Eric has left the safety of his home, with Ian in tow. Is he safe? Is he finding anything worthwhile? Meeting anyone of interest? Struggling with the shark at all?
I found it interesting that Eric's quest was summarized with pictures and descriptions in pages 93-97. It might seem like a cop-out or way to gloss over what exactly Eric did, but I thought the section served to enhance the surrealism of the story. I especially liked the bit about the computer virus trapped in amber. The flashback (or translation of The Light Bulb Fragment, as it were) gave some more insight into Eric's relationship with Clio, and I find their interactions quite entertaining. Most of this section was Eric musing, and it finally got exciting at the end, when he received a package and a mysterious phone call. I suspect the phone call did relate to unspace, but who knows. I'm not sure what to make of the recurrence of "plant" in the copy of The Origin of Species, perhaps it's showing how little Eric understands of the text, or maybe it's a really strange version of the book, I'm not sure. The last two pages were compelling; Eric seems to have let the shark into the shark cage, and who the hell is "C xx"? We'll see I suppose.
This section seemed a lot like the first reading with Eric sort of meandering around a confined space with mainly his thoughts, and Ian, to keep him company. I like how Hall seems to combine the stereotypical stream-of-consciousness writing technique with an of the ordinary quasi magical realism meets subtle metafiction. What I’ve noticed thus far about Raw Shark Texts is that it is essentially a combination of all of the traits seen in other writings of the post-modern genre all fitted into one 450-page novel.
In terms of the plot, the author has skipped a significant amount of time. Though I understand the need for this, (it would probably take me even longer to decipher as much of the Light Bulb fragment as Eric has using that confusing QWERTY code) it seems that we’re missing a lot of growth and development that Eric has gone through just within the turn of a page. Eric seems to be pretty experienced in dealing with the Ludivician yet it is very difficult to imagine how this change could occur without seeing Eric experience any of this first hand, besides his first and only encounter with the conceptual shark. Again, I feel that gave us too much information at one time, which ties into Eric developing as a character.
Despite this qualm, I do enjoy the journal readings that pop up now and then especially the one in this section. To me, this is where I see Eric developing the most as a character and gaining ground with a newly formed relationship to a love he never knew. The whole story outside these moments in the past is getting way too jumbled and boring with Eric locked in place once more.
I really enjoyed this reading more so then the last. I'm not sure why, but I think because it was more of what Eric was doing. I liked the beginning pages a lot. I liked the pictures made from words with the description underneath were cool. And especially how most of the writing talked about Eric in some way or another. I thought the fact that the there was a huge rain storm was kind of ironic because he debated returning home and telling Dr. Randle or a trained md. On page 99, the line "Its is something and it's something that's warm and that I still have," talking about Ian was sad. I feel bad for Eric. He lost this person who he can't remember from his own memory and has to learn about her through past writings. I did like the line about how Clio and his jokes survive us, because in a way, he is lost forever too, not just her. One part I was confused on was when he introduced himself as Mark. I liked reading more about Clio and Eric. It interests me the way he is different from "The First Eric" and all the other versions. I also like the descriptions in the parts about Clio. They're a little different from the rest of the book so it's a nice switch.
I love that Hall brings science + technology together with writing. In the previous sections, it was more technology – circuits and tv’s and electricity and computers. At the beginning of this section, he deals with biology – the single-celled organisms, the nucleus of the cell, the fossil-words. In the nucleus, the DNA was letters. Maybe just like DNA makes up cells which make up people in the world, in writing, letters make up words which make up sentences and stories. The mosquito in amber and the word-fossil fish were really cool – concept mixed with reality and representation.
When Eric gets drenched in the rain, it reminded of Alice in Wonderland when she gets swept up in her tears. Actually, every time he is near water, something traumatic seems to happen. He is scared of water even before knowing about the Ludovician. I really enjoy Hall’s descriptions of people. He seems to be able to describe someone and explain their mannerisms or exact actions in a really wonderful way. He mentions how Aunty Ruth seems to be “the kind of woman who would spit on a hanky and rub it very hard on the side of your mouth” (pg 102). He also describes the way Clio tucks her hands under her knees beautifully on pg 119.
On pg 101, Hall again discusses technology, but also the nature of death. Just as he mentioned before that humans have no cells from seven years before, here people leave behind part of themselves even after they’re gone – in energy? In papers and documents? In memory? In “the text of a memory” (pg 108)? This section also continued to emphasize the importance of communication (kind of like in “Crying of Lot 49”?).
