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Interpretation of Foot Surgery Scene
I'm pretty sure that it is Mona not Helen. And remember at the beginning of the book when he was smashing those little houses that he built? Well little pieces of window, chairs, and such got lodged into his foot. So he was in constant pain. And Mona is taking them out.
"Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is"
-Peggy Lee
I didn't buy that whole idea of building models and smashing them with your feet.
It just doesn't seem like something anyone would do. Like Chuck was trying too hard to make a point, because I didn't buy it.
"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here." - Abe
"Having now finished the work assigned to me, I retire form the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave..." - George
"The rest is silence." - Bill
how can you not "buy" it? i dont get that its in a book its part of who this guys is, some people do fucked up shit, of course chuck was trying to make a point or he wouldnt have put it in his book.
You are what you love
not what loves you
"Some people do fucked up shit." Sure, but it just seems like a dumb idea to me. You don't have to agree. But then again, I didn't buy into much of the stuff that went on in Lullaby at all. It was ALL far-fetched. He just didn't come off as a believable character to me.
"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here." - Abe
"Having now finished the work assigned to me, I retire form the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave..." - George
"The rest is silence." - Bill
Lullaby was much different from his other books. I think you set yourself up for something similar to his previous stuff. Chuck wrote Lullaby because he didn't feel right prodding at a culture that just suffered a serious terrorist attack. Lullaby is branded as a horror novel (even though I thought most of it was quite funny).
The point is, it was supposed to be far fetched.
Unless I'm totally wrong.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by well [/i]
[B] He just didn't come off as a believable character to me. [/B][/QUOTE]
And how would you act after you accidentally killed your wife and fucked her without knowing she's dead?
Maybe the house stamping was his way of punishing himself. Maybe he thought he didn't deserve a warm, cozy home.
[url=http://www.hassi.org][img]http://www.hassi.org/themes/hassi/images/logo.jpg[/img][/url]
The hobby of model building started when he built a dollhouse for his daughter. When his wife and daughter die, he continues the hobby, as a way of holding on to his past life maybe as hope that some day they would come back. Also he says that it is an effort to make something that will out last him. His daughter was supposed to do that: be his lineage. When she dies he no longer has that. By crushing the models he rejects his past life in an effort to moves on. It is both physically and mentally self-destructive. Another interesting link is when he tells the man who is being charged with murdering his son to pick up a hobby to have in jail. Model building was his.
[QUOTE]Chuck wrote Lullaby because he didn't feel right prodding at a culture that just suffered a serious terrorist attack.[/QUOTE]
maybe that was a part of why he wrote lullably, but it really delt with grieving [R.I.P] with his fathers death and try to decide about his stance on the death penalty. That is why the charachters had the power to kill, to experiment with the consiquences(sp?).
You are not your clever
"You are not your ..."
comment
Smashing the models was a very important part of the book. It wouldn't have been the same without it. It tied in with his past life, and shows that Carl feels he deserves pain for killing his family, or he himself would have removed the pieces that were causing so much pain. It also goes along with the recurring theme of creative destruction in Chuck's books. Maybe in Carl's sorrow, he wanted nothing more but to see something perfect and meaningful destroyed. (I know this goes with my signature. Coincidence, I guarantee you)
It's all about pain.
You can take the destruction of the houses on many levels.
Punishment.
Anger.
Realisation.
The list is endless.
The removal possibly equals an attempt at rebirth. To clean up. To start again. A new hope.
It's all metaphors. Whether its believable or not? Well, look at the bible. A total crock but millions believe it.
Don't get me started on that one...
The only constant is change...
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by XIIX [/i]
[B] Well, look at the bible. A total crock but millions believe it.
Don't get me started on that one... [/B][/QUOTE]
Too late:mad:
I am a christian but that does not necesarily mean I believe everything in there.
I just believe in God for my own reasons.
Isn't that enough?
p.s. anyone heard The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers? that is one hell of a great album
:D
Squall
I gave up writing my shitty book because It sucked and I'm not clever enough to be able to finish it.
I have nothing against Christians. We should all be like Christ. It's people who take the bible literally and then use it as a tool to tell people what to do. That's wrong.
If there is a god, it's your conscience. Believing in god for your own reasons is cool.
Sorry if I offended.
The only constant is change...
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by XIIX [/i]
[B]I have nothing against Christians. We should all be like Christ. It's people who take the bible literally and then use it as a tool to tell people what to do. That's wrong.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Dude I totally agree.
:D
It should be a guide on how to live, not some oppressive yoke.
If thats the right analogy.:)
What about those TV evangelesists who are just in it for the money ?
:mad:
They are not believers.
I gave up writing my shitty book because It sucked and I'm not clever enough to be able to finish it.
i was reading an interview of chuck palahniuk and he said that when he writes his books, he doesnt really concentrate on how believeable the characters are because eventually, something can be so far fetched, it makes sense. that was my interpretation of what he said at least
The stomping of the model house is not at all far-fetched. Everyday, people cut and burn and prick themselves because they are depressed and it serves as either a self-serve punishment for something they probably never did or simply as a temporary escape from their minds- an adrenaline rush. I think for Carl it was both.
