maxwell writes about turning into old people

     Okay, to be honest, it took me way longer than expected to think of a good topic for the blog. The book was not very appealing to me, much less so than Black Swan Green. But that's not a great topic for a blog post, so instead, I'll write about the one of the things that actually did resonate with me: a handful of sentences in Benji's only dialogue with his older sister.      Benji views his sister, Elena, a lot like how Jason views Julia (read any other blog post for details on the latter pair). He sees Elena as a more mature, capable, and successful role model who has just emerged from their own big coming-of-age journey. Benji describes how she moved on from Sag Harbor to hold a "real summer job in the city," internships, and other activities in the wider world (281). Like D.B. in Catcher in the Rye  (remember that?), Elena's this distant sibling who's "made it" and achieved independence from their parents.      On page 281, Benji also pr

  Our long national nightmare is- oh for fuck's sake you've got to be kidding me.     Part of Jason's coming-of-age narrative in Black Swan Green is a change in how he views the world. I guess that's a no-brainer. A more mature person's obviously gonna have a more consistent and changed worldview. Of course, that applies to how he views bullies, friends, and et cetera. But that's not the focus of this blog. Because that's no fun to write about. Instead, I'm going to insult the government.  And track Jason's coming-of-age by talking about Margaret Thatcher and Romani people. Really Jason, you're going to read the Daily Mail ? Starting with the Falklands War in "Rocks" Margaret Thatcher frazzled  this twerpy prat in a bow tie on BBC1 this evening. We've got zero            sympathy for the [derogatory term for Argentinian] bastards. Mrs. Thatcher said something like, "The fathers and mothers of our  country did not elect me the p

     This shady practice which I am engaging in sounds familiar. So familiar, that I can name at least one character from a book which I have read who has also engaged in this practice: Bruce Bechdel. Now, calling Bruce's entire housing restoration and his love of embellished decorations a "cover-up" sounds like quite a stretch. And to my knowledge, there's no concrete evidence that this was the intent when Bruce went on his journey of restoring his home to its former glory. But nevertheless, we can see how Bruce's efforts at restoration in effect create a veil, a second identity, which he can use to hide the parts of himself which he does not want to world to see.  Alas, for all the decoration one can do to obscure misdeeds to the wider world... The depth of Bruce's facades still hold no candle to the investigation skills of the IRS  (image neatly and faithfully copied from page 60)  Lies! Slander! Libel! Falsehoods! Trickery!      Alison repeatedly disparage