Marisha Pessl begins each chapter with a book title, all of which have themes or events within them that relate to Special Topics in Calamity Physics. One such title is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In what ways do ‘things fall apart’ in Pessl’s novel? What is the most significant example of things falling apart? Why?
I think the most significant example of things falling apart was the break-up of the relationship between Blue and the Bluebloods. Despite not knowing the facts about what happened to Hannah and eventually learning that Blue had nothing to do with her death the Bluebloods insisted both to themselves and to the school that Blue was at fault. The incident that Blue had in the hallway with Jade and near the end when Nigel yelled "BLUE VAN MEER!" across the campus are examples of how people have trouble letting things go even when faced with the facts. It remindes me a little of what Melissa B said in her response from last week about how people have trouble accepting the big picture. They insist on believeing what they choose to believe rather than accept the truth.
For me "things fall apart" the most when Hannah dies (either by her own hand, or what seems more likely, by someone else's hand). It's a horrible event for all the Bluebloods, but particularly for Blue, for whom I feel the most interest and compassion. Paula
I can’t say which example of “things falling apart” is the most significant, because I think significance is relative and also that the most significant would be which situation hit Blue the hardest, and as we are not Blue we can’t know which event that is. I do think that Gareth abandoning Blue was ONE of the most significant examples of things falling apart. Initially, she of course undergoes her hiatus from responsibility for a few weeks and becomes a hermit. But even when she’s at Harvard, she notices she has developed a bleak disposition, which I believe resulted from Gareth leaving. Her roommate Soo-Jin tells her, “You look so, like, afflicted” (6). Although Blue may at times come across as a self-reliant adult, the fact remains that she is only sixteen. She’s not emotionally mature enough to live independently. And regardless of age, its difficult for anyone to cope with abandonment, let alone abandonment by the person that means the most to you. The entire novel, Blue constantly references her father; she seems to always find a way to incorporate him into every situation. Sometimes I got the impression that she idealizes Gareth (not always, of course). Blue places so much importance on Gareth that I think his abandonment broke her, in a sense.
I agree that Blue’s break up with the bluebloods was an incredibly significant example of things falling apart, primarily because of the way they broke up. As J.J. said, the Bluebloods were determined to blame Blue for Hannah’s death, and I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to have your peers, or anyone think you were responsible for someone’s death. It would be devastating, and scarring. Add to that, the Bluebloods popularity and influence at their high school, and the situation becomes that much more traumatic for Blue. Their conviction that she played a hand in Hannah’s death could have spread throughout the whole school (though I can’t remember if they told people this or not), and even if their specific reasoning for hating Blue wasn’t evident to the other students, they obviously noticed that the Bluebloods suddenly despised her and this most likely affected their opinion of her as well.
Hannah’s death was definitely one of the most “calamitous” events in the novel, especially because Blue found Hannah dead. When she described Hannah’s dead body I could see it: “Her tongue—bloated, the cheery pink of a kitchen sponge—slumped from her mouth. Her eyes looked like acorns, or dull pennies, or two black buttons off an overcoat kids might stick into the face of a snowman, and they saw nothing. Or else that was the problem, they’d see everything,” (6). This image jarred me, because quite frankly corpses terrify me. Even seeing a corpse in a coffin, a place you expect to see a corpse, scares me. Also when you see a corpse in a coffin, you quite clearly have already been informed that the person has died. Here Blue stumbles across Hannah, under the impression that she’s alive, and finds her not only dead, but swinging from an electrical wire high above the ground , as though lording over Blue. Rather than looking like a peaceful sleeping person, Hannah's corpse looked like a disgusting perversion of the human body.
One of the things that have consistently fallen apart for me since we started analyzing this is Blue’s (and most of the other characters’ as well) credibility as a narrator. I have struggled with this since we started searching out her sometimes true, sometimes false, allusions to other literary works as a guide for the developments of that individual chapter. I guess it underscores the metafiction aspect of all writing: how can a make-believe world have rules?
The most significant falling apart incident was when Gareth just disappears at the end of the novel. It calls into question the whole development. I could have mildly believed that there was a conspiracy to overthrown capitalistic pigs, but her dad abandoning her makes me think she is just trying to justify his disappearance. This whole novel could be just a psychological salve for a serious loss in her life. If Gareth is a freedom fighter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then his disappearance makes him heroic. If he just can’t stand paying for all of his personal indiscretions, he is just a bum. There was no base for his disappearance which makes that the most heinous falling apart for me.
