The Tara Scenario

 In The Bell Jar Esther Greenwood's entire story follows the moral ladder. She starts out more at the 2nd step than the first. he does what she's supposed to and what everyone else is doing. She thinks it's the right thing to do even though she doesn't feel right doing it. In the beginning as she's explaining her internship as a writer on a fashion magazine she explains how she wasn't in control at all and she was just going along with everyone else. "Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo." Esther doesn't go to the parties or to work because it's something she wants and has been working for, she's only there because the other girls are and she mimics their enthusiasm. She slowly moves into the third step of the ladder where she begins questioning things. She's not quite sure what she wants to find out, but she knows there's something more than what she's doing. She wants to know what the meaning is behind everything she's been told and she wants to know why she can't life her life as normally as the other girls seem to. They want to get married and have children and live a white picket fence life. Esther doesn't understand this, she isn't sure of a clear alternative life, but this one is not the one she wants. "So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state." In spite of these thoughts she still goes to work and goes to the parties, so she still has the 3rd step philosophy of "a million customers served can't be wrong". The more the book goes on, the more Esther develops her own personal code. When she discovers that Joan is a lesbian she berates her for it as she personally believes it to be wrong. Another example of her personal identity is that she is not afraid to kill herself even though it's unacceptable among human beings and to God. She isn't afraid of spending an enternity in hell, and thinks that taking her life is the only way to bring herself peace. She wants to lift the bell jar and she thinks this is the only way. "To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream." The books ends with an uncertainty as to whether or not Esther was able to live her life "normally" or whether the doctors decided she isn't stable enough. Either way, she has developed into a person with her own identity and personal code, whether or not that code is the right one is up for speculation.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival
The opening of the book starts with Yossarian and his anti-war sentiments. This song completely encapsulates how he feels about fighting for individuals instead of collective causes and the entire feeling of the book as a whole. The beginning of the song goes Some folks are born to wave the flag, oh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief", oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord, It ain't me... In the first chapter "The Texan" The Texan annoys everyone with his patriotism and general good attitude. He drives everyone out of the hospital as they would rather fight a war they don't beleive in than hear him talk about how decent people deserve extar votes again.

For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield
Chapters 6-8 display the fear shared by every man in the squadron. Each man is tormented by the thought that everyone is out to kill them, and everyone they're supposed to be fighting with is crazy. Although these chapters are incredibly funny, you get the idea that they're each struggling with the fact that some of their worst enemies may not be on the other side of the battle line. There's a man with a gun over there telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn nobody's right if everybody's wrong. This is the general concensus, everyones wrong and no one can stop it.

Masters of War by Bob Dylan
In chapter 10 we learn of the dead man in Yossarians tent. His name was Mudd and he died after coming to camp before he could even report for duty. No one can bring themselves to move his things from the tent because no one feels they have the right, however having them always lying around is a constant reminder that no matter how hard the men fight or how many missions they fly, they can't seem to save themselves from the same fate. In Masters of War Bob Dylan expresses the animosity the soldiers feel about having to fight for people who sit in their mansions and rationalize why it's important for people who aren't them to be fighting. You that never done nothin' but build to destroy you play with my world like it's your little toy. You put a gun in my hand and you hide from my eyes and you turn and run farther when the fast bullets fly. The idea that they're all nameless and inconsequential looms in the back of their minds and is painfully prevelant after the death of Mudd.

Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire
The men are volunteered by Colonel Cathcart to fight a surely suicidal bombing over Bologna in chapter 12. The men are aware of their inevitable end and pray every day for rain so the mission with be prolonged. Although this is granted for a while, it does finally stop raining and the mission is looming. Yossarian, in desperation, moves the bomb line on the map so the commanding officers think it's already been captured. After that it starts raining again. The mission is put off once more, however the men know they'll still have to fly it eventually. Each time they're about to fly it, they feel as though they're on the eve of destruction and their deaths will surely commence. You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’ you don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’ And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

I don't know why I love you, but I do by Clarence Frogman
This song is used in the chapter entitled Luciana. It's not meant to be taken seriously, as this chapter provides some comic releif. Yossarian is always falling in love with women and naturally, he falls in love with Luciana after she lets him sleep with her. He asks her to marry him and she rejects him saying that he's crazy. She explains that she can't get married because she isn't a virgin, and he says that he wants to marry her anyway. This is the reason she thinks he's crazy, and he thinks she's crazy for not wanting to marry him. The tounge-tied prattle that's exchanged between the two is amusing and a break in the sometimes heavy war-drama. Yossarian rips up her number after she gives it to him even though he's sure he's in love with her because he's impressed that such a pretty girl would sleep with him for free. (Just like she told him he would.)

Draft Dodger Rag by Phil Ochs
This song reads like the Shel Silverstein's sick. In chapters 18-19 Yossarian flees to the hospital to avoid flying more missions and when they discover that he's faking his illness he imitates "the soldier who saw everything twice" in order to buy himself more time. It's the attitude of "i have the chicken pox, my head's sinking in, my toes look like fingers, don't make me go back and fight" cowardace. This song is more light-hearted than most of the other war-themed songs and makes a nice joke of Yossarians constant attempts to dupe the doctors.

