Thursday Post

          One particular detail that caught my attention in today’s reading was Tony’s discussion on his book collection; he was pleased that he had more blue than orange (“a proof of seriousness”) and “enough of the right titles”. This illustrated his character -he wanted to appear smart and conform to society’s judgments, just like the incident where he turned his clock back again to appear more like a ‘normal’ person. I felt this was also representative of his ‘child-adult’ complex; he continually throws in how he pretends to act like an adult, calling his intelligent book collection something he wanted to grow into and saying he felt very grown-up when going to a bar. I do think he eventually grows out of this stage because his interjections from the relative future demonstrate his more complex understanding of the situation that his past self did not have. 

          Today’s reading also focused more on Tony and Victoria’s interesting relationship, which reminded me of Meursault and Marie’s from The Stranger; in both, the characters don’t seem to be on the same page. In fact, I find myself comparing Tony to Meursault quite often; even though the story is told in flashback form, and Tony has analyzed the past situation more over the years, it seems that he had a simple, straightforward way of thinking at that time, just like Meursault did. To be quite honest, I disliked Victoria –she was extremely bitter and annoying. By refraining from showing affection until after her brother and father had judged and validated Tony, she seemed extremely insincere and it made me question what their relationship had been before. What was particularly interesting to me was the chain of events with her mother –she seemed distant from the rest of the family and even prodded Tony to take charge, even praising him when they broke up.