Tuesday, March 24, 2009

don't read if you're not up to 21

Can we move on to talking about stuff up to 21?

Why does Dondi Snayheever: Mr. Terminal Response do what he does?

And why does Al shoot who he shoots and not someone else?

1 comment:

trawlerman said...

Well, I was sitting back and hoping that someone else would jump out here. This virtual book club isn't working as well as I'd like it to, but at least I get the sense that most everyone involved is reading the novel, at whatever pace they're doing so.

Simple answers:
I think that Snayheever does what he does because he's lonely and wants to impress his Mother. He has been conditioned to be a certain sort of person, but not the person his father wanted him to be. In some ways, without making any bold claims of 1:1 correspondence, I guess I'd say that he's the "gollum" of this book, a victim of power in and around himself. It's impossible to ignore him, but he's a definite wild card.

I don't think it is all that clear whether Al shoots who he shoots on purpose. From the text, it seems more like he was aiming at the group in general and Scat got hit because he was running out in the road. I'm not sure, though. Al certainly has his own (lunatic) sense of honor. That he goes and kills the Betsy body, then buys gifts for Scott and Diana suggests that he recognizes that he shot the wrong person. I don't know.