Finally, the dream on pg. 129 made me question whether it was actually a dream. Maybe his dreams are actually his memories? Dreams and memories are both pretty conceptual, and, like I mentioned in a previous post, maybe dreams and memories and the Ludovician all come from the same conceptual place.
In this reading, Steven Hall begins to flesh out this un-world he's created. Like in a fantasy or sci-fi novel, he's starting to give us the rules. He's giving us the origins of the conceptual fish, and glimpses of the logic behind Fidorous' work (the thing is, it actually makes sense.)
I also appreciated the passage of time--instead of the 'newborn' Eric of Part One, we now have the Eric who has trained and lived in the world for a while. He's memorized his Ryan Mitchell Mantra. Now that that's out of the way, he/we can move forward in pursuit of the truth.
In some irrational way, the conceptual shark is actually terrifying. Maybe it's because I only read this book late at night, or maybe it's because the invasion of our mind leaves us vulnerable in a very different way. This book really shares some things with House of Leaves, mainly, both stories are a bad idea to read late at night. With their postmodern structures, they show you new things to be scared of, things you had never imagined before.
Hall's description of the rain and the flood on pages 98--99 was tangible and overwhelming. Really good stuff. He's drawn out the suspense with the change of location and introduction of new characters. Because we're expecting something awful to happen, everything gains this weird depth. The hotel, the owners, the other guests, the flooded countryside--it all has this underlying strangeness. We know the shark is out there somewhere.
In this chapter I hated pages 126 and 127 I tried to read the information from it like a regular book but I kept losing track on which repeated word I was on. I think I kept rereading a few lines of this page because of the many plants. I looked at the plants and think that it might create a picture or it just wants you to get lost in the information. I really liked how Ian would stare at others and how he would glare at them and with that expression Eric could tell what was going on in his head. I also found it intresting that in these pages we find out that Clio had cancer instead of when we were first introduced to her. I really liked the dream he has on page 129 and were he reads a card from Clio. I think that this may somehow be realted to the accident that happened. I really liked this cahpter but hated the plant pages and was confused with the begining pages as well with what the imofmation could mean to Eric.
I thought it was kind of cool how Steven Hall summed up Eric's journey up to this point but at the same time I would have liked to read about the journey. I loved the description of the river especially when it said "the river was here and reaching and grabbing and actually pulling at my feet and calves with a beautiful, mindless ache" (pg. 98). It reminded me of The Light Bulb Fragment when he said just knowing Clio was in the world made him ache. I thought it was interesting that the really nice woman that runs the hotel had red hair and cheeks. It made me think of the Red Queen.
I loved the line on page 101 "It's hurtful and wonderful how our jokes survive us." It's so weird to think that when we're gone people will still laugh about funny things we did or said.
I can't believe that Eric has been able to decode half of The Light Bulb Fragment. I don't think I would have been able to even get a sentence.
I was so annoyed that as soon as his cell phone ringed we went back to The Light Bulb Fragment. I'd been waiting to read more about Clio and Eric but at that moment I wanted to read about who was calling him not about Clio and Eric. There's some foreshadowing of the shark "mainly, I'm expecting something massive to come rushing out the second I look away and bite my legs off" (pg. 113).
I like that Clio is kind of like unspace. Her kindness is something most of their friends didn't know about but it was there if you were looking for it "a sort of on-show secret" (pg. 115). You don't think about unspace but it's there if you look for it. I loved all the things we learned about Clio and Eric during the second part of The Light Bulb Fragment, like Clio having cancer or that they now shared money.
It was so sad that there was so much anticipation about who was calling Eric and then basically no one was there. The Darwin thing was so annoying! I read the whole thing, that was pointless, and then all the "plants" didn't make a picture! It was a sad day.
I liked the image of the mosquito and attempting to read and understand the letters. There are some beautiful descriptions in this chapter but they are often ruined by Eric’s condition. After discussing the chapter with the class, I have been creating different theories and explanations about the book. Maybe Eric was killed by a shark while with Clio and is now in Limbo? Perhaps he needs to do certain things in order to get past this current state of consciousness. The conceptual shark is there because that is the way he died. This could be totally wrong but this book allows for this kind of creative thinking.
