Post for February 27

Tony starts to realize once he heads off to college how ordinary he is, he even starts to admit it to himself that he has never read most of the books he keeps in his bookshelf. Tony also acknowledges this in his girlfriend Veronica, who likes to believe that life follows the same structure of poetry which much the same as Tony who likes to believe that life follows the same structure as novels. I have started to have a little bit of a problem with the novel at this juncture because Barnes keeps talking about how life is not a novel, and that Tony keeps making the mistake of believing that it is, yet the novel he is writing is not true to life. The structure of the novel is strange; it never goes into detailed description of any one moment in time, but instead stays very vague and general. Barnes completely skips over the time Tony spends in America even though it has an obvious impact on Tony’s life and his mannerisms. When he comes back from “the States” he reflects many of the same characteristics he describes his “happy go lucky” friend Annie, which shows how easily Tony is influenced and molded by others.

I think Barnes is trying to say that we like to believe in fantasy and fairytales for the same reasons why we like to believe in religion. It is comforting to know that there is something bigger going on than what we see, that maybe there is some moral or conclusion to our experiences other than just dying.

I also want to add that I am still enjoying the novel; actually I think I am enjoying it even more than I did before. What I have started to interpret from the novel is that truth does not exist, and how can it when humans are telling it? When every individual perceives things differently, which perception is true? When there are a thousand truths for every small event there are infinite ways to tell any story.