I thought the foot surgery scene was supposed to be some sort of erotic fulfillment between Streator and Mona.
Although in some weird fucked up way they had become a family, Carl was definitley attracted to Mona.
The way the scene was written, if you go back and read it, I think was meant to be sexual.
Of course that could just be my own sick-depraved view of it.
:D
-Bill D.
The removing of the pieces seems to be the transition between two of his lives. From his life with the misery of the death of his wife and child to that of removing the culling song from existence and moving on.
I would like to suggest something though, perhaps Carl was a perverted man, he refers to Mona as his daughter a few times and in the last chapter when Carl talks about having "relations" with Sarge he mentions that he thinks of Mona. Maybe there's more to that than there appears? Any thoughts?
I don't think so. They were LIKE a family. There can always be an attraction because they truly arn't. I have always believed that your friends can be closer to you than your family, because family is forced on you, you have no choice. Carl, Helen, Mona and Oyster were all forced on each other. Not one of them trusted another, and had many times where they were yelling Don't Kill him, Don't kill her etc, etc. They had a love-hate relationship much like you have with brothers, and sisters. You can make fun of , beat up your brother / sister as much as you want, but the second someone else picks on them that's that.
We're the culture that cried wolf.
Page 258, ". . . When I sleep with whoever this is, I pretend it's Mona. Or Gina. So it all comes out Even."
Carl refers to Mona in the same way as Gina, the wife he killed. I may have a love/hate relationship with my family but I don't think there's ever been a time when I thought of them during sexual moment.
It's just something that struck me as odd, that's all. What's your take?
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by well [/i]
[B]"Some people do fucked up shit." Sure, but it just seems like a dumb idea to me. You don't have to agree. But then again, I didn't buy into much of the stuff that went on in Lullaby at all. It was ALL far-fetched. He just didn't come off as a believable character to me. [/B][/QUOTE]
Agreed.
the story felt more like a good story a drunken friend could tell in a bar after way too many beers.:)
Which is a good thing normally but this was Palahniuk book that I bought and I want them to feel real. Sicky, but "this could happen" real.:D
I guess the plot was kinda weak....dunno :confused:
[SIZE=1]It Does Not Matter[/SIZE]
I was gonna post something, but then h00hah posted what I was going to say in a much more articulate way.
Well said h00hah.
There is a difference between a pyschopath and a neurotic. A pyschopath thinks two and two are five. A neurotic knows that two and two are four, but he worries about it.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by h00hah [/i]
[B]The hobby of model building started when he built a dollhouse for his daughter. When his wife and daughter die, he continues the hobby, as a way of holding on to his past life maybe as hope that some day they would come back. Also he says that it is an effort to make something that will out last him. His daughter was supposed to do that: be his lineage. When she dies he no longer has that. By crushing the models he rejects his past life in an effort to moves on. It is both physically and mentally self-destructive. Another interesting link is when he tells the man who is being charged with murdering his son to pick up a hobby to have in jail. Model building was his. [/B][/QUOTE]
I took it as a continuation of the constructive destructiveness. He and his wife built the magnificent four-story dollhouse for their daughter. Then he kills his wife and daughter. All the things he worked for, he destroyed. His relationship with his wife, gone. His magnum opus (in his daughter, of course), gone. So the last thing he destroyed before fleeing to the airport and his new life was this dollhouse. He kept doing this in the same kind of way that Helen kept culling people. By building something and then destroying it constantly, it took his mind off the fact that he had destroyed the two most important parts of his life. Similarly, Helen culls people for money to prevent her from culling every little nuisance she encounters.
I'll build heaven and call it home...
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Nageylum [/i]
[B]Carl refers to Mona in the same way as Gina, the wife he killed. [/B][/QUOTE]
I would like to take this time to say that Carl didn't kill his family. They just died. Oxygenated hemoglobin got one of them, livor mortis got the other. It's unsure who got what, but the culling song played no part. Carl didn't learn the culling song until 20 years later. It's in the book somewhere, not exactly sure where, but it's there.
Just thought I'd clear some things up.
Chapter 29, page 179
[QUOTE]Katrin was still quiet. The underside of her head had turned dark red.
Livor mortis. Oxygenated hemoglobin.[/QUOTE]
The discoloration of the underside of the body is what happens when livor mortis occurs, and that's what happened to Katrin. When there's a victim of the culling song, there is no cause of death.
Hemoglobin controls the expansion and contraction of blood vessels by releasing nitric oxide. When the hemoglobin becomes oxygenated, it converts the nitric oxide into nitrate. You die. You turn blue. Carl did not know his wife was dead.
Chapter 29, page 177
[QUOTE]Sun came through the blue curtains, making her skin blue. Her lips blue.[/QUOTE]
So there you have it. Carl's wife died of oxygenated hemoglobin, and Carl's daughter died of livor mortis.
