"After a long analysis..." (Alexia Barrios)

I really like this book. I admire the simplistic verbiage that Barnes uses and how even though it is an easy read it still has a great deal of depth to it. As many others pointed out I also really like the narrator’s matter of fact and straightforward tone in the novel. I love how they are all these well-educated pretentious teenagers who indulge in knowledge that many would consider to be far greater than their young adolescent minds could handle or properly interpret. So far the book has been worth reading.

One of the many characteristics that I seem to admire from this group of friends is their need to logically and rationally explain everything that occurs. “After a long analysis…we concluded that it could only be considered philosophical in an arithmetical sense of the term; he being about to cause an increase of one in the human population, had decided it was his ethical duty to keep the planet’s numbers constant. “ (15) This analysis of the scenario that the boys created is an example of their need to attach philosophical and logical reasoning to every action that one chooses to do (this in my opinion being a result of their pretentious nature), and if it does not prove to have reasoning behind it, then it is wrong, just as they concluded Robson’s suicide was.

As I came to the end of part one, like many others I was startled to learn of Adrian’s suicide. The first thought that came to my mind was how could such an intellectual being find the rational and logic to support the decision of ending his own life? I found him to be too rational, too intellectual of a being to go through with such an act, but maybe, as Carlye pointed out, “he was too clever” (56) for his own good. His intellectuality, which in my mind is parallel to that of the Underground Man in NFTU, was too much of a burden for him to bear and he could not handle the “disease” of having an over active stream of conscious thoughts and the ability to view all sides to a scenario.