Jeremy, we do seem to be struggling with Blue as an unreliable narrator, even though as you point out, fiction IS fiction and thus not totally "real" (the Eighteenth Century British novelists solved this problem by claiming they were writing true stories--like documentaries today). But I am struggling and a little troubled by your theory that either Gareth is a valiant freedom fighter or, as you say, a bum. Paula
J.J., do you think, however, that the situation (Hannah's death and how she died) is so clear that the Bluebloods should have been able to exonerate Blue? I am not so sure. The truth, whatever that means, seems to murky in this novel. Paula
Melissa, I agree that significance depends on the individual (similar to "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"). Gareth's abandonment of Blue is a horrible blow to her. Your quote worked really well ("You look so, like, afflicted."). I agree also that she idealized Gareth, which means, in psychological terms, that she would have found it very hard to separate from him (the Bluebloods help her in some separation). But I think (and you probably won't disagree) that she was quite bleak to begin with. I don't say that to condone Gareth in any way, but to point out that she had already been to 43 different schools, had been totally isolated, and had been the subject of her father's freaky didactic experiment, after she had suffered the loss of her mother, whom Gareth basically chooses not to mention except when he is in a "Bourbon mood." Paula
The most important evidence that I actually found took place at the very beginning of the novel. I believe that Blue's mother having died the way that she did was the first moment that things truly began to unravel for the rest of the novel. The unanswered questions for Blue began there with how exactly her mother's car crash occurred seeing that is was a sunny day outside and in the middle of the day.
From this point on Blue and her Father were constantly on the move and once having settled in things began to unravel yet again. All of this though began because of her mother having died.
Suffering a loss of that magnitude at such a young age will become problematic later on in life if it's not dealt with which it seemed it never fully was. I agree that there were numerous times when things fell apart but I keep thinking back to when they all first began and would they honestly find themselves in this type of situation if her mother hadn't died?
I find your response interesting and agree that the death of Blue’s mother plays a huge part in the novel that we have so far overlooked. There is no concrete information in regards to the death other than the cause being a car crash. Perhaps this is why Blue is so stuck on overanalyzing everything in her life; from her father to the Bluebloods to Hannah, she is constantly searching out the truth behind their appearances. Blue’s mother’s death is perhaps the greatest example of things falling apart in that it is the event that leads to the confusion that is Blue’s life from then on. Yes, Hannah’s death and Gareth’s disappearance are significant. However, one cannot wonder if Gareth never would have disappeared or if Hannah would have ever entered Blue’s life had Mrs. Van Meer never died. The greatest tragedy in this novel is the unknown, that which we will never know as readers and which the author herself may not even understand.
While I agree that it is difficult sometimes to consider Blue to be a reliable narrator, I find it rather farfetched that the “whole novel could be just a psychological salve for a serious loss in her life.” If Blue has completely made everything up in the novel, not only is there something horrifyingly wrong with her overly-imaginative mind, but she also has way too much time on her hands. Yes, an adolescent, or anyone for that matter would be greatly affected by events such as the death of a mother or a teacher or the disappearance of a father. However, it seems highly unlikely that she has fabricated all of the information about the nightwatchmen and the other mysterious of the novel in order to account for the serious losses in her life.
Kristine, I am intrigued by your response to Mel, particularly your notion that the author herself might not ever understand. Perhaps we should talk about this (very postmodern) notion in class? Paula
I think it might be a good topic to explore as the novel lends to so many possibilities that perhaps the author does not even have one explanation to the complex questions (and confusion) of the novel
Like Mel, I too found Blue's mother's sudden and tragic death to be the jumping off point for "things falling apart". This untimely event left her and her father in a state of uncertainty regarding healthy and cohesive relationships. This was evident for him in their numerous relocating, his bevy of 'June Bugs', his alcohol use, and his academic pretentiousness. For Blue, she found the love of her life in a seedy older man far removed from the elitist world of academia and shunned the genuine and heartfelt advances of boy her own age. She also repeatedly indulged in the deviant activities of Jade, Leulah and the gang all the while deceiving and misleading her father upon whom she doted.
J.F., do you mean as "seedy older man" Gareth? And by the end she doesn't shun the advances of Zach. In fact, she is drawn to Zach after he and his friends perform for her but then abandons him because of Jade and peer pressure. Paula
Paula, the truth is murky to us the readers, but from the point of view of the Bluebloods it wasn't. They believed that Blue had run away from the campsite forcing Hannah to chase after her. They didn't know what ultimately happened to Hannah and how she died but they didn't care. Their animosity toward Blue was enough for them to make up their minds that she was at fault. We do know for sure that Blue was not responsible for Hannah's death. That is the truth that I was talking about in relation to the Bluebloods.
