It was exactly like the ending of Jaws. Dr. Fidorous dies like the captin of the movie dying. Scout is the one to go into the shark cage and survives the attack of Ludovician. Eric is the last one on the boat and manages to kill the shark. What I saw that was completely out of character was Ian. He usually has this smug expression on his face like he knows everything but in this chapter he is completely terrified. Something in this chapter that I found intresting was when Scout is telling Eric that it was not his fault, it was an accident and that there was nothing he could do. I felt that his held a double meaning both for what happened to Fidorous and what happened to Clio. What I thought was sweet of this moment was that Eric realizes that Scot is Clio an immidately starts telling her that he loved her and always has loved her. What I thought was strange in the end was that Eric finds happiness in this conceptual world where everything is made of concepts while in the real world he dies. I just really liked that Eric gets to live happily without ludovican interfering in his life with Scout and Ian.
The ending was definitely not what I expected, but I loved it. I noticed the recursion of the line "the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view." Not sure what this is supposed to mean, has he somehow changed places with the Fist Eric Sanderson? Or been transported into a parallel world? At first I wasn't sure what the significance of the line was, but began to believe everything was happening inside Eric's head, especially when Eric describes his phone as making a "burr burr, bur burr." noise on page 412, the same one made by the shark.
I think pages 408-409 were done very well, Hall just lists the things Eric sees, giving the section a fragmented and climactic feeling - which I found very affecting.
On 405, Eric mentions that he knows some things have to happen. I desperately wants Scout to stay out of the shark cage but believes she must get into for some reason. This made me doubt the real-ness of the situation. What universe are they in exactly?
I was pretty convinced from the beginning of the section that Scout and Clio were one in the same. On 392 Eric describes a sense of familiarity toward Scout, and later on 401, 410, and 422 I noticed allusions to Clio when Eric sees Scout. One page 424 Eric finally realizes what the something is that was bothering him; I believe the realization that he is actually dead.
Especially after reading the newspaper snippet on 426, I believe Eric has been in limbo ever since his apparent death in Manchester. I think he was only able to go to heaven, or whatever awaits him after death, after he gave up trying to be something he wasn't. The first Eric Sanderson said on page 414: "I can't stand being me anymore" he seems to have been so shaken by Clio's death that he didn't know who he was anymore. Clio was Eric's life, and he just couldn't accept her being gone. He could finally be with her in death, after he really learned who he was, and became The First Eric Sanderson.
Pg 283- end The end of the book! I loved the barrels of phone books etc. weighing down the shark – how all the stories and histories that go along with phone numbers are really powerful. The expression “the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view” was really cool. This really ties into the Borges story of mirrors and alternate universes that switch places. When Eric sees the island, I thought that it was Clio’s island- Naxos! Maybe because of the lightbulb fragment, the new Eric has only this tangible memory of the old Eric – a physical island in a sea of concepts? The sea is Eric’s memory, the place where the Ludovician lives and thrives. The only place the shark cannot go is the memory bridged from the first Eric to the second – the island. On pg 398, Fidorous says, “The truth is a complex mechanism” – again bringing machines into concepts. Plus, throughout this book, we don’t know what is true or how reliable memories are and how important memory is in our conception of reality. Pg 413 had a really cool idea about the difference between a real person and stories. Our memory tells us a story – it remembers the physical people and story, but not the CONCEPTUAL people and places, where they are REAL people, not just ones that look like them. The fact that Clio drowned is even sadder when you think that Eric lost her to the sea twice – once when she actually drowned and once to the shark. The end of the book is like the beginning of the book with Clio! It is as if Eric has gone back to an alternate universe… Maybe in one where he went scuba diving with Clio (now Scout) and they both survived??
excuse my french but what the fuck is up with the ending....tht was a crap ending in my opinion. yeah it was a happy ending all that good stuff but i was hoping there was a nasty twist in the story . by far this has been a really great book i really enjoyed it, one of the few books ive read and actually enjoyed. The scene where the boat starts sinking i could clearly picture it like in the more recent Jaws movies. I am going to admit i did begin to cry when Eric decided to let IAN go and the cat just meowed ahhhhh it broke my heart, it was so touchy. Fortunetly, he did recover IAN at the end and he also recovered Scout. So Eric did have what seems to be the two loves of his lives. It was about time that Scout was CLIO YAYYYYYY.....Well Over all im glad that eric died in a happy way ...I give this book 5 stars.
O my gosh! This ending reminded me so much of the ending of Lost. If Eric did actually die then it's really like Lost because in Lost they all created this world where they could find each other again after they died and that's exactly what Clio and Eric did. If he did die I think the moment he died was on page 306 "something changed. The physical me vanished". Or you can think Eric and survived he did succeed in preserving Clio and this is how he found her again. The body they thought was Eric was actually Fidorous's. Or Eric does have Fugue and all of this is in his head and he thinks he found Clio again but really he didn't and is just living in Greece all by himself.
The saddest part of the whole book was when Eric sent Ian off in the little ct carrier/boat. I was on the verge of tears when he described how he put Ian in the boat. "Ian looked up at me, trembling. His big face pleaded with me to pick him up again, but he didn't move...Ian danced to be lifting out of the little dinghy. I stroked his head and he nuzzled up hard against me...'Good luck,' I whispered and he began to gently drift away" (pg. 416). Saddest thing ever!!!!!! Poor Ian, for him to lose his composure like that he really must have been scared!
