicide. This is still messy, but messy in a way I am familiar with. The other inans Belt talks to are generally OK with his actions, excepting selfish reasons. Did Belt overstep when incapacitating a non communicative or mentally ill swingset? I'm not a swingset doctor (and obviously neither was teenage Belt) so I don't see myself as qualified in answering those questions. I also want to know more about the consciousness of component parts or aggregated parts of an inan(s).
Curios are very animate objects, super-smart robots, but are they just high tech Furbies? They are not. Furbies and similar gadgets never actually "learned", they had pre-programmed knowledge that unlocked based on time or number of user interactions. Clearly Curios can actually learn by observing outside stimuli. I paraphrased Aristotle above - Curios seem to desire new abilities primarily to amuse their owner and thereby entice them to give more of their attention/time/closeness. I do not yet understand if the Curio's ultimate goal is to convince its human to overload. Does it understand the concept of death? I have other questions about the cloning process and the humans state of mind when they destroy their Curio.
So, my opinion is that inans and Curios are both anthropomorphized but in different ways. The inans have consciousness and complex thoughts; Curios can learn of their own volition well beyond an animal's ability to be trained by a human. Both appear to have feelings. I have strong reactions to either coming to harm but there IS a difference in my mind. I need more information in both cases to better delineate my emotions. I have very different feelings about swatting a mosquito and killing a mouse. Catching a fish vs spearing a whale. The death of a pet gerbil vs a pet dog. Depending on the revelations in the rest of the book I think my basic answer (yes) will be the same to this question, but the nuance may be very different.
Disturbing Scene? I consistently hated Chad-Kyle (fucken wang-scab) and was revolted by his torture of the three chained curios and the ensuing discussion. I can't understate my anxiety anytime I thought Kablankey is imperiled.
Best Quotes:
Aphoristic wisdom from our own Jonny 'Jonboat', scion of the Pellmores and Jasons the both.
The chemist was glum.
I'm the Pottymouth shitforbrains fucken the prince. Pottymouth. Mouth. Prince Mouth cock shitforbrains.
I just mean that Jim's the one who lost control of himself and stomped a pefectly viable, inedible fish to death while tearing off its face, and then kicked it in the lake.
Boredom in general. Was it the state of desirelessness it seemed to be? Or was it more like a state of pure desire, the sole object of which was its own negation?
I try when I'm around them to talk how they imagined I would talk before they met me. Like a polo-playing dicksneeze who listens to hip-hop and goes on safari.
A hanky wasn't optional. A hanky was pants. (The whole hanky monologue killed me.)
Turn sharply to the right and walk a little ways if you know what's good for you. "Walk?" To the right. "Why?" Because you're standing on the left side of history here.
He could have gripped a nickel with his brow's thinnest furrow.
Burroughs' fight with dad, all of it.
Don't become an apprentice after the fact.
You make yourself feel asses that aren't on top of you.
It's really adorable. Jesus it's adorable. I can't believe how adorable it is. I can't believe the way I keep saying 'adorable'.
I sound like a cheerleader. A cheerleader's mom. It is so fucking cute.
Poontangy haze, better lays, and later days, Belt!
Misty Cunningham. That's what I called her. She was piebald and small-eyed, and her name had no meaning.
The best way to deal with crying people you love...
Fav Words: grammarized, dotage, atavistic, epephenomenally, bubbliciousi, urbane, clear as a syllogism, juvenescence, single-legged tripeds, jar of cheesefood, abasement, induced, intersex, taction, impeller, a gunslinger high on good paregoric, loris (OMG so cute), stubble-wattled, toddler eating surf-'n'-turf, like maraschino cherries (undigestible?!?), what is a hobunk (I'm worried), cuddlefarmer, contrite, escutcheonesque, vitreous, riffed, somnambulated, vertiginous, prolix, omerta, boardbook, macadam, graphomaniacal autobiographer, avuncularity, docent, penumbrally, glistering, velar, affricates, epiphenomenal, solipsism
Character? Favorite (excluding Belt and Kablankey): Clyde Magnet. He's a sexist horses ass who I wouldn't like in real life at all. He loved his wife and loves his son. "His wife was gone and his son was insane. It wasn't his fault, neither one nor the other." His logic is faulty and his advice usually horrible but he's navigating "this fucking shitty world" as best he possibly can.