[QUOTE]Livor mortis or postmortem lividity, one of the signs of death, is a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body, causing a purplish red discoloration of the skin. This discoloration does not occur in the areas of the body that are in contact with the ground or another object, as the capillaries are compressed. [/QUOTE]
Oxygenated hemoglobin is simply blood with oxygen. The blood becomes red due to the presence of hemoglobin which contains iron which oxygen binds to and is transported from the lungs throughout the body. I don't know where you're finding this nitric acid/nitrate business, but maybe you should support your theory with a link to show us peons what's what. Therefore, Carl was seeing the oxygenated hemoglobin settling in the lower portion of the body due to livor mortis, which as you can see above (taken from [url]www.wikipedia.org[/url]) is merely a sign of death. I definitely agree with everyone else, that Carl culled his wife and daughter and they did not coincidentally die of natural causes on the same night. Hey, I could be wrong though.
Just thought I'd clear some things up.
I'll build heaven and call it home...
1. livor mortis is a postmortem condition.
2. oxygenated hemoglobin simply refers to red blood cells carrying oxygen, which last i knew no one dies of. they die of the opposite.
3. this book was not meant to be realistic, so criticizing its lack of realism is about as pointless as the model-smashing you're criticizing.
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
biatch! j/k
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by insomnomaniac [/i]
[B]
3. this book was not meant to be realistic, so criticizing its lack of realism is about as pointless as the model-smashing you're criticizing. [/B][/QUOTE]
Is it pointless to criticize these things in a we-all-die-life-sucks kind of way or just because you personally are not interested?
The book IS meant to be realistic. Most writers do try to write realistically about their subject wether its aliens or voodoo or a historical romance. The point is to make something made up seem real to the reader.
CP does enormous amounts of research for each book for that specific reason, but I'll just quote him...
"That's part of the challenge, to make a really plausible case for something implausible," he says. "I thought for sure the entire time I was writing Fight Club that the moment I sent it out people would say, 'In this blood-phobic culture, people are going to pound other strangers? In this insurance-based, liability culture? No, this would never happen.' But no one has ever said that. So, if you make a plausible enough emotional case, people will follow any premise."
He made it plausible/realistic because he wrote "realistically" about support groups and recipes for bombs so by the time he gets around to a fight club, the reader is ready to accept that men really would beat the shit out of each other for entertainment.
That said, I think the sex with the dead wife strikes a false note. rigor mortis usually starts within 2 hours (along with liver mortis) and CP writes how soft and warm the wife was which doesn't make sense unless Carl's only been asleep for an hour.
Also death by culling [I]is[/I] instatanious so how could he not notice his wife dropping and baby dropping dead? Did I miss something in the book?
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
he and helen have sex floating around in the chandelier. pray tell me, what kind of research did chuck do to write that incredibly realistic scene?
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
well, i can do better than ragging on your answer instead of giving one of my own, as you just did with the post you made above. in case this escaped you, i gave an actual example to try and prove my point here. you, on the other hand, seem to have resorted to childishness.
what seems to have gone whizzing by your head as you were reading this book is that the tiny bits of house are symbols, symbols of carl's idyllic, suburban life before it was destroyed by the culling song. his building the houses is a ritual and a connection with his hobby in the past. smashing them is expressive of the hurt he feels over losing his family, and leaving them in his foot to fester and become infected externalizes the grief he carries with him. it's symbolism. it means something other than whether he got the facts about rigor mortis correct.
maybe, though, with your extensive knowledge, you could help chuck write his next novel. i'm sure it would be vastly improved.
is that good enough for you? wait, don't answer that. of course i know it isn't.
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
I posted after the thread had meandered on to liver mortis and well off the symbolism of the foot surgery scene so you suggesting all that whizzed by my head is just gratuitious
In fact, I was responding to your post declaring Lullaby was not meant to be realistic. I countered that yes, it is meant to be realistic, and why I thought so.
You really want to know what research CP did for the floating sex scene? I honestly don't know. Maybe it was left over from the research he did for Choke. He's what, 40, so maybe he's had some personal experience with sex. The rest is uh, imagination?
What I can tell you about that scene is that I think its realistic that Helen would start casting spells as soon as she got her hands on the book. I think its realistic that they had sex once they started floating around.
Yeah, I want to I want to discuss what I think are the weaker elements of the book with other people on the board. The lack of rigor mortis when Carl has sex with his dead wife doesn't make sense to me. So spare me the hissy bullshit about me sharing my "extensive knowledge" because I express an opinion.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
fine. if you want to miss the point of the entire book, you have my blessing.
[SIZE=1][QUOTE=ehquestionmark]Wow. This little thread got CRAZY. People telling me to abuse my girlfriend, people showing an alarming lack of respect for women as a whole, people questioning my masculinity in some kind of bizarre machoistic pissing-contest. Hell, I even got called stuffy. [/QUOTE]
[URL=http://confessionalpoe.blogspot.com]Grand Mental Station[/URL]
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=15714&highlight=interview+insomnomaniac]Insomnomaniac: the found interview[/URL][/SIZE]
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