I feel that this story tells us that we can throw our past away and start again. This is where I had some... disagreements. I feel that just leaving your past troubles will just let them get larger - yes it's true that Norma was there to support him, but what about the bills on the table? They're just going to keep piling up if no one does anything about them. Comment below if you disagree, but problems can be likened to cancer - if you ignore them, sometimes they go away, but more often than not they will spread to other areas of your life and eventually take you over.
But what if the problem's so deep that you can't deal with it? What if the cancer is already metastatic, and the doc can only put you on palliative care? Well first of all, if you're in such deep trouble you can't really run away from it. Second of all, sometimes people who have such gagging problems can recover - such as a relative of mine who did have metastatic cancer - but she did have to deal with it. This is why I feel that movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" (it's spelled wrong on purpose) shows a more realistic approach of dealing with problems. Probably because it's based on a real person.
SPOILERS!!! Quit reading if you haven't watched the movie and want to watch it sometime. It's a good one.
Chris Gardner (in the movie at least) is a very smart scientist and inventor - the problem was that his special bone density scanner was way more expensive than the conventional ones already out there - and only gives an output that is slightly better than the cheaper ones. As such, he couldn't sell very many of them, and his family was destitute. His wife left him, and he had to support his son while he continued to try to pay his bills. He loses his car, his apartment and eventually his motel room, and is stuck sleeping in the bathroom of subways when he couldn't get a place at the salvation army. He gets into a broker program and eventually gets the internship, but he had to sell all of his scanners first in order to rid of his debt - THEN he started on his new journey, his second chance. In many ways he fits as a hero too - his ordinary world is going downhill, so he gets his call to adventure (the need for money and the whim of being a stock broker), his refusal of the quest (he thinks that as long as he can get his bone density scanners out he can spread his name and have better sales and production), he then accepts the call (he really needs money, and his wife leaves him), his entering of the unknown (he has no idea what stock broking is like, so he enters a program and learns a lot), his meeting with supernatural aids (a stock broker executive), doesn't really have a talisman, but has his son as an ally that trusts him completely and acts as motivation to press forward, he endures tests (crazy people and hippies steal his scanners, his competition against others who want the internship and mind you his competition is made up of rich single childless people who have more resources and time than him - he also meets his "TA" who continually distracts him, nagging him to get him coffee and re-park his car), and of course gets the reward of the internship and a second chance in life.
That was a really long run-on sentence and I apologize to everyone who went through the trouble of reading it.
Anyways, I don't really have a "smart" point to make, just a comparison of the summer reading to a movie I watched, also over the summer. Comment below about your thoughts, feelings, and whatever else you want to say.
Smithy has some thoughts along these same lines himself--most notably when Norma mentions her mother going in for cancer treatments, and Smithy feels absurd pedaling his way across the country while people like Norma are dealing with "real life." So his "quest" could be seen as a kind of avoidance or running-away--and initially that does seem to be his primary motive, as he rolls down the driveway on flat tires. There's no destination, just a rolling away.
ReplyDeleteBut I wouldn't view the journey at the core of the novel as a total "throwing away" of the past, or a failure to deal with the problems that have accumulated. On the contrary, it's a kind of reckoning with that past, most significantly in the form of engaging Norma as an autonomous and serious person in her own right, a kind of "penance" for the years of cowardly, awkward neglect. But we've also talked about the curious way that present-tense westward motion in this novel (the ride to California) coincides with an emergent clarity about the past. Living in East Providence, a few miles from his childhood home, Smithy has been completely failing to engage with his troubled memories of Bethany, the war, and the dissolution of the idyllic nuclear family. His drinking has numbed him, cushioned him from having to think seriously about all this stuff. The bike ride, while it might LOOK like a running-away, actually compels him to confront these memories, to try and make sense of it all.
Ah, yeah. I got the impression Smithy was so overwhelmed by the triple death whammy and his lack of communication skills around Norma that he just wanted to get away from things for a while. He did mention that Aunt Paula was working on getting a lawyer to handle the bills and letters and subscriptions, so it's not like he knew he was responsible for them and completely blew them off. Then again, he also just rubber banded the envelopes together thinking he'd foist them onto the lawyer at the first opportunity. So... I dunno. I guess the point is that even though Smithy is being wimpy and whatever by leaving, he? technically?? is free to abandon everything to start the drunken leg of his cross country bike ride. Because... there is a lawyer... who's going to handle the small stuff... like paying the bills...
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your questioning Smithy's reality. I think "running away" describes Smithy's situation well at the beginning of the story, however I think by the end of Smithy's journey, he as more in tune with reality. Before his journey, it seems that he has constructed an emotional wall so great that he can't face his tragedies and has to literally leave. I also agree when you mention the bills; it does seem like a plot-hole. Who IS paying the bills? When Smithy returns home, he will have to face the reality that he so easily left behind. However, on his cross-country journey, he does come to terms with his unconventional past and family, and I believe that if he were to go through the same situation now, after he returns home, his reaction would be completely different.