Something has occurred to me during this particular chapter. We have encountered the possibility that Eric could not really be Eric, that he's had Eric's identity thrust upon him. Maybe Eric is an identity that the main character tried pretending to be in order to ward off the shark, and one time after having his memory consumed, had thought that he really was Eric Sanderson, and fully and entirely became him. What makes this whole situation even more ambiguous is how no one that Eric interacts with can really prove or disprove his personal validity. That brings up something else as well. Where are Erics friends and family? Where is Clio? Surely everyone he had known before the first Eric Sanderson set loose the shark? Has he never had anyone in his life who was willing to stick with him through his ordeal? If not, then why did they not put him in a mental hospital? Has Erics identity been so corrupted and changed that those who care about him are unable to find him? If none of this applies, another thought comes to mind. It seems that everything in this book is taking form of a concept. The shark, Erics identity, and the methods with which he must protect himself are all to various degrees ideas and constructions. Is it possible that the idea of unspace can come into play in the aspect that Eric himself is a concept born out of a conceptual mind, an idea that became so tangible and complete that it gained sentience, and exists within the opposite of nothing that isn't something? As far as actual content in the chapter, I really enjoyed the examples of the biology and genetic makeup of conceptual organisms, it was very well thought out, especially how the conceptual mosquito was a computer virus. Responding to your prompt of whether or not Eric has struggled against the shark, he's always struggling against the shark. It seems at this point that if he lets down his guard for an instant, the shark at least ends up a room away from him. Towards the end of the chapter when Eric gets the letter directing him to meet Mr. Nobody at the hospital, I began wondering if Mr. Nobody could possibly be a concept of Erics alternate self, or a concept of one of his past identities.
The reading starts off with the weird pictures and descriptions that I can find really no meaning or importance in. Then the reading continues with Eric staying at a hotel. One of my favorite lines of the reading is "A man lives so many different lengths of time. A man is so many different lengths of time,"(102). I was thinking about this quote and it seems to imply man has some control of his or own life and this pertains to the story because Eric seems to not have so much control over his life. Eric constantly lives in fear of the conceptual shark. I cannot believe that Eric has been alive for a year and four months. It seems only days, but I do agree the story would have been quite boring if it talked about each one of those days. The Light Bulb Fragment (Part 2) was so sad. I certainly did not expect Clio to have cancer. I predict that this is not why she died but Hall tells us this to throw us off. In this section of the reading, we find out even more how opposite but compatible Clio and Eric were. Yes I did read the section from "The Origin of Species." I regret reading it and it was a waste of my precious reading time.
What I find about this book is Hall brings the reader closer to Eric by incorporating disruptive passages and illustrations that stop the flow of the novel. He is showing the reader what Eric is going through and as the reader we are being attacked by the Ludovician. This "active reading" reminds me a lot of Calvino's book.
I was really interested in the part where Eric is at the hotel and he transitions from Eric to Mark, back to Eric again. It's written so well. I pictured him there, in his room with Ian, and seeing Mark melt away off his skin almost and back into Eric. It was my favorite part of this reading.
The relationship between Clio and Eric is almost unreal. It isn't a fairy tale relationship, which I love. It's authentic and it isn't forced. Everything between them flows naturally and it's obvious that they balance each other out. It's unreal, but it's also extremely real. To me, what Clio and Eric had (or still have in his heart and mind) is what true love is meant to be. It isn't all good times, but no matter what the connection they have is there. The other thing about it that is awesome is that they don't have to be lovey-dovey to show their emotions. They show it in their own ways. They've made their relationship theirs. I still find it sad as I read knowing that she's gone and knowing that eventually Eric is going to face complete heart break.
Finally we see a fishy in the text lol woot woot..I love the words that Steven hall uses to describe a scene. i can clearly picture the intensity of the river. " a river gone gigantic and deformed and crazy, banks burst and out on a greedy, rolling brown rampage. The size and force overloaded me, made me sick and dizzy." (pg.98) its soooo good. I feel bad for eric because you can see how he is exhausted of "running" from this ludovician yet he cant escape it unless it eats him whole. The fact that he changed his name to MArk Richardson was really creepy cuz i mean it shows clearly taht having your memory lost or taken away you can clearly pass as somebody elese and you not even notice it. For all that we know Eric Sanderson can be a fake person in this book and we could of easily been fooled the same way that he has but who knows sucks to have your memory gone bye bye. :( Im so excited he is now on a quest yayyyyy action lol..I love the description he gives when eric is with clio and they talk abut the deep blue sea and how its so dark and how he is afraid of it...to good to good.ahhhhhhh JAWS
I really loved the diagrams of the evolution of the conceptual fish. The way it progresses from a few letters, to a cell, to a shark and then to insect was really interesting. Also the progression in the complexity of the text making up the animals was a very careful and beautiful detail. The texts actually relate to the things they are making up. The fact that Call would even have such a detailed map in his head is a nice element that helps to bring the story more depth. The ideas about conceptual fish and conceptual evolution make the story unreal and the specific details help to ground the story.
