Alec’s Comments (group member since Nov 19, 2019)

Alec’s comments from the The Leftovers group.

June wrote: "Thomas wrote: "Well Gene was always very jealous in the way Finny could get away with anything. He also was jealous of his athleticism especially when Finny was able to beat the schools swim record..."

This is exactly accurate. The one nuance though is that Gene did to a degree manage to get himself back into the mindset of being grateful to be so close and pretty much Finny's right hand man.

Michael wrote: "Another thing that felt odd to me was how Brinker quickly changed into a more spiteful person. When he was in Gene's dorm, at first it seemed that he was kind and caring. This quickly changes when ..."

I definitely agree, Knowles really did use that to subtly abet the main characters' change during this time.

I think the general notion throughout of Gene constantly fighting his own jealousy and remaining in a sort of denial of it is as clear as you can get. He tries to hide it even from himself by reassuring himself that he is grateful and fortunate to be so close to a person like Finny, but deep down he subconsciously wants it all for himself more bitterly than any of them could imagine. The interesting thing is that while you would expect everything to fall apart between them the second Finny had a decent enough suspicion of Gene’s subconscious malice, Finny initially discredits the notion that Gene initially made him fall, and eventually appears to cling to his idea that “something just seized [Gene]” (191) and made him randomly shake the branch, and Finny seems to make himself believe this with the purpose of keeping alive his and Gene’s true friendship.

Brigid wrote: "Oh and someone please take a look at the seasonal shifts and the character shifts bc it is really interesting."

One great example I found of this is with Leper Lepellier. During the Summer session, he is prudent and cautious (e.g. too scared to jump off the tree). However, come the winter session, he appears to harden to some degree, as evidenced by his enlistment and Gene's observation that "The careful politeness [Leper] had always had was gone" (142) and that "None of this could have been said by the Leper of the Beaver dam." (143)

June wrote: "Michael wrote: "The immaturity of the characters are shown when Phineas avoids trouble from Mr. Prud'homme. Phineas and Gene skipped dinner ten times within a span of two weeks, which should have p..."
Nice comparison June. Another thing I noticed with the event Michael initially alluded to is that it shows the duality of Finny's apparent immaturity and advanced cleverness. While he acts like a child in the sense of impudent immaturity to a degree, Finny demonstrates his wise ability to pick up on social and conversational patterns, evidenced by the fat that he could pickup Prud'homme's easy impressionability and thereby predict his positive response.

June wrote: "As Michael stated, Gene is very jealous of Phineas due to Phineas' innate talent to draw people around him and sway people with his words. This jealousy clouded Gene's judgement that when he and Ph..."
You could even say that this ties back into the notion of immaturity since Gene sabotages Finny's ability that he is jealous of. The mature thing for Gene to do would've been to instead just accept the situation and be grateful that he is so close with Finny and therefore gets to enjoy that aura to a degree himself.

Thomas wrote: "June wrote: "One character that displays immature tendencies is Phineas or Finney. An example of his immature behavior is his recklessness as a daredevil. This is evident when Finney brought Gene w..."

True, even more so Gene acted largely immaturely for going with Finny and taking the risk of expulsion himself while typically being the more cautious and prudent of the two

Gene speaks extremely highly of Finny, especially with phrases such as “It was quite a compliment to me, as a matter of fact, to have such a person choose me for his best friend.” (29) This particular phrase culminates in and in fact almost foreshadows a moment soon after in which Gene explains that “..[he] always jumped [from the tree]. Otherwise [he] would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable.” (34) Besides the fact that Gene holds Finny as a close friend, he also holds him in an almost exultant regard, and as such is determined to keep his reputation high in Finny’s eyes.

A clear example of immaturity is when Gene and Finny climb and jump of the tree. The immaturity is exhibited in Gene's retrospective analysis of the event; gene notes that, immediately prior to climbing the tree, he was so unsure of it that he "must have been in a mild state of shock" (16). Additionally, having climbed the tree, he remembers himself thinking "Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?" (17). Allowing himself to be convinced to do this tree jump, all the while being conscious of the risk and extremely skeptical of it, is an example of immaturity on Gene's part. Finny is also somewhat immature as well for pressuring Gene and th others into the tree jump.

Great effect from the sort of black-and-white nature of this thread (time change good vs bad). It was rather fun going back and forth about it and all claims on the matter were well substantiated, though not with textual evd seeing as this thread didn't really call for it. We got off to a great start with this one.

Examples were all clear and to the point. This thread had especially good discussion such as the resolution of Michael's confusion abut Thomas' post.

Though some responses didn't exactly mention a second technique coupled with imagery, great correlations were found between imagery and specific parts of the book. Specifically, Thomas' mention of the correlation of death and violence with imagery was rather interesting.

All examples are fully valid and well justified. I found Michael's example pertaining to endlessness especially profound.

Thomas wrote: "A more subtle example of symbolism could be Jimmy Cross burning the pictures of Martha, "On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole a..."

Agreed. I think you could also argue that this is part of a sort of juxtaposition of the continuing love throughout against how Cross mentally changed due to the war.

Thomas wrote: "Alec wrote: "A perfect example of this is the relatively brief chapter "The Man I Killed." The chapter starts very plainly with a detailed description of the corpse that resulted from O'Brien's gre..."

Exactly, the repetition is almost like a hammer hitting the metaphorical nail over and over again driving it deeper into the reader's mind, like the metaphor I used at the end of that original post.

A clear and simple yet profound example of symbolism comes in the chapter "Good Form." Twenty years after the war had ended, O'Brien "visited the site of Kiowa's death, and... looked for signs of forgiveness or personal grace or whatever else the land might offer" (173). It took him a second to process the changes that the terrain had undergone in the span of 2 decades, but it eventually sunk in. Then, he puts it together: "This little field... had swallowed so much. [His] best friend. [His] pride. [His] belief in [himself] as a man of some small dignity and courage" (176). Clearly, the field symbolizes the massive intrapersonal conundrum that O'Brien had faced while at war, as well as the subsequent drastic change to his personality and the course of his life. As plain and obvious as this symbolism is, it does seem to really strike a chord with the reader.

There are both clear and subtle examples of symbolism throughout the book, with little deviation in profoundness between them. Choose your favorite example / the one that you found the most "powerful" so to speak, and make your case for its profoundness and/or emotional impact.

Michael wrote: "O'Brien uses imagery to excellently describe the scenery on the river during his stay at the Tip Top Lodge. He describes the nature, saying "... I could see the delicate latticework of the leaves, ..."

Stop me if I'm wrong, but are you saying that juxtaposition (of tranquility against pandemonium) is the technique that supplements the imagery here? If so, I commend the extremely profound finding.

June wrote: "One story that definitely struck a chord with me was the war story of rat Kiley and the letter Curt Lemon's sister. As Michael said, the death of Curt Lemon hits Rat Kiley very hard, and he writes ..."

I agree that this was a massively powerful story. Further, it ties perfectly into the claim O'Brien makes later that "story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth" (171). It's as if a well-told story, like this one, can be much more emotionally powerful than the real truth, even if the story itself is made up.

Thomas wrote: "Michael wrote: "O'Brien uses this philosophy when telling Rat Kiley's story with the letter. Rat's best friend died shockingly and brutally, which understandably devastated Rat. In order to commemo..."

I agree, the anti-climactic nature of the story is a perfect example of what O'Brien was after with his philosophy. It's ironic how stories of something as dramatic and suspenseful as war are best told anticlimactically.