ReplyDeleteAnthony,
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree with what you said. I feel that it was foolish for him to leave his job and responsibilities in a drunken stupor and just decide to go on a bike across the country. However, it is important to keep in mind that Smithy was suffering from extreme alcoholism and laziness and probably was never going to make the right decisions in the first place. Also, Smithy felt that he had nothing left in his life. He had been stripped of Bethany, and then his parents, who were basically his only friends in life (other than Norma, which becomes important later in the novel). That is why Smithy's journey, although somewhat accidental, is so important because it changes him -- socially, mentally, and physically.
You are right that in real life, there would be repercussions of some kind. If I were in Smithy's position, I think I would definitely do something about my job at Goddard and my parents' bills.
I understand what you're getting at, but I don't really think you can say that "this story tells us that we can throw our past away and start again" so definitively. Smithy is leaving the place he was raised but he isn't throwing away his past by traveling across the country. Sure he has bills to pay, but how was he supposed to pay for those anyways (if he had stayed)? His job probably wasn't making him that much money nor was it something he liked to do (not helping him mentally). I think he needed to leave behind his life for awhile and get away from everything and kinda of start over before he could actually do something productive. But I'm also not sure how realistic that would be, but it seemed like Norma was helping him a little with stuff back home (telling his boss he was sick for awhile). So I agree with your overall point, but I think it was something good for him and he wasn't just dumping his life away since so much had happened in his past and it's what sortof brought him to and through his journey.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Smithy may be lacking in judgement for leaving so suddenly to embark on this impromptu journey, but I don't think he's running away from his past. Rather, I feel like this journey is more cathartic than it is destructive. The journey allows him to finally independently synthesize all the misfortunes that have happened in his life. Before, he would go from one traumatic event to the next one; not having enough time to come to terms and fully understand what was happening. So he would turn to food and alcohol to help him move on. After his parents die and he discovers news of Bethany's death it's really hard to avoid feeling emotional. Through the journey he is able to separate himself from all the things holding him down, the alcohol, food and monotonous job. He's able to clearly remember and understand how his past impacted him (through the flashbacks) and slowly he's able to talk about his feelings with others, thus indicating him coming to terms with his past. Yes, he's quitting his job, not paying bills etc (Norma was also probably helping him with these things), but if he can take time to finally live and understand his past, thus enabling him to move on, isn't that more important?
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Smithy was being irresponsible, but I understand the urge to just LEAVE when something gets bad. And honestly, what is he being irresponsible about? No one depends on him anymore, and the bills are being handled by the lawyer. Just leaving his job at Goddard -- and not telling them -- definitely was a misstep, but kind of understandable given his circumstances. And I think they can find a replacement pretty fast, anyway. To be irresponsible, one has to have a responsibility to shirk, and Smithy doesn't have any real, meaningful things he is beholden to.
ReplyDeleteAs other people have been getting at, I don't think that he was completely abandoning his life back home. I took it more as a prolonged break from said life, sort of like a stereotypical midlife crisis. This journey is one of self-discovery and learning, which (as far as my limited knowledge of midlife crises goes) is pretty much what having a midlife crisis is all about. You learn about what makes life worth living, you see that you'd be missed if you were gone, you learn how much people really love you. So while I agree that it is irresponsible to drop everything and leave one's life, I don't think that's what Smithy does, per se. He just takes a break. He wasn't planning to stay in the West once he got there, and he wasn't really planning at all. He just needed to get out and have some quality alone time to learn a thing or two about the world and his life.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Smithy is running away from his problems. But he also needed time to think after the death of all of his immediate family in the span of a week. We also see the same thing as the bills on the table, as he left some of the lights on, and the garage door open. I don't think Smithy actually realized the impact of his decisions and was actually trying to (as you said) run away from his problems. He also doesn't care about his job any longer, which is so naive as he has his own bills to pay and now his parents as well. Great blog post
ReplyDeleteFrom what I understand, Smithy didn't have much to abandon anyway. I mean, he had a factory job, probably a substandard house/apartment that he could easily replace (although at this point he might just move in with Norma), and he didn't exactly have an outgoing lifestyle. No one would look at Smithy and think "that man has a lot of responsibilities". In a way, the bike ride serves as the refresh button on his life and now he can get his life together.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I was in the midst of writing this comment when I was attacked by a moth so please excuse me if this comment seems kind of abrupt. I just don't think I can type anymore after that harrowing assault.
Lauren, you make a good point - but I still feel like he should wrap things up, you know? Considering he had a lawyer and all...
DeleteAlso lol what a moth were u like rlly shiny or something they like attacking bright stuff