The mask of Mark Richardson is a really cool way to throw off the conceptual shark. The fact that he has become so good at it seems to speak to Eric as a person. He is completely able to let go of who he is and to slip into another person. This fact helps to underline how much of a shell Eric is. He doesn't have any human connection to anyone from his past and is just adrift in the world.
I absolutely love the way Call describes the water though out the chapter. He makes it into a mindless living thing. Mindless because it has no purpose it just exists and living because it seems ignore its purposelessness to impact the world. It almost seems to be a metaphor for Eric in that sense. Eric is just going through the motions. He feels nothing but fatigue from his "new" life. He, like the water, is just going through the motions. He is existing but he has no purpose or desire.
By finding out that Clio has cancer brings a new variable into the equation of her death. We don't know if she died of cancer or if she was attacked by a shark as we have probably all assumed. If Clio died a slow death Eric may have suffered a mental break from her loss and that could have attracted the conceptual fish but this is just conjecture.
I find it amazing how well the Call is able to describe and show us the relationship between Clio and Eric. He shows how they joke and how comfortable they are with each other, while also showing how they simply fit together. Each one is able to handle the other's "odd" moments. This relationship and the fact that Clio is such an amusing character makes it all the more depressing that she is already dead. Reading the parts with her, gives a sort of bittersweet humor to the book.
I absolutely LOVE the way that Steven Hall has created this book. I am so entertained by all the illustrations, even though some of them I don't really get... It's definitely hard on the eyes trying to read the ones with repetitive words in the form of two sharks. Steven Hall also does an incredible job at describing things. I feel like I am actually immersed in this book, which is a first for a while. I find it crazy how it has already been over a year since Eric woke up from his eleventh recurrence. It feels like time has flown by since we had just found out about his "disorder." I LOVE how "Fight Club" is mentioned. I got really excited when I read that because that is one of my favorite movies. I like how pop culture is mentioned in this book, like with Alice in Wonderland. I thought it was really cute how Clio is the only one who knows how to deal with Eric's panic attacks. Ah, I wish she were still alive! They seem like such an adorable pair! I am definitely getting more entertained by this book as it goes!
I loved how the biological aspect of the conceptual fish was built upon at the beginning of this section. Here the major theory that is the basis of the plot-that life can exist almost anywhere, given a chance- is elaborated upon, and we even see a version of The Origin of Species, altered in a very postmodern way. This section ends in a very creepy way. It seems to me like the museum is a sort of representation of Eric's mind, and the cases hold the old dilapidated remains of his memories. One particular memory, not deteriorated like the rest, is represented in a very interesting way, as an exhibit in a museum. This adds several more degrees of separation between Eric and the memory, and the reader and this memory. We'll see what we learn about it later, if anything.
This third reading was interesting at the beginning because of the different pictures. I liked that the nucleus containing the biological information is represented by the alphabet and the fossil fish reconstruction is the shark and the various body parts are represented by the word. The virus mosquito actually looks like a virus because of the input words that make the picture. I still don't understand what the references to Alice in. Wonderland mean but its cool, although it might not even mean anything. I don't think that I like Erics attitude when he feels like giving up or considers suicide. He should fight the conceptual shark. I like how some of his writing sounds poetic and flows well, after it mentions hat a year and 4 months have passed. I didn't know what the reference to Don Quijote was but when we discussed it in class, I thought it was cool. References to water keep coming up, and every time this comes up, the shark shows up in search for Eric. The place where they talk about the 3 a.m.-5 a.m. time, it reminded me of the scary movie Insidious. We also find out that Clio is dead and is all in Erics head. The Jaws reference was perfect when it was given. I am still confused about the whole unspace thing, but the abandoned hospital is perfect for this. I dislike Mr. Nobody, but I don’t know why. He gives me the creeps.
