February 26

When I started reading I will admittedly say that I was a little lost. There was not much of an introduction. So I went back and read the summery that is on the side panel of the front cover, which cleared things up and got me back on track.

I am only on page thirty-two and I have already seen the protagonist Tony, a name that I think is strange for an Englishman because I always though it was short for Anthony, which is Italian, develop more than I expected or have seen in other novels such as On the Road. What we have learned so far of Tony is that he is neither extraordinary nor impressive. He is extraordinarily normal and boring, but he wants so badly wants others to think him special. He wanted his life to be as remarkable and dramatic as a novel. Has a teenager he was a pseudo-intellectual. He read communist based newspapers for the pure joy of upsetting his parents. He answered his teacher’s comments illogically, just in spite of doing what is expected. He even found pleasure in pain and suffering because books he never actually read told him that is where truth lay, in pain and suffering. All of his friends were the same, all of them except for Adrian. In comparison, Adrian is spectacular and the others realize this. In the eyes of the others; Tony, Colin, and Alex, Adrian is everything that they want to be. Adrian, because the break up between his mother and father, has experienced the pain and suffering they so badly want to experience.  But poor Adrian only wants to be apart of the group and to be accepted. It is all very comical, which is evident in Julian Barne’s style of writing who obviously does not approve of Tony, Colin, and Alex’s view on life. In the end though it is also very sad because I feel that they are being set up for disappointment.