I do agree that Blue's credibility as a narrator leaves a great deal of unaswered questions. Things that she may have chosen to leave out to put a different spin, her own spin, on everything. I liked the part about putting that Gareth may have been a "bum"...that's actually something that I was thinking about while reading most of the novel actually.
I agree with Melissa's arguement. In most stories like this there is a singular tramatic moment that affects the principle character and/or characters that defines how they act toward themselves and one another. I think that Gareth, in particular, treats Blue the way he does because, secretly he knows or at least has a good idea that Blue's mother didn't just have a car accident. The very real possibility that she commited suicide, because of his affair with Hannah, is the reality that he has trouble facing Blue with.
In response to Kris' response to JJ's... sometimes for writers creative manipulation of true life events does serve as a "psychological salve" regarding tragic life events. While the main players and events are there, it may be necessary to embellish in order to create a work that will draw an audience in. In addition, the facts as they were may require some glossing over as they may have initially been too boring or the writer may not recall each detail. And don't forget that the mind and the memory are not always 100% reliable.
It is my opinion that Gareth was a pompous jerk who abandoned his responsibility as a father to Blue out of fear of failure. It was indeed a significant tragedy that she lost her mother prematurely because she was left to be reared by him.
I think Melissa brings up an interesting point about how Gareth's disappearance at the end breaks Blue to a certain extent. I wonder though if she wasn't surprised, somewhat, by his final action. In a way she was already broken, emotionally, by the way he not only treated her growing up but how he lied to her about the affair with Hannah and possibly her mothers death. It seems that when he did finally leave Blue it was because he realized he could no longer dance around, if you will, the issue. At least when it came to talking about it with Blue.
Yeah, the abandonment issue seems to be at the heart of this novel. I contend that this novel would never have been written solely on the death of Hannah Schneider/Catherine Baker. She says in the chapter entitled "Deliverance" that is the "perilous part of [her] story," but I doubt she would have wrote anything if her father were still a part of her life. We should talk about how abandonment seems an essential attribute of Blue's character. She is forced to be abandoned by her 175 IQ and voracious reading habits. By being an intellectual freak, she almost forces those around to abandon her because she is so far above them.
St. Gallway is not a saint recogized by the Roman Catholic Church. Galway is a city on the western coast of Ireland that has four saints attributed to it: St. Nicholas, St. Gormcal, St. Foila, and St. Jarlath. St. Nicholas is the patron of bakers and pawnbrokers.
I agree with this theory--it is very plausible--but we have no explanation for why Gareth turned out the way he did (yes, I know we could say that about most contemporary novels). Paula
Intriguing point about the unreliability of memory, J.F. Of course we have two writers here: Pessl and her character who is writing the narrative, Blue.
I think it goes back to the idea that we can never truly know a person--though we spend our entire lifetime with someone. Maybe that is the key to understanding Gareth and not dismissing him as a bum. Maybe the Nightwatchmen secret is something that he holds so deeply in his heart that there is no way he can ever reveal it to Blue without committing psychological or ideological suicide. Maybe Gareth isn't this super-genius of a professor--only carefully planted into American society until he needed to be activated by George Gracey like a sleeper cell of a terrorist organization. Gracey could have activated him when they went to France and Gareth had to kill Hannah/Catherine to preserve the Nightwatchmen's anonymity and then escape to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assist in the revolution like he alludes to on page 411 when he murmurs, "You've got to be kidding me, poor disorganized fools--when will the madness--no, it won't end, not until they educate--but it's possible, crazier things have happened." Going to all these rinky-dink colleges was just preparation for Gareth as he embarked on educating a bunch of raw revolutionaries overthrowing capitalist pigs in the jungles of Africa a la Che in South America.
39 comments:
I am trying to figure out how this works.
This is test.
Jeremy, I am trying to do this.
Who needs this?
Testing
Marisha Pessl begins each chapter with a book title, all of which have themes or events within them that relate to Special Topics in Calamity Physics. One such title is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In what ways do ‘things fall apart’ in Pessl’s novel? What is the most significant example of things falling apart? Why?
This is a test by J.J. Bach
J.J. Bach's response to Kristine's post.