18 comments:
I found it interesting that Eric's quest was summarized with pictures and descriptions in pages 93-97. It might seem like a cop-out or way to gloss over what exactly Eric did, but I thought the section served to enhance the surrealism of the story. I especially liked the bit about the computer virus trapped in amber.
The flashback (or translation of The Light Bulb Fragment, as it were) gave some more insight into Eric's relationship with Clio, and I find their interactions quite entertaining. Most of this section was Eric musing, and it finally got exciting at the end, when he received a package and a mysterious phone call. I suspect the phone call did relate to unspace, but who knows. I'm not sure what to make of the recurrence of "plant" in the copy of The Origin of Species, perhaps it's showing how little Eric understands of the text, or maybe it's a really strange version of the book, I'm not sure. The last two pages were compelling; Eric seems to have let the shark into the shark cage, and who the hell is "C xx"? We'll see I suppose.
This section seemed a lot like the first reading with Eric sort of meandering around a confined space with mainly his thoughts, and Ian, to keep him company. I like how Hall seems to combine the stereotypical stream-of-consciousness writing technique with an of the ordinary quasi magical realism meets subtle metafiction. What I’ve noticed thus far about Raw Shark Texts is that it is essentially a combination of all of the traits seen in other writings of the post-modern genre all fitted into one 450-page novel.
In terms of the plot, the author has skipped a significant amount of time. Though I understand the need for this, (it would probably take me even longer to decipher as much of the Light Bulb fragment as Eric has using that confusing QWERTY code) it seems that we’re missing a lot of growth and development that Eric has gone through just within the turn of a page. Eric seems to be pretty experienced in dealing with the Ludivician yet it is very difficult to imagine how this change could occur without seeing Eric experience any of this first hand, besides his first and only encounter with the conceptual shark. Again, I feel that gave us too much information at one time, which ties into Eric developing as a character.
Despite this qualm, I do enjoy the journal readings that pop up now and then especially the one in this section. To me, this is where I see Eric developing the most as a character and gaining ground with a newly formed relationship to a love he never knew. The whole story outside these moments in the past is getting way too jumbled and boring with Eric locked in place once more.
I really enjoyed this reading more so then the last. I'm not sure why, but I think because it was more of what Eric was doing. I liked the beginning pages a lot. I liked the pictures made from words with the description underneath were cool. And especially how most of the writing talked about Eric in some way or another. I thought the fact that the there was a huge rain storm was kind of ironic because he debated returning home and telling Dr. Randle or a trained md. On page 99, the line "Its is something and it's something that's warm and that I still have," talking about Ian was sad. I feel bad for Eric. He lost this person who he can't remember from his own memory and has to learn about her through past writings. I did like the line about how Clio and his jokes survive us, because in a way, he is lost forever too, not just her. One part I was confused on was when he introduced himself as Mark. I liked reading more about Clio and Eric. It interests me the way he is different from "The First Eric" and all the other versions. I also like the descriptions in the parts about Clio. They're a little different from the rest of the book so it's a nice switch.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this section.
I love that Hall brings science + technology together with writing. In the previous sections, it was more technology – circuits and tv’s and electricity and computers. At the beginning of this section, he deals with biology – the single-celled organisms, the nucleus of the cell, the fossil-words. In the nucleus, the DNA was letters. Maybe just like DNA makes up cells which make up people in the world, in writing, letters make up words which make up sentences and stories. The mosquito in amber and the word-fossil fish were really cool – concept mixed with reality and representation.
When Eric gets drenched in the rain, it reminded of Alice in Wonderland when she gets swept up in her tears. Actually, every time he is near water, something traumatic seems to happen. He is scared of water even before knowing about the Ludovician. I really enjoy Hall’s descriptions of people. He seems to be able to describe someone and explain their mannerisms or exact actions in a really wonderful way. He mentions how Aunty Ruth seems to be “the kind of woman who would spit on a hanky and rub it very hard on the side of your mouth” (pg 102). He also describes the way Clio tucks her hands under her knees beautifully on pg 119.
On pg 101, Hall again discusses technology, but also the nature of death. Just as he mentioned before that humans have no cells from seven years before, here people leave behind part of themselves even after they’re gone – in energy? In papers and documents? In memory? In “the text of a memory” (pg 108)? This section also continued to emphasize the importance of communication (kind of like in “Crying of Lot 49”?).
