Little random notes by 200 page

One thing I do in order to force myself uninterruptedly read an "American Novel" is to read it in Starbucks. With AMERICAN jazz music (that one kind of music I almost never listen to) going on in the store, with the typical American sweet STARBUCKS frappuccino on the table, and the insanely cool air...I have the sense of "this scene can't be more American." The biggest benefit of such behavior is to stay free from a nice thing called Google Translate, one thing international students, specially undergraduate, has been overly relied on. Oddly, free from translation tool, plus unable to understand some words in the book, I found myself reading at a very satisfied stage of mind. This stage of mind is Almost Exactly like my sense of reading when I was 7 and 8 years old.
You have to guess, more precisely, you can and you have to use your imagination to CREATE a meaning for that word. Then the whole paragraph makes a strange sense to you. That one sense only you can have. That is the fun thing about reading I enjoyed when I was in elementary school, and that is the fun thing (probably the only fun thing) about reading a book written in your non-native language.
I don't know if it is my purposefully misinterpretation about the book, or it is my ridiculous romance spirit (or maybe I shall call it erotic spirit), by the page of 200 of this book. I am almost moved by the somehow threesome relationship/marriage between Patty, Walter and Richard. It is an awful thing, right, awful, I keep convincing myself. But my admiration for human basic instinct sway it in some degree (Although I admit that my admiration for human basic instinct does not work when it somehow impact me negatively).
Thus...true, even as such a "realistic" book, famously known by its "realism" written by a totally "realism" writer who even has a super "realism" writer friend David Foster Wallace -- I still see some romance. This threesome romance is not really "The Dreamers" type but rather "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" type of romance. I wouldn't analysis the differences of how Bernardo Bertolucci and Woody Allen made their own type of romance in the movies. These are just IMAGERY that the book illustrates to ME, as a specific reader, ME. It is just like the images play in your mind one scene passed one scene like a movie that was made years ago. The images this book give me has the similar color, texture, background music as Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." And the story itself, although it is the one girl two guys pattern as "The Dreamers," but the struggle and complete feeling of love, is just as "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." It sounds ridiculous, how it is possible that a "realistic" story occur in the "realistic" Minnesota connected to the stereotyped ROMANTIC PARIS or BARCELONA. I guess it is caused by the ridiculous romance in me. More than that, I can even connect it to "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being."
I see a little bit of myself in every characters. I don't know if it is because I am way too agreeable with humanity, or it is may just because -- I am totally an insane person. These characters in this book are just insane, according to the lecture discussion I heard.
"I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed for of heroism available today." Again by David Foster Wallace. I have mentioned him the way too much these days. Just because I regret not able to read his book earlier, he is simply a smart person with great humor.
But for sure, I would defend for those insane adults, that the insanity in human might just be what is called human (animal) instinct. Sometimes I admire instinct and follow it. Sometimes I hate it when others have it to hurt me. That simple.
Well, this book is actually not talking about instinct or sane adults. It is talking about the conflicts between instinct and sanity. I have heard people judging Patty: an insane person. I have heard one girl in the lecture keep saying how much she hates Patty, like Patty has offended some faith she has. But I see Patty really trying hard to be a sane person. Maybe she is the one trying the hardest. And then it is the book title: Freedom. Author: Jonathan Franzen.


2012, I live in Minnesota, read this story took place in Minnesota.