Third Post

          In the latest reading, an important theme that have discerned from the novel is this concept of time, and the importance it has in our life. Like I said in my last blog post, I find the concept of variable perception of time to be interesting from a psychological perspective, and this author has taken a more philosophical viewpoint of this subject. He seems to comment more on the fact that time and the perception of time is generally taught by society and handed to us on rails and not only that but many points of our life are defined by external force, outside of time. For example, the narrator seems to be extremely affected by what happens to the kid who committed suicide and the way that different characters interpreted it. The way the author described the situation, it seemed as if the opinions of others had a greater effect on the narrator’s opinions than his own ideas. This also seemed to hold with the way he acted with his friends and generally guided himself to follow his friends same method of general pretentiousness when it came to philosophical ideas. Also, there was an extreme external need of the different friends in the group to try to prove that they were the best friends with the kid who joined the group later. I am not sure if this was meant to describe a certain tendency for people to try to follow or stay in touch with those who are the ‘leaders’ of their friends and those around them, as opposed to forming their own opinions. I am also unsure if this tendency is meant to comment on the human tendency to try to suck up to those that are better than you, to think you are much better than others around you, or just to give an example of what the narrator has done throughout his life. Personally, I don’t have much more interest in this book as I have kind of lost the general idea of the book through this somewhat rambling narrative.