Finally, the dream on pg. 129 made me question whether it was actually a dream. Maybe his dreams are actually his memories? Dreams and memories are both pretty conceptual, and, like I mentioned in a previous post, maybe dreams and memories and the Ludovician all come from the same conceptual place.
In this reading, Steven Hall begins to flesh out this un-world he's created. Like in a fantasy or sci-fi novel, he's starting to give us the rules. He's giving us the origins of the conceptual fish, and glimpses of the logic behind Fidorous' work (the thing is, it actually makes sense.)
I also appreciated the passage of time--instead of the 'newborn' Eric of Part One, we now have the Eric who has trained and lived in the world for a while. He's memorized his Ryan Mitchell Mantra. Now that that's out of the way, he/we can move forward in pursuit of the truth.
In some irrational way, the conceptual shark is actually terrifying. Maybe it's because I only read this book late at night, or maybe it's because the invasion of our mind leaves us vulnerable in a very different way. This book really shares some things with House of Leaves, mainly, both stories are a bad idea to read late at night. With their postmodern structures, they show you new things to be scared of, things you had never imagined before.
Hall's description of the rain and the flood on pages 98--99 was tangible and overwhelming. Really good stuff. He's drawn out the suspense with the change of location and introduction of new characters. Because we're expecting something awful to happen, everything gains this weird depth. The hotel, the owners, the other guests, the flooded countryside--it all has this underlying strangeness. We know the shark is out there somewhere.
In this chapter I hated pages 126 and 127 I tried to read the information from it like a regular book but I kept losing track on which repeated word I was on. I think I kept rereading a few lines of this page because of the many plants. I looked at the plants and think that it might create a picture or it just wants you to get lost in the information. I really liked how Ian would stare at others and how he would glare at them and with that expression Eric could tell what was going on in his head. I also found it intresting that in these pages we find out that Clio had cancer instead of when we were first introduced to her. I really liked the dream he has on page 129 and were he reads a card from Clio. I think that this may somehow be realted to the accident that happened. I really liked this cahpter but hated the plant pages and was confused with the begining pages as well with what the imofmation could mean to Eric.
I thought it was kind of cool how Steven Hall summed up Eric's journey up to this point but at the same time I would have liked to read about the journey. I loved the description of the river especially when it said "the river was here and reaching and grabbing and actually pulling at my feet and calves with a beautiful, mindless ache" (pg. 98). It reminded me of The Light Bulb Fragment when he said just knowing Clio was in the world made him ache. I thought it was interesting that the really nice woman that runs the hotel had red hair and cheeks. It made me think of the Red Queen.
I loved the line on page 101 "It's hurtful and wonderful how our jokes survive us." It's so weird to think that when we're gone people will still laugh about funny things we did or said.
I can't believe that Eric has been able to decode half of The Light Bulb Fragment. I don't think I would have been able to even get a sentence.
I was so annoyed that as soon as his cell phone ringed we went back to The Light Bulb Fragment. I'd been waiting to read more about Clio and Eric but at that moment I wanted to read about who was calling him not about Clio and Eric. There's some foreshadowing of the shark "mainly, I'm expecting something massive to come rushing out the second I look away and bite my legs off" (pg. 113).
I like that Clio is kind of like unspace. Her kindness is something most of their friends didn't know about but it was there if you were looking for it "a sort of on-show secret" (pg. 115). You don't think about unspace but it's there if you look for it.
I loved all the things we learned about Clio and Eric during the second part of The Light Bulb Fragment, like Clio having cancer or that they now shared money.
It was so sad that there was so much anticipation about who was calling Eric and then basically no one was there. The Darwin thing was so annoying! I read the whole thing, that was pointless, and then all the "plants" didn't make a picture! It was a sad day.
I liked the image of the mosquito and attempting to read and understand the letters. There are some beautiful descriptions in this chapter but they are often ruined by Eric’s condition. After discussing the chapter with the class, I have been creating different theories and explanations about the book. Maybe Eric was killed by a shark while with Clio and is now in Limbo? Perhaps he needs to do certain things in order to get past this current state of consciousness. The conceptual shark is there because that is the way he died. This could be totally wrong but this book allows for this kind of creative thinking.
