I liked it. [I see now that the path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. That resonates him with a clarity he hadn't expected] It was well written, powerful but...also a little sad.
I've read the book a few times. Once before my injury. And some times since. In some ways I understand it less than I did the first time I read it. In other ways I understand it more.
I don't think I feel pity. The story is sad, but...
"I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being--one of many ways--and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming".
Charlie was able to choose, and remember and value his precious memories. Maybe Nemur could learn from him in the end too. It's not too late for him.
I see. You look backwards from the end to color the tone of the work.
( Which is, you know, how books work. But it's interesting to him, because Sinclair's experience reading is different than his own - it would have to be, fundamentally, because their own experiences are different; even if loss pervades them both, a different perfume each time.
Mithrun can see the book from the end and understand how the message of the novel completes, yes. But lingering somewhere in the middle himself, it's Charlie's isolation and deterioration that tends to hold his attention more. Charlie looking through the window, and hating that he is. )
I think that is the intended interpretation, if you ascribe to the idea. That he synthesized what he's learned and lost throughout the novel and came to a conclusion that he is what he is, and that, in itself, has meaning. Nemur stands with the reader, in needing too learn from Charlie.
Charlie Gordon is a sketch of a person the author uses to suggest ideas about where we should look for value in ourselves. But it's interesting to me that tragedy must be necessarily offset by a need to find meaning in it, or after it. Maybe because that's the most human thing people can do when hurting: find patterns and insight.
( Humans, who find faces in landscapes and pick out patterns in objects - not on purpose, but because the brain is wired to want these things there. A common thread. )
[It is not an alien idea to Sinclair, who had looked at the tragedy that befell his family, the countless tragedies that befell the world on a regular basis and tried to make sense of it.]
Maybe it's to remind us what's really important. People can't live in pain forever. So we have to try to find other things that matter, even if it hurts.
[ Speaking from personal experience? Perhaps. It's the only way for him to get past that crippling paralysis of guilt most days after all.]
Yes. Is that contradictory? Knowing how much I want revenge...I still want to see the good in the future, at least. I don't want to give up on people.
[ It's wishy-washy, weak. How long can he carry around his guilt on his shoulders, the need for revenge in his heart, while trying to reach back when he sees other people reaching out for him? ]
I don't think so. It's not wrong to want a life after revenge, or to believe there can be one. In your case, isn't it like getting out a stain from a shirt?
( Sinclair has people around him he likes, and things he feels he wants to do. He wants to believe in good, he wants to see good. If not for Kromer, he could have that. And if he removes Kromer, he can have that.
She's just the one bloody blot on his clean Sunday clothes. )
I can't see meaning in my experience. But maybe it's because I lack desire. Hope is a desire - a desire for better; gestalt, too, is a desire - a desire to see patterns in seemingly unrelated events. It puts me at a dead end.
[Out damned spot? That drove people insane, sooner or later]
Is it really that simple? When I get caught up in those feelings, I feel like I can't think straight at all.
[ Mithrun thinks he's---pure, in some odd way. Sinclair knows, maybe in Mithrun's eyes, he is. He has read up on what Sarabi has done, when he had the chance. Looked into the incident.
But Sinclair can't look back at himself and think so easily. He can't let himself believe it could be so easy. He frightens himself sometimes, when he lets his thoughts go astray.
If he ever said the things he thought aloud
He thinks]
I think you could find meaning, if you wanted to believe in it. Are you afraid too?
( Where Sinclair has too many emotions, Mithrun has too few - when it comes to other people's affairs. Opposite of Sinclair's end of the spectrum, there's something uncanny about Mithrun describing snuffing out a human life, however unworthy, like snuffing out a candle. It was murder, but that was all. )
Do you need to think straight on this matter? It'll be over once she's dead.
What are you afraid of? That these feelings won't pass with her death?