I think the most significant example of things falling apart was the break-up of the relationship between Blue and the Bluebloods. Despite not knowing the facts about what happened to Hannah and eventually learning that Blue had nothing to do with her death the Bluebloods insisted both to themselves and to the school that Blue was at fault. The incident that Blue had in the hallway with Jade and near the end when Nigel yelled "BLUE VAN MEER!" across the campus are examples of how people have trouble letting things go even when faced with the facts. It remindes me a little of what Melissa B said in her response from last week about how people have trouble accepting the big picture. They insist on believeing what they choose to believe rather than accept the truth.
For me "things fall apart" the most when Hannah dies (either by her own hand, or what seems more likely, by someone else's hand). It's a horrible event for all the Bluebloods, but particularly for Blue, for whom I feel the most interest and compassion. Paula
I can’t say which example of “things falling apart” is the most significant, because I think significance is relative and also that the most significant would be which situation hit Blue the hardest, and as we are not Blue we can’t know which event that is. I do think that Gareth abandoning Blue was ONE of the most significant examples of things falling apart. Initially, she of course undergoes her hiatus from responsibility for a few weeks and becomes a hermit. But even when she’s at Harvard, she notices she has developed a bleak disposition, which I believe resulted from Gareth leaving. Her roommate Soo-Jin tells her, “You look so, like, afflicted” (6). Although Blue may at times come across as a self-reliant adult, the fact remains that she is only sixteen. She’s not emotionally mature enough to live independently. And regardless of age, its difficult for anyone to cope with abandonment, let alone abandonment by the person that means the most to you. The entire novel, Blue constantly references her father; she seems to always find a way to incorporate him into every situation. Sometimes I got the impression that she idealizes Gareth (not always, of course). Blue places so much importance on Gareth that I think his abandonment broke her, in a sense.
Melissa B.'s response to J.J. Bach:
I agree that Blue’s break up with the bluebloods was an incredibly significant example of things falling apart, primarily because of the way they broke up. As J.J. said, the Bluebloods were determined to blame Blue for Hannah’s death, and I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to have your peers, or anyone think you were responsible for someone’s death. It would be devastating, and scarring. Add to that, the Bluebloods popularity and influence at their high school, and the situation becomes that much more traumatic for Blue. Their conviction that she played a hand in Hannah’s death could have spread throughout the whole school (though I can’t remember if they told people this or not), and even if their specific reasoning for hating Blue wasn’t evident to the other students, they obviously noticed that the Bluebloods suddenly despised her and this most likely affected their opinion of her as well.
Melissa B.'s response to Paula:
Hannah’s death was definitely one of the most “calamitous” events in the novel, especially because Blue found Hannah dead. When she described Hannah’s dead body I could see it: “Her tongue—bloated, the cheery pink of a kitchen sponge—slumped from her mouth. Her eyes looked like acorns, or dull pennies, or two black buttons off an overcoat kids might stick into the face of a snowman, and they saw nothing. Or else that was the problem, they’d see everything,” (6). This image jarred me, because quite frankly corpses terrify me. Even seeing a corpse in a coffin, a place you expect to see a corpse, scares me. Also when you see a corpse in a coffin, you quite clearly have already been informed that the person has died. Here Blue stumbles across Hannah, under the impression that she’s alive, and finds her not only dead, but swinging from an electrical wire high above the ground , as though lording over Blue. Rather than looking like a peaceful sleeping person, Hannah's corpse looked like a disgusting perversion of the human body.
Jeremy's Response to Kristine's Prompt
One of the things that have consistently fallen apart for me since we started analyzing this is Blue’s (and most of the other characters’ as well) credibility as a narrator. I have struggled with this since we started searching out her sometimes true, sometimes false, allusions to other literary works as a guide for the developments of that individual chapter. I guess it underscores the metafiction aspect of all writing: how can a make-believe world have rules?
The most significant falling apart incident was when Gareth just disappears at the end of the novel. It calls into question the whole development. I could have mildly believed that there was a conspiracy to overthrown capitalistic pigs, but her dad abandoning her makes me think she is just trying to justify his disappearance. This whole novel could be just a psychological salve for a serious loss in her life. If Gareth is a freedom fighter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then his disappearance makes him heroic. If he just can’t stand paying for all of his personal indiscretions, he is just a bum. There was no base for his disappearance which makes that the most heinous falling apart for me.