Something has occurred to me during this particular chapter. We have encountered the possibility that Eric could not really be Eric, that he's had Eric's identity thrust upon him. Maybe Eric is an identity that the main character tried pretending to be in order to ward off the shark, and one time after having his memory consumed, had thought that he really was Eric Sanderson, and fully and entirely became him. What makes this whole situation even more ambiguous is how no one that Eric interacts with can really prove or disprove his personal validity. That brings up something else as well. Where are Erics friends and family? Where is Clio? Surely everyone he had known before the first Eric Sanderson set loose the shark? Has he never had anyone in his life who was willing to stick with him through his ordeal? If not, then why did they not put him in a mental hospital? Has Erics identity been so corrupted and changed that those who care about him are unable to find him? If none of this applies, another thought comes to mind. It seems that everything in this book is taking form of a concept. The shark, Erics identity, and the methods with which he must protect himself are all to various degrees ideas and constructions. Is it possible that the idea of unspace can come into play in the aspect that Eric himself is a concept born out of a conceptual mind, an idea that became so tangible and complete that it gained sentience, and exists within the opposite of nothing that isn't something? As far as actual content in the chapter, I really enjoyed the examples of the biology and genetic makeup of conceptual organisms, it was very well thought out, especially how the conceptual mosquito was a computer virus. Responding to your prompt of whether or not Eric has struggled against the shark, he's always struggling against the shark. It seems at this point that if he lets down his guard for an instant, the shark at least ends up a room away from him. Towards the end of the chapter when Eric gets the letter directing him to meet Mr. Nobody at the hospital, I began wondering if Mr. Nobody could possibly be a concept of Erics alternate self, or a concept of one of his past identities.
Sorry, this last post is mine, but for some reason the site linked me to my own blogger profile.
This is Asher, sorry yet again, I don't know if the site will keep doing this or not.
The reading starts off with the weird pictures and descriptions that I can find really no meaning or importance in. Then the reading continues with Eric staying at a hotel. One of my favorite lines of the reading is "A man lives so many different lengths of time. A man is so many different lengths of time,"(102). I was thinking about this quote and it seems to imply man has some control of his or own life and this pertains to the story because Eric seems to not have so much control over his life. Eric constantly lives in fear of the conceptual shark.
I cannot believe that Eric has been alive for a year and four months. It seems only days, but I do agree the story would have been quite boring if it talked about each one of those days.
The Light Bulb Fragment (Part 2) was so sad. I certainly did not expect Clio to have cancer. I predict that this is not why she died but Hall tells us this to throw us off. In this section of the reading, we find out even more how opposite but compatible Clio and Eric were.
Yes I did read the section from "The Origin of Species." I regret reading it and it was a waste of my precious reading time.
What I find about this book is Hall brings the reader closer to Eric by incorporating disruptive passages and illustrations that stop the flow of the novel. He is showing the reader what Eric is going through and as the reader we are being attacked by the Ludovician. This "active reading" reminds me a lot of Calvino's book.
I was really interested in the part where Eric is at the hotel and he transitions from Eric to Mark, back to Eric again. It's written so well. I pictured him there, in his room with Ian, and seeing Mark melt away off his skin almost and back into Eric. It was my favorite part of this reading.
The relationship between Clio and Eric is almost unreal. It isn't a fairy tale relationship, which I love. It's authentic and it isn't forced. Everything between them flows naturally and it's obvious that they balance each other out. It's unreal, but it's also extremely real. To me, what Clio and Eric had (or still have in his heart and mind) is what true love is meant to be. It isn't all good times, but no matter what the connection they have is there. The other thing about it that is awesome is that they don't have to be lovey-dovey to show their emotions. They show it in their own ways. They've made their relationship theirs. I still find it sad as I read knowing that she's gone and knowing that eventually Eric is going to face complete heart break.
Finally we see a fishy in the text lol woot woot..I love the words that Steven hall uses to describe a scene. i can clearly picture the intensity of the river. " a river gone gigantic and deformed and crazy, banks burst and out on a greedy, rolling brown rampage. The size and force overloaded me, made me sick and dizzy." (pg.98) its soooo good. I feel bad for eric because you can see how he is exhausted of "running" from this ludovician yet he cant escape it unless it eats him whole. The fact that he changed his name to MArk Richardson was really creepy cuz i mean it shows clearly taht having your memory lost or taken away you can clearly pass as somebody elese and you not even notice it. For all that we know Eric Sanderson can be a fake person in this book and we could of easily been fooled the same way that he has but who knows sucks to have your memory gone bye bye. :( Im so excited he is now on a quest yayyyyy action lol..I love the description he gives when eric is with clio and they talk abut the deep blue sea and how its so dark and how he is afraid of it...to good to good.ahhhhhhh JAWS
I really loved the diagrams of the evolution of the conceptual fish. The way it progresses from a few letters, to a cell, to a shark and then to insect was really interesting. Also the progression in the complexity of the text making up the animals was a very careful and beautiful detail. The texts actually relate to the things they are making up. The fact that Call would even have such a detailed map in his head is a nice element that helps to bring the story more depth. The ideas about conceptual fish and conceptual evolution make the story unreal and the specific details help to ground the story.