Where have all the flowers gone? by Peter Paul and Mary
In chapter 19 after Yossarian imitates the same ailments as the soldier who saw everything twice, the actual soldier who did see everything twice dies. His family thinks he's still alive, and they want to come say goodbye before he goes. The doctor tells Yossarian to pretend to be this soldier and allow the family their closure. This is an extremely poignant scene and when I read it, it affected me unexpectedly. This song is appropriately heavy and although it has simple words it strikes a deeper chord. Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago? Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn?

Blowin' in the Wind by Joan Baez
In chapters 20-21 Snowden dies in the back of Yossarians plane on a mission. Yossarian gets all of Snowden's blood on him so he goes around naked, and accepts his medal naked, because he never wants to wear a uniform again. Not only is Yossarian always thinking about death and all the ways that he could die, but someone dies right in front of him, and bleeds all over him. Snowden's death was especially hard because Yossarian tried really hard to mend his wounds with the first aid kit. Only when it was too late and he opened Snowden's shirt and all of his guts fell out Yossarian realized he'd been fixing the wrong wound. How many years must one man have
Before he can hear people cry? How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind the answer is blowing in the wind The words of this song are more about questions unanswered than just the general anti-war feeling.

 Try to Conform by Pennywise
In chapter 23 Nately finds himself in a battle of patriotism with the old man in his whore's apartment. The old man tells him that Italy will survive long after America because even though Italy is occupied, no more Italian soldiers are dieing because they don't have to fight anymore. He says that he just goes with the flow and supports whoever is in power to survive. In Pennywises' Try to Conform views like these are satyrized: try and stay in line and other forms you'll never know and if you got something to say I got a shotgun for a muzzle try their style don't give up you will blend in just try to conform. 

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy by Peete Seeger
Orr's plane crashes in chapter 28 and he gets separated from his men when his survival raft floats away. In Waist Deep in the Bid Muddy Seeger tells the story of a captain that tells his men to push on even though it's probably not safe and he's taking a huge risk with their lives. The captain ends up being the only one who doesn't survive. This song painted a mental picture similar to what might have been going on when Orr tried to row their raft to safety. This song is also a metaphore for the president and his push toward war even though the country was getting in deeper than it should have.

Bring the Boys back Home by Freda Payne
Nately finishes his seventy missions and is free to go home. He doesn't want to go home until he can take his whore with him, so he volunteers for more missions. Milo manipulates Colonel Cathcart into insisting that Milo never fly any more missions because he is the only one who can run the syndicate. He says other men will have to fly his missions for him. Nately goes on another mission and is one of twelve men who die. It shows a dark irony of the book because the men who want to go home can never seem to get the required amount of missions to do so before Cathcart raises the requiremen again, and a man who does finish the required amount of missions doesn't go home. This song is about bringing the boys home alive, and the book itself eludes to this same message by never letting anyone go home.

The Fiddle and the Drum by Joni Mitchell (this analysis spoils the ending)
At the end of the book Yossarian learns that Orr was washed ashore in Sweden and that he must have planned his "dissappearance" all along. Yossarian decides he will run away from the war and join him there. Cathcart and Korn tell Yossarian they'll send him home if he agrees to like them. He refuses as this is a betrayal to his men and his refusal is his last stand against the war effort alltogether. In The Fiddle and the Drum is about trading a handshake for a fist and the fiddler drops his fiddle and trades them for drumsticks. (Representing the drums of war) This song embodies everything Yossarian beleives. He can't understand why people are fighting and why war would be better than peace. he finally escapes and goes on to live his life.

"Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy." - Ian McEwan author of Atonement and Amsterdam [ source: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9781400032716&z=y#REV ]

Although I agree with McEwan I don't support his claims with such enthusiasm. Curious Incident proved unique, but unimpressive. I finished the book with a sense of completion rather than satisfaction.

Christopher Boone has an original perspective which demands literal and simple thinking. He is extremely funny at times because of this, which is ironic because he can't understand jokes. His step by step mindset slowed the book at times as Christopher descibes his events moment by moment exactly at they happen, including the most mundane

of details. Haddon uses mind puzzles, maps, and pictures to break up the sometime monotonous language of Boone but it was not enough to respark my interest.

Perhaps my read of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ruined the chances for Curious Incident to rise to the top of my favorites list. I can't help but see Haddon's spin on 'playing with language' as a feeble knockoff.

Most other critics received the book well ... "The Curious Incident brims with imagination, empathy, and vision -- plus it's a lot of fun to read." - Myla Goldberg Author of Bee Season [source: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9781400032716&z=y#REV ] The book wasn't fun to read, it was simple. It was amusing with a few attempted plot twists however it couldn't save itself from it's 'here's what happened, now it's over' lazy writing style.

Haddon did something unique, and the effort was appreciated, and sometimes enjoyed. In all attempts to be politically correct, it seems that America can't get enough of characters in books/cinema with mental disabilities. It makes them feel empathetic, and refreshed because it's a mindset that readers can't understand.

The perspective from Christopher Boone was a less than cliche idea, and his journey was somewhat entertaining.

It was a good read all in all, but not a great one.