Jeremy, we do seem to be struggling with Blue as an unreliable narrator, even though as you point out, fiction IS fiction and thus not totally "real" (the Eighteenth Century British novelists solved this problem by claiming they were writing true stories--like documentaries today). But I am struggling and a little troubled by your theory that either Gareth is a valiant freedom fighter or, as you say, a bum. Paula
J.J., do you think, however, that the situation (Hannah's death and how she died) is so clear that the Bluebloods should have been able to exonerate Blue? I am not so sure. The truth, whatever that means, seems to murky in this novel. Paula
Melissa, I agree that significance depends on the individual (similar to "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"). Gareth's abandonment of Blue is a horrible blow to her. Your quote worked really well ("You look so, like, afflicted."). I agree also that she idealized Gareth, which means, in psychological terms, that she would have found it very hard to separate from him (the Bluebloods help her in some separation). But I think (and you probably won't disagree) that she was quite bleak to begin with. I don't say that to condone Gareth in any way, but to point out that she had already been to 43 different schools, had been totally isolated, and had been the subject of her father's freaky didactic experiment, after she had suffered the loss of her mother, whom Gareth basically chooses not to mention except when he is in a "Bourbon mood." Paula
mel's response to the prompt...
The most important evidence that I actually found took place at the very beginning of the novel. I believe that Blue's mother having died the way that she did was the first moment that things truly began to unravel for the rest of the novel. The unanswered questions for Blue began there with how exactly her mother's car crash occurred seeing that is was a sunny day outside and in the middle of the day.
From this point on Blue and her Father were constantly on the move and once having settled in things began to unravel yet again. All of this though began because of her mother having died.
Suffering a loss of that magnitude at such a young age will become problematic later on in life if it's not dealt with which it seemed it never fully was. I agree that there were numerous times when things fell apart but I keep thinking back to when they all first began and would they honestly find themselves in this type of situation if her mother hadn't died?
Kristine’s Response to Melissa Pie
I find your response interesting and agree that the death of Blue’s mother plays a huge part in the novel that we have so far overlooked. There is no concrete information in regards to the death other than the cause being a car crash. Perhaps this is why Blue is so stuck on overanalyzing everything in her life; from her father to the Bluebloods to Hannah, she is constantly searching out the truth behind their appearances. Blue’s mother’s death is perhaps the greatest example of things falling apart in that it is the event that leads to the confusion that is Blue’s life from then on. Yes, Hannah’s death and Gareth’s disappearance are significant. However, one cannot wonder if Gareth never would have disappeared or if Hannah would have ever entered Blue’s life had Mrs. Van Meer never died. The greatest tragedy in this novel is the unknown, that which we will never know as readers and which the author herself may not even understand.
Kristine’s Response to J.J. Armstrong
While I agree that it is difficult sometimes to consider Blue to be a reliable narrator, I find it rather farfetched that the “whole novel could be just a psychological salve for a serious loss in her life.” If Blue has completely made everything up in the novel, not only is there something horrifyingly wrong with her overly-imaginative mind, but she also has way too much time on her hands. Yes, an adolescent, or anyone for that matter would be greatly affected by events such as the death of a mother or a teacher or the disappearance of a father. However, it seems highly unlikely that she has fabricated all of the information about the nightwatchmen and the other mysterious of the novel in order to account for the serious losses in her life.
Kristine, I am intrigued by your response to Mel, particularly your notion that the author herself might not ever understand. Perhaps we should talk about this (very postmodern) notion in class? Paula
Kristine's Response to Paula Re: Melissa Pie
I think it might be a good topic to explore as the novel lends to so many possibilities that perhaps the author does not even have one explanation to the complex questions (and confusion) of the novel
Like Mel, I too found Blue's mother's sudden and tragic death to be the jumping off point for "things falling apart". This untimely event left her and her father in a state of uncertainty regarding healthy and cohesive relationships. This was evident for him in their numerous relocating, his bevy of 'June Bugs', his alcohol use, and his academic pretentiousness. For Blue, she found the love of her life in a seedy older man far removed from the elitist world of academia and shunned the genuine and heartfelt advances of boy her own age. She also repeatedly indulged in the deviant activities of Jade, Leulah and the gang all the while deceiving and misleading her father upon whom she doted.
J.F., do you mean as "seedy older man" Gareth? And by the end she doesn't shun the advances of Zach. In fact, she is drawn to Zach after he and his friends perform for her but then abandons him because of Jade and peer pressure. Paula
Paula, the truth is murky to us the readers, but from the point of view of the Bluebloods it wasn't. They believed that Blue had run away from the campsite forcing Hannah to chase after her. They didn't know what ultimately happened to Hannah and how she died but they didn't care. Their animosity toward Blue was enough for them to make up their minds that she was at fault. We do know for sure that Blue was not responsible for Hannah's death. That is the truth that I was talking about in relation to the Bluebloods.