( Sinclair had asked him if he was afraid, but he can't answer without first understanding what Sinclair is afraid of. )
There's a lot I'm afraid of. That these feelings won't disappear. I'll become someone I hate. That I'll hurt people I care about because I'm not strong enough.
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[I see now that the path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. That resonates him with a clarity he hadn't expected]
It was well written, powerful but...also a little sad.
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I've read the book a few times. Once before my injury. And some times since. In some ways I understand it less than I did the first time I read it. In other ways I understand it more.
Did you feel pity for him?
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For Charlie? Or Nemur?
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"I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being--one of many ways--and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming".
Charlie was able to choose, and remember and value his precious memories. Maybe Nemur could learn from him in the end too. It's not too late for him.
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( Which is, you know, how books work. But it's interesting to him, because Sinclair's experience reading is different than his own - it would have to be, fundamentally, because their own experiences are different; even if loss pervades them both, a different perfume each time.
Mithrun can see the book from the end and understand how the message of the novel completes, yes. But lingering somewhere in the middle himself, it's Charlie's isolation and deterioration that tends to hold his attention more. Charlie looking through the window, and hating that he is. )
I think that is the intended interpretation, if you ascribe to the idea. That he synthesized what he's learned and lost throughout the novel and came to a conclusion that he is what he is, and that, in itself, has meaning. Nemur stands with the reader, in needing too learn from Charlie.
Charlie Gordon is a sketch of a person the author uses to suggest ideas about where we should look for value in ourselves. But it's interesting to me that tragedy must be necessarily offset by a need to find meaning in it, or after it. Maybe because that's the most human thing people can do when hurting: find patterns and insight.
( Humans, who find faces in landscapes and pick out patterns in objects - not on purpose, but because the brain is wired to want these things there. A common thread. )
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Maybe it's to remind us what's really important. People can't live in pain forever. So we have to try to find other things that matter, even if it hurts.
[ Speaking from personal experience? Perhaps. It's the only way for him to get past that crippling paralysis of guilt most days after all.]
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[ It's wishy-washy, weak. How long can he carry around his guilt on his shoulders, the need for revenge in his heart, while trying to reach back when he sees other people reaching out for him? ]
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( Sinclair has people around him he likes, and things he feels he wants to do. He wants to believe in good, he wants to see good. If not for Kromer, he could have that. And if he removes Kromer, he can have that.
She's just the one bloody blot on his clean Sunday clothes. )
I can't see meaning in my experience. But maybe it's because I lack desire. Hope is a desire - a desire for better; gestalt, too, is a desire - a desire to see patterns in seemingly unrelated events. It puts me at a dead end.
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Is it really that simple? When I get caught up in those feelings, I feel like I can't think straight at all.
[ Mithrun thinks he's---pure, in some odd way. Sinclair knows, maybe in Mithrun's eyes, he is. He has read up on what Sarabi has done, when he had the chance. Looked into the incident.
But Sinclair can't look back at himself and think so easily. He can't let himself believe it could be so easy. He frightens himself sometimes, when he lets his thoughts go astray.
If he ever said the things he thought aloud
He thinks]
I think you could find meaning, if you wanted to believe in it. Are you afraid too?
[ Sinclair is afraid. Always afraid. ]
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Do you need to think straight on this matter? It'll be over once she's dead.
What are you afraid of? That these feelings won't pass with her death?
( Sinclair had asked him if he was afraid, but he can't answer without first understanding what Sinclair is afraid of. )
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Let yourself be what you are; learn to wield it. If you hide it, you won't know how to control it when it bleeds out.
A sword is a thing that kills. But if you know how, you can learn how to strike with the blunt side of the blade.
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[ When clarity had sunk back in that had been...worrying in a different way.
It's just a game. Except it's not. ]
Is that how you decided on living?
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Choose before it's chosen for you.
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What do you think will make you stronger?
( We're workshopping this, )
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Knowing. I think. What's there.
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And then]
Yes. How far they go. How far I'm willing to go.
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[Winter hadn't taken him seriously, he think. But he had held back]
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