Patrick’s Comments (group member since Mar 09, 2009)

Patrick’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I really like his Catcher in the Rye and the way he exposes the douchebagness of Caulfield's fellow students. His book Nine Stories were kind of like eh...I still can't understand how a man can blow his brains out after such a nice day with children. Maybe it's like that poem about that gentleman who the narrator says everyone is jealous of and then one day that gentleman went home and shot himself in the head.

It is in People Who Knock On Doors. I don't have the specific passages but I did interpreted it as a knock on religion which did not have much of an impact now and made me feel bad for the father who got into religion after his second son almost died causing his first born son to rebel.

But it was written during the Silent Majority era in the eighties so I guess I was kind of too harsh on her during my book review when I read it in this age of rationalism and science.

The JCO collection are really vast and great but few of what I have read seemed to take place in the world of literacy professors at prominent colleges, it's only recently that she started expanding on the locales and even themes which makes her seemingly more open minded. I have not really read her latest works although I plan to, but I believe Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is the most menacing tale of all of her works.

Hopefully not while Yosef Steven's peace train has a bomb on it. :(

Looks good. Although I tend to roll up my eyes each time she takes a shot at religion belief. If only if we could find a writer with the gumptions to take on the Muslim fundalmentalism.

That's okay. No apologies needed. Sometimes we learn about each other when the discussion wanders. I still feel emotionally attached to Joyce Carol Oates and the enraging outrage that A. Friend would just go inside and take a girl despite her flaws, kind of like a fairy tale changling story.

Ha! I certainly could understand that from bearing the brunt of his temper when we were kids! I still think that the neighborhood kid knew he was wrong to do that to another person and at the time, my brother was at work or away from home when the neighborhood kid exposed himself to another neighbor kid. To me, hiding behind something strongly shows shame (or fear of consequences.)

Well, maybe but to be honest, if the neighborhood kid was curious and did not see anything wrong about show me yours, show me mine, then WHY do it behind the shed? That tells me that the neighborhood kid knew his behavior was not approperiate and was not really innocent as his own parents might think. But it's fortunate that we have laws to protect kids like that from understandably angry fathers like my brother.

I remembered that my older brother talked about what happened to a neighborhood kid who showed his genitals to a neighborhood girl behind the shed at his house, and I asked him what his reaction would have been if that kid had shown his own daughter his privates. My brother said that even if that boy was only eight years old, he would have 'picked him by the neck and fucking choke him to death and then toss his lifeless body out into the woods behind my backyard.' I imagine that is the usual reaction of any decent father who have his daughter's innocence endangered in the slightest. One could imagine what he would do if A. Friend showed up at his house and menaced his family. Emotionally I would like that to be A. Friend's fate if Connie's father was anything like my older brother.

I love that story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been! Very dark and dispirtual. I was really depressed at how the ending went and that really haunted me. Do yourself a favor and add the numbers on the short kid's car. Nasty way of expressing himself. I look forward to finding out what you all think of Joyce Carol Oates' best work.

I really like the previous commments about surrealism and definetely will touch upon these themes when writing. It really make me think about my approach in writing.


Will have to check out these books also! : D

The Land of Laughs, House of Leaves, and Let the Right One In

I believe the titles speak for themselves in the field of horror or dark fictions. You can check out fiction files group reads also for more various titles. Welcome to the fiction files if you are new to this!

I like the black and white version. I like the cheap special effect of the cutout of the plane crashing into the ocean. Brillant. In it, it looked like an war time movie reel of documentary, especially the part where the kids go savage and screamed at the camera, waving torches and so on...

I read the Lord of the Flies in high school and then again in college. It is a brutal and a beautiful book. I have not gotten over at how subtle Golding is about the horror of savagey. One example is the fire that raged out of control on the island and the fact that some of the youngest kids were missing and the reader was forced to conclude what happened to these missing kids. I also felt despair when they first lit the fire, some of the youngest were glad to have such a light as security, that some danced a little in eagerness. It was enough for me to feel depressed for those characters.

Hey, at least it rhymes!

Yeah, I guess I was confused by the topic thread on top. Thanks for straightening me out. :/

I think most books get the Nobel prize on merits like Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavieler and Clay, Jose Samargo Blindness, and also Cormac McCarthy, The Road. I think the winners were well deserving and I believe someday, Joyce Carol Oates will get hers and it will be based on her future awe inspiring work. It would be more suspected if a writer's debut novel won, because these writers that I admire and I am sure most people admire had a huge body of works under their belts.

Kris, sorry about my suggestion about using penis icon for "blow me" I thought it was kind of funny.

You should have used this icon:

:-o -:

Thanks for the hook-up. I always knew that fairy tales are gingerbread houses with old hags inside waiting to gobble you up. It's a good thing you decided to steal the devil's lunchbox and ate his lunch rather than eat the gingerbread house in your myspace adventure. (Although it would have been nice if you had shared the devil's Tastykakes with the rest of us.)

Yeah, now I feel guilty for ranting against them yellow buses with the signs although I think the mother should have taught the child to look both ways before crossing the street.