In Response to JJ
I do agree that Blue's credibility as a narrator leaves a great deal of unaswered questions. Things that she may have chosen to leave out to put a different spin, her own spin, on everything. I liked the part about putting that Gareth may have been a "bum"...that's actually something that I was thinking about while reading most of the novel actually.
oops sorry...used to calling you JJ...it was in response to Jeremy, sorry if that confused anyone!
Thanks, J.J. That helped clarify for me. Paula
J.J. Bach's response to Melissa P
I agree with Melissa's arguement. In most stories like this there is a singular tramatic moment that affects the principle character and/or characters that defines how they act toward themselves and one another. I think that Gareth, in particular, treats Blue the way he does because, secretly he knows or at least has a good idea that Blue's mother didn't just have a car accident. The very real possibility that she commited suicide, because of his affair with Hannah, is the reality that he has trouble facing Blue with.
In response to Kris' response to JJ's... sometimes for writers creative manipulation of true life events does serve as a "psychological salve" regarding tragic life events. While the main players and events are there, it may be necessary to embellish in order to create a work that will draw an audience in. In addition, the facts as they were may require some glossing over as they may have initially been too boring or the writer may not recall each detail. And don't forget that the mind and the memory are not always 100% reliable.
In response to jjb's response to Melissa P....
It is my opinion that Gareth was a pompous jerk who abandoned his responsibility as a father to Blue out of fear of failure. It was indeed a significant tragedy that she lost her mother prematurely because she was left to be reared by him.
J.J. Bach's response to Melissa B
I think Melissa brings up an interesting point about how Gareth's disappearance at the end breaks Blue to a certain extent. I wonder though if she wasn't surprised, somewhat, by his final action. In a way she was already broken, emotionally, by the way he not only treated her growing up but how he lied to her about the affair with Hannah and possibly her mothers death. It seems that when he did finally leave Blue it was because he realized he could no longer dance around, if you will, the issue. At least when it came to talking about it with Blue.
Jeremy's Response to Melissa B.'s Response
Yeah, the abandonment issue seems to be at the heart of this novel. I contend that this novel would never have been written solely on the death of Hannah Schneider/Catherine Baker. She says in the chapter entitled "Deliverance" that is the "perilous part of [her] story," but I doubt she would have wrote anything if her father were still a part of her life. We should talk about how abandonment seems an essential attribute of Blue's character. She is forced to be abandoned by her 175 IQ and voracious reading habits. By being an intellectual freak, she almost forces those around to abandon her because she is so far above them.
Another instance of loss of credibility
St. Gallway is not a saint recogized by the Roman Catholic Church. Galway is a city on the western coast of Ireland that has four saints attributed to it: St. Nicholas, St. Gormcal, St. Foila, and St. Jarlath. St. Nicholas is the patron of bakers and pawnbrokers.
I agree with this theory--it is very plausible--but we have no explanation for why Gareth turned out the way he did (yes, I know we could say that about most contemporary novels). Paula
Intriguing point about the unreliability of memory, J.F. Of course we have two writers here: Pessl and her character who is writing the narrative, Blue.
"Dance around" is a perfect description of what Gareth does, as he talks--and talks--and talks.
J.J. (A.), I agree. We should discuss abandonment and Blue's key characteristics (especially those that other students see as flaws).
to use J.J. (B's) metaphor, are we "dancing around" the fake websites and the false name? J.J. (A), why do you think Pessl made this choice?
Jeremy's Response to Paula
I think it goes back to the idea that we can never truly know a person--though we spend our entire lifetime with someone. Maybe that is the key to understanding Gareth and not dismissing him as a bum. Maybe the Nightwatchmen secret is something that he holds so deeply in his heart that there is no way he can ever reveal it to Blue without committing psychological or ideological suicide. Maybe Gareth isn't this super-genius of a professor--only carefully planted into American society until he needed to be activated by George Gracey like a sleeper cell of a terrorist organization. Gracey could have activated him when they went to France and Gareth had to kill Hannah/Catherine to preserve the Nightwatchmen's anonymity and then escape to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assist in the revolution like he alludes to on page 411 when he murmurs, "You've got to be kidding me, poor disorganized fools--when will the madness--no, it won't end, not until they educate--but it's possible, crazier things have happened." Going to all these rinky-dink colleges was just preparation for Gareth as he embarked on educating a bunch of raw revolutionaries overthrowing capitalist pigs in the jungles of Africa a la Che in South America.
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