Intriguing: JonBoat, Triple-J, and Tessa Swords. That whole family. I'm hoping they aren't terrible people, but feel like they may be terrible people.
I'm a little tardy to the party, but better late than never!----------------------------------------------
1) Do you believe that inans communicate with Belt?- Eh, I'm still undecided. Part of me is wishing for it not to be true only because I would not want a random person learning intimate details about my life through inanimate objects that i own (i.e Ms. Hogg's vehicle seat). However, I'm also really hoping that he can communicate with them, and that he will eventually meet someone else who can, and in the end they will fix a swingset together and swing happily ever after- I'm a sucker for a happy ending.
2) Do you feel differently about the assisted suicide/murder of Rusty Swingsets vs. redacting Curios?- I think some of the reasons I'm not as deeply affected by the destruction of the swingsets versus the redaction of Curios is the way in which Belt and other characters describe the Curios, and the fact that most swingsets (with the exception of the last swingset mentioned) ask to be destroyed.
3) Were you disturbed by any particular scene during this section of the book?- The murder/assisted suicide (I still can't decide which is more fitting) of the 11th swingset made me really question whether Belt was helping swingsets or just wanted to bash something. In a way I understood where he was coming from when he was trying to talk the swingset into letting him finish the destruction, but at the same time I felt like he was pushy about it and not willing to explore a different option.
I was also really sad after reading Belt's mom's letters to him, as well as the ending to her life.
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I goofed and didn't remember to highlight quotes and words to share later until i was halfway through reading to this point, but I will share some of the ones I did like.
1) Share your favorite quote(s) from this section.- "There's your pain, and there's your suffering. There isn't all that much you can do about your pain, but your suffering-that's all yours to control." "You make yourself feel asses that aren't on top of you" {"Quill?" I offered. He said, "I don't smoke". "No thank you works fine." "Your opinion."} "Finking wrecks fun."
2) Share your favorite word(s) used in this section.- "Suspendersed" "escutcheonesque" "somnambulated"
3) Do you have a favorite or most intriguing character at this point in the novel?- I really want to know more about Ms. Clybourn. I felt so bad for her when her own family was trying to break her sobriety, and even worse when her husband and child were killed. I'd really like to know what she's been up to since Belt damaged her property and she offered him crystal light.
I also really like how sassy Burroughs is.
1) Do you believe that inans communicate with Belt?I think the Inan's communications are hallucinations/some sort of coping mechanism. He says that they happen less frequently when he is smoking enough at one point in the book, maybe they are brought on by increased stress?
2) Do you feel differently about the assisted suicide/murder of Rusty Swingsets vs. redacting Curios?
Yes. The swingsets are akin to abandoned property and the Curios are alive, even if they are some weird result of genetic engineering. The cures develop inside of their egg, grow when hatched, and are capable of some sort of intelligence.
3) Were you disturbed by any particular scene during this section of the book?
The dispute with his father near the beginning of the book. The way the father had been described I was picturing a friendly widower with a close relationship with his son. He ended up being a real jerk.
General Discussions:
1) Share your favorite quote(s) from this section.
"How could anyone ever not want a kid? If you had the ability to fly, I told her, but you always kept your feet on the ground-that's how crazy not having a kid would be."
"The inevitable, she said, was best faced as soon as possible."
2) Share your favorite word(s) used in this section.
Somnambulated, Mellifluous
3) Do you have a favorite or most intriguing character at this point in the novel?
The security guard at the bank who moonlights selling monogrammed handkerchiefs fascinates me.
Kablankey. how has Belt been able to keep him alive so long?
At the very least check in here when you finish this section and tell us if you are enjoying the book. I'll post specific discussion ideas below, along with some general topics you'll see repeated throughout the book.
Mic Breaks discussions:
1) Do you believe that inans communicate with Belt?
2) Do you feel differently about the assisted suicide/murder of Rusty Swingsets vs. redacting Curios?
3) Were you disturbed by any particular scene during this section of the book?
General Discussions:
1) Share your favorite quote(s) from this section.
2) Share your favorite word(s) used in this section.
3) Do you have a favorite or most intriguing character at this point in the novel?
Location reminder
If you are returning to this topic after having continued past this section, here is a plot reminder:
Belt describes his experience at school after the Sandburg Middle School Talent Show was aired on 20/20.
GO!