Thursday, December 8, 2011

Whiny McWhiner Pants

I find myself intensely disliking the narrator, but this may be the reaction that the author is looking for.  We, as a species, have an inherent repulsion to weakness.  Our genes have programed us to survive, and the weak members of the herd are weaned off as the powerful members thrive. However, this broad spectrum of survival does not apply to humans as abrasively as it does to other species.   Our brains (bbbrraaiiiiinnnns) allow us to break free of some of the survival restrictions that were placed upon us at our earliest development.  The narrator is someone to be nurtured rather than shunned.  He should be looked upon with calm understanding and treated with respect.  He should not be treated kindly because he is going through puberty, or becoming aware of his sexual orientation, or unsure of who he is, he should be cared for because he is a human being that has the same feelings and range of emotion as anyone else.  This does not mean that he should be coddled and have excuses made for him, this would be to treat him differently from everyone around him, singling him out, lifting him above others.  He should be regarded as an equal to any other human and treated as such.  That being said, I still think he is kind of whiny and irritating. 

5 comments:

  1. I agree 100% that Kochan needs not be coddled nor abused; that he, as everyone else, deserves to be treated as an equal. His lack of deep personal connections prevents him from having anyone to bounce his fears off of, or any sort of reality check. The only amendment that I might suggest, is that he didn't necessarily need nurturing, he just needed an outlet, as well as some source of outside perspective. Whether it had been a parent, friend, or counselor, this would have been the rope he needed to climb out of the mental hole he had been digging for so many years. Unfortunately as he continues to lack this connection, I feel he digs his hole deeper and deeper, and although I agree that the type of negative attitude he tends to have is irritating to outside observers, it isn't as simple as turning his self-doubt off. Without going through the right processes at his own pace, any perceived ability to ignore these worries would truly just be another mask, another fallacy, and the root of even more anxiety.

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  2. I don’t know if it’s his weakness that really bothers me as much as what his actual fantasies are. My first instinct is to want to help him and make him feel like he’s worth something and not wrong and bad, especially when he’s younger because he sounds like the loneliest saddest little kid; but when he starts talking about getting turned on by someone being mutilated, it makes me lose all sympathy for him. To me it is an integral part of being human to care about other people and while he does in some ways it’s almost like he is unable to truly care about anyone. His whole relationship with Sonoko speaks of that to me. He can’t be who she wants in a relationship, but he won’t let go of her either. It is so selfish to almost hold her hostage emotionally in that way. Maybe if he had found a way to be honest with her then they might have been able to form a healthy platonic relationship, but his being unable to open up makes that impossible. And perhaps because of the immense guilt he feels for being attracted to men, he makes them being hurt in his mind perhaps because of how wrong he seems to feel that those feelings are. I found myself fighting myself this whole book because I want to like the narrator (I don’t remember how to spell his name) for all his true emotional problems that just scream out that he needs help but am pulled away from that by the vivid descriptions of his grotesque fantasies.

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  3. Jill - I have to agree with you about your comments on Sonoko. I found that to be one of the disturbing aspects of the novel. It is clear that Sonoko still has feelings for Kochan because she constantly makes reference to the "what ifs" in their secret relationship. I think in some way she still wants that type of relationship with Kochan and Kochan knows that. He keeps leading her on and refuses to be open and honest with her. If this is truly the one person he feels a deep spiritual and soul connection with then he should be able to bear his soul as well to her. The fact that he cannot just reinforces how disturbed Kochan really is. It is also disturbing to realize that Sonoko is not in love with the real Kochan, she in love with his mask. She has no idea who he really is and will never know. All she knows is what Kochan presents to her which is false. He knows this but does nothing to remedy it. I think that even if he wanted to he couldn't anyway. He is so far behind his mask he doesn't know how to get around it.

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  4. This post makes a lot of really great points. One of the things you mentioned was the difference between treating him kindly because he’s going through puberty (etc), and treating him that way because he is a fellow human being. I agree that there is a significant difference between respecting your fellow (wo)man, and treating him like a charity, which is, at worst, condescending and patronizing. I also agree with the other comments. It is hard to feel sympathy for a kid with his particular fantasies. We all like to believe we’d be smart enough to survive a horror movie, and cozying up to the kid from The Omen is not the way to do it. I can only hope that if he had been born into a more nurturing, accepting environment, that he wouldn’t be plagued with such morbid fantasies, as I can’t imagine he could ever truly function in society when he’s constantly distracted by visions of people being shredded and eaten.

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  5. Great points, everyone! I wonder though if we, as a society, do not need the morbid and inward-turning to push us to question our aesthetics?

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