The mask of Mark Richardson is a really cool way to throw off the conceptual shark. The fact that he has become so good at it seems to speak to Eric as a person. He is completely able to let go of who he is and to slip into another person. This fact helps to underline how much of a shell Eric is. He doesn't have any human connection to anyone from his past and is just adrift in the world.
I absolutely love the way Call describes the water though out the chapter. He makes it into a mindless living thing. Mindless because it has no purpose it just exists and living because it seems ignore its purposelessness to impact the world. It almost seems to be a metaphor for Eric in that sense. Eric is just going through the motions. He feels nothing but fatigue from his "new" life. He, like the water, is just going through the motions. He is existing but he has no purpose or desire.
By finding out that Clio has cancer brings a new variable into the equation of her death. We don't know if she died of cancer or if she was attacked by a shark as we have probably all assumed. If Clio died a slow death Eric may have suffered a mental break from her loss and that could have attracted the conceptual fish but this is just conjecture.
I find it amazing how well the Call is able to describe and show us the relationship between Clio and Eric. He shows how they joke and how comfortable they are with each other, while also showing how they simply fit together. Each one is able to handle the other's "odd" moments. This relationship and the fact that Clio is such an amusing character makes it all the more depressing that she is already dead. Reading the parts with her, gives a sort of bittersweet humor to the book.
I absolutely LOVE the way that Steven Hall has created this book. I am so entertained by all the illustrations, even though some of them I don't really get... It's definitely hard on the eyes trying to read the ones with repetitive words in the form of two sharks. Steven Hall also does an incredible job at describing things. I feel like I am actually immersed in this book, which is a first for a while. I find it crazy how it has already been over a year since Eric woke up from his eleventh recurrence. It feels like time has flown by since we had just found out about his "disorder." I LOVE how "Fight Club" is mentioned. I got really excited when I read that because that is one of my favorite movies. I like how pop culture is mentioned in this book, like with Alice in Wonderland. I thought it was really cute how Clio is the only one who knows how to deal with Eric's panic attacks. Ah, I wish she were still alive! They seem like such an adorable pair! I am definitely getting more entertained by this book as it goes!
I loved how the biological aspect of the conceptual fish was built upon at the beginning of this section. Here the major theory that is the basis of the plot-that life can exist almost anywhere, given a chance- is elaborated upon, and we even see a version of The Origin of Species, altered in a very postmodern way. This section ends in a very creepy way. It seems to me like the museum is a sort of representation of Eric's mind, and the cases hold the old dilapidated remains of his memories. One particular memory, not deteriorated like the rest, is represented in a very interesting way, as an exhibit in a museum. This adds several more degrees of separation between Eric and the memory, and the reader and this memory. We'll see what we learn about it later, if anything.
This third reading was interesting at the beginning because of the different pictures. I liked that the nucleus containing the biological information is represented by the alphabet and the fossil fish reconstruction is the shark and the various body parts are represented by the word. The virus mosquito actually looks like a virus because of the input words that make the picture. I still don't understand what the references to Alice in.
Wonderland mean but its cool, although it might not even mean anything. I don't think that I like Erics attitude when he feels like giving up or considers suicide. He should fight the conceptual shark. I like how some of his writing sounds poetic and flows well, after it mentions hat a year and 4 months have passed. I didn't know what the reference to Don Quijote was but when we discussed it in class, I thought it was cool. References to water keep coming up, and every time this comes up, the shark shows up in search for Eric. The place where they talk about the 3 a.m.-5 a.m. time, it reminded me of the scary movie Insidious. We also find out that Clio is dead and is all in Erics head. The Jaws reference was perfect when it was given. I am still confused about the whole unspace thing, but the abandoned hospital is perfect for this. I dislike Mr. Nobody, but I don’t know why. He gives me the creeps.
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