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jasminenoack's review
5.0
a note this book is genius. I could finish this book before I review it but I'm hungry and I have to go to class and getting a computer in the lab is a pain and I already have way too much to say. This will be a supersized greg review and I'm sorry. I am also going to quote from all parts of the story but there isn't a plot so I won't spoil anything. I am reviewing the novella the book is named after, not the two stories which I will read while I eat before my class starts. I am not eating now because my ipod is dead and I need to be able to check the internet while I sit in the hall. I am putting off eating to charge an ipod that is what the world has come to. This novella is an existentialist cry and it's a good one. I think it might also be age realted. I mean I wasn't 22 when the iraq war started. march 20, 2003. so I was... 2003-... 16 when the war started. And well it was definitely one of the things that when I cared it was what I cared about. I ran an antiwar grow in college, in high school my brother put up posters that said "war is big business invest your children". I actually ended up have the major fallout that ended my time as a socialist over the fact the ISO made a plan to pull all their members out of the antiwar group because they had better things to do. They weren't making it an option, you weren't allowed to do both, they killed the antiwar movement at NYU. someone actually tried to restart it a few years later and emailed me, I feel bad for them. My point with all of this is that I relate to this book people who won't relate to this book might not like it. This book is not about doing something this book is about realizing the world is fuck and the only solution is to get drunk. and yes I was doing something, but now when something scares me, terrorists, militias, a friend's suicide I get drunk, my ex-boyfriend gets drunk, my friends get drunk. I have become part of the culture that drops out. Not like the sixties culture that drops out and turns in or something. But a new culture that drops out and stops caring. This is modern existentialism I can't be depressed or angry about the war cause I don't even understand how the world became what it is. I am now the age that mark is in the book, okay two years older but I started this lifestyle at 20. And my response to the world is his exactly, except the strippers but that is because they're just dirty and gross and I'm a girl so I care about such things.
Now lets talk quotes and responses and you can figure out if this is a book for you, i will try to keep it short and fail because I like nothing better than being understood and noah is doing that for me.
1. "I don't have any time for war, I have things to do" "Like what" "paint my bathroom and make curtains" "you're right you don't have time for war"
Have you ever talked to a person in my generation right after a breakup. Have you ever heard them say, "I'm busy I'll get around to being depressed next week." I actually know someone with borderline who schedules her breakdowns, and subsequent hospitalizations, with her therapist in advance. This is our generation the world can wait we have things to do.
2. "You have only yourself" "I don't want myself" "No one does"
3. "existence is impossible"
I am actually going to attmept to keep all the suicide quotes together here we will see how that works. Suicide has become less about killing yourself and more about this desire not to be. It is too hard to be alive to people want to stop.
4. I use to be able to love. But I can't anymore. It's too hard. And I especially can't love while a war is on.
This is important this is something I know a lot of people combating everyone remembers loving, or most people, but there is some fundamental piece that so many people seem to have misplaced and they just can't seem to love anymore. We became a world of people dealing with each other instead of a world of people caring about each other. I mean I don't have a solution since I'm not sure I ever had the capacity but I think it is so important to recognize that you have lost the capacity if you have because relationships are so different when "love" at least the kind we are told to feel is out of our reach. As far as the war comment, dude's right there is too much hate in the world to truely love.
5. There better be a god someone needs to answer for this.
You know sartre says the thing that bothers the existentialist most is the lack of a god because it means that humans are responsible for their own actions. well...
6. I don't believe there are absolute truths. perhaps I don't even care about truth. It's not like knowing the truth changes anything.
This is a huge problem these days people are obsessed with truth. with finding it with knowing it with living it. But then there is this whole generation of people like myself who have disregarded the truth. Sure we will say we don't believe in it. But if pressed it isn't that we actively don't believe so much as we just don't really care. If there turns out to be an absolute truth I'm not going to bow down and apologize I'm just going to keep doing exactly what I was doing before. Christians always say to me "what if god proved his existence", what if, honestly nothing, I don't really give a shit.
7. The world doesn't exist. suffering doesn't exist. there are no problems during sex
I disagree there is bad sex. Oh wait this book was written by a man.
8. "Why did my parents bring me into this world" "Because women have a baby fetish" "women only have babies because they want attention"
has anyone else noticed there is an entire generation of unwanted babies, and they are all a bit pissed about it. Here is the funny thing about a pro abortion atheistic generation people will actually say "My parents should have had an abortion"
okay I don't want to give you the whole book that's a taste, if you associate with this generation I think you'll like the book if you don't you won't so don't read it.
Now lets talk quotes and responses and you can figure out if this is a book for you, i will try to keep it short and fail because I like nothing better than being understood and noah is doing that for me.
1. "I don't have any time for war, I have things to do" "Like what" "paint my bathroom and make curtains" "you're right you don't have time for war"
Have you ever talked to a person in my generation right after a breakup. Have you ever heard them say, "I'm busy I'll get around to being depressed next week." I actually know someone with borderline who schedules her breakdowns, and subsequent hospitalizations, with her therapist in advance. This is our generation the world can wait we have things to do.
2. "You have only yourself" "I don't want myself" "No one does"
3. "existence is impossible"
I am actually going to attmept to keep all the suicide quotes together here we will see how that works. Suicide has become less about killing yourself and more about this desire not to be. It is too hard to be alive to people want to stop.
4. I use to be able to love. But I can't anymore. It's too hard. And I especially can't love while a war is on.
This is important this is something I know a lot of people combating everyone remembers loving, or most people, but there is some fundamental piece that so many people seem to have misplaced and they just can't seem to love anymore. We became a world of people dealing with each other instead of a world of people caring about each other. I mean I don't have a solution since I'm not sure I ever had the capacity but I think it is so important to recognize that you have lost the capacity if you have because relationships are so different when "love" at least the kind we are told to feel is out of our reach. As far as the war comment, dude's right there is too much hate in the world to truely love.
5. There better be a god someone needs to answer for this.
You know sartre says the thing that bothers the existentialist most is the lack of a god because it means that humans are responsible for their own actions. well...
6. I don't believe there are absolute truths. perhaps I don't even care about truth. It's not like knowing the truth changes anything.
This is a huge problem these days people are obsessed with truth. with finding it with knowing it with living it. But then there is this whole generation of people like myself who have disregarded the truth. Sure we will say we don't believe in it. But if pressed it isn't that we actively don't believe so much as we just don't really care. If there turns out to be an absolute truth I'm not going to bow down and apologize I'm just going to keep doing exactly what I was doing before. Christians always say to me "what if god proved his existence", what if, honestly nothing, I don't really give a shit.
7. The world doesn't exist. suffering doesn't exist. there are no problems during sex
I disagree there is bad sex. Oh wait this book was written by a man.
8. "Why did my parents bring me into this world" "Because women have a baby fetish" "women only have babies because they want attention"
has anyone else noticed there is an entire generation of unwanted babies, and they are all a bit pissed about it. Here is the funny thing about a pro abortion atheistic generation people will actually say "My parents should have had an abortion"
okay I don't want to give you the whole book that's a taste, if you associate with this generation I think you'll like the book if you don't you won't so don't read it.
chalicotherex's review
2.0
“I know, a lot has happened to you. But you have to go on, you have to keep trying.”
“I don’t want to try anymore, I’m done trying. I work at Pizza Hut, that’s my life now, pizza.”
A handful of short stories, told mostly in single sentence paragraphs. I liked The Human War, about the lead up to the Iraq War as experienced by a young, poor man in Ohio, looking to get drunk and have sex. The mental asylum story set during the initial phase/lead up to the Iraq War had good dialogue but I didn't get into it as much. And the last one on the train, I dunno. I'm definitely still going to track down Burning Babies though. Overall I think there should be more of this kind of fiction. I want to call it stylish social realism, but I don't think that's right. Closer to autofiction, I suppose, at least somewhat. I don't know.
“The terrorists are coming to get me. They’re
going to put smallpox in the air, I know it. We’ll all be dead in a week, and Jesus will come back,” Kendra said.
“Jesus won’t come back, and you won’t die in a week.”
“Jesus will come back and send Bush to hell for everyone to see.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“Jesus doesn’t like wars. He said to walk the extra mile.”
“Bush doesn’t care about that verse.”
“He should, he says he’s Christian.”
“He’s Christian for votes,” I said.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to try anymore, I’m done trying. I work at Pizza Hut, that’s my life now, pizza.”
A handful of short stories, told mostly in single sentence paragraphs. I liked The Human War, about the lead up to the Iraq War as experienced by a young, poor man in Ohio, looking to get drunk and have sex. The mental asylum story set during the initial phase/lead up to the Iraq War had good dialogue but I didn't get into it as much. And the last one on the train, I dunno. I'm definitely still going to track down Burning Babies though. Overall I think there should be more of this kind of fiction. I want to call it stylish social realism, but I don't think that's right. Closer to autofiction, I suppose, at least somewhat. I don't know.
going to put smallpox in the air, I know it. We’ll all be dead in a week, and Jesus will come back,” Kendra said.
“Jesus won’t come back, and you won’t die in a week.”
“Jesus will come back and send Bush to hell for everyone to see.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“Jesus doesn’t like wars. He said to walk the extra mile.”
“Bush doesn’t care about that verse.”
“He should, he says he’s Christian.”
“He’s Christian for votes,” I said.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”
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