I love Eric and Scout's conversation where they talked everything out. I also love that when they woke up in the morning Eric thought it was creepy that Fidorous brought them a blanket but Scout thought it was sweet.
The line that keeps repeating "the vie becomes the reflection, and the reflection,the view" (pg. 402) is really important because that's when Eric's view shifts and he's no longer in unspace but now in the real world. I think.
I love that the Dictaphones become a real shark cage! That's so cool. Poor Scout has to go down into the shark cage! I liked that the process of her going down into the shark cage is like the process of how to get into unspace. "'This is how it goes, it's what happens next'...The post card, the island, Fidorous, Randle, even the Ludocivian. Everything that had happened to me from the moment I woke up on the bedroom floor...was all a part of the same big something, and Scout going down in the cage was part of it too. It had to happen" (pg. 405). Everything has to happen in a certain order and Scout going into the cage is the next step.
I liked the "Wizard of Oz" reference on page 406 "a tired and apologetic old man stepping out from behind his grand curtain".
The encoded section of the Light Bulb Fragment was soooo sad! I felt so bad for Eric. As soon as Eric said "Clio the A-level student with her army shop clothes and chin length hair" (pg. 410) I knew Scout and Clio were one in the same. It made me think that Eric really did have fugue when he said "I can't stand being me anymore" (pg. 414). So maybe Eric blocked out of all of his previous memories so he didn't have to be himself anymore and he made up this whole new reality. So maybe the letters from the first Eric Sanderson were just a figment of his imagination.
I loved when the shark exploded! That was so cool!
The title of the last section does make me think he died though because it was called "Just Like Heaven" (pg. 420). That postcard thing was so weird! It was like teleporting in a postcard.
I loved when he finally found out that Scout was Clio! It was amazing. They found Ian too! I'm glad they were all okay.
The newspaper article threw me for a loop. That's what really made me think of Lost. But then there's a post card with the line from Casa Blanca and only Eric knew about that conversation so if Eric's dead who sent it? There are so many ways this book could go!
I love this book so much! I'm so glad this the book I end my High School career on.
As Brenda also said, the ending of this book is almost exactly like Jaws, he has the cage for Scout to escape out of when the shark attacks, and Fidorous being eaten by the shark. The death of the conceptual shark was slightly different from the movie but the idea was the same. Shark is blown up in both scenarios. I thought this was an interesting allusion to make. I am unsure as to what purpose it serves. It may be as simple as it just being an allusion to a similar circumstance but it feels like there should be more substance to it.
The way Scout and Eric get back together felt real and very convenient. It makes us forgive Scout because Eric does and it helps to make us more nervous when she gets into the cage with the shark. This scene as I said before is almost exactly like what happens in Jaws, and like in Jaws I was so glad that Scout survives.
I am so relieved that we finally find out what happened to Clio. I was worried that Clio had died from a recurrence of cancer and that Eric had a mental break as a result. The fact that she died suddenly makes the pain that Eric feels even more severe because there was no preparing for it. He most likely goes looking for the shark because he feels responsible or has a strong case of survivor's guilt. He most likely feels guilty because Clio pressured him to go but he refused. His search for the shark becomes even more clear given this new information. His guilt pushes beyond where he would normally go.
The fact that Scout turns out to be Clio adds a strange ambiguity to the book. If Clio hadn't really died, where had she been all that time? Why does she decide to go after Eric now? When was she infected with part of Ward, or was she infected at all? All these questions make me think that the world Eric enters isn't real. He may be in Limbo or an alternate universe, but he left his old world behind. This also leaves the ending a mystery.
We will never know if Eric really did die when he dropped Clio's pictures into the hole or did die later or did he just enter a different universe? The way that Hall leaves it completely open makes the story a complete mystery but had Hall tried to solve it, it would have weakened the story. By letting the reader chose he keeps his book very post modern and gratifying to the reader because they can assign any meaning they want to it.
“It is over, isn’t it?” Despite my last blog, I definitely did see the connection to Jaws in this reading. A few notable exception were the varying in craziness between Fidorous and the captain of the Orca, their specific deaths and the quickness of the “last stand” from the novel versus the long and drawn out fight sequence in Jaws. I felt that Hall made a really good decision in keeping that scene quick and fast. Along with the writing style and use of incoherent verb phrases and repeated actions, it seemed to add to the paralyzing fear that Eric felt during the last attack, his anxiety and nerves taking over him as he is struck certainly deaf and blind by the supposed death of Scout then the actual death of Fidorous. I felt it was also a little less cheesy than the way it played out in Jaws, (the captain’s death was more funny than sad or melancholy). Though we can’t tell for sure what actually happened to make the Ludovician “explode” the way it did, we can only assume that by swallowing the computer linked to Mycroft Ward, this tactic produced the same effect, as the spear would have otherwise.
The remaining scenes are indicative of the “calming of the storm” or final resolution where we discover the real truths about all of the questions that the book proposed. Is Scout really Clio? She and Eric both share essentially the same bond that he and Scout did before her scuba diving accident so as far as they’re concerned, I believe that Eric and Clio have been reunited in a way. By Scout telling Eric “she’s always loved him” we can kind of assume that she’s definitely had the same feelings of a past love that he’s been experiencing since they first met. As Scout had said previously, “things were meant to be this way” meaning that Eric and Clio were meant to with each other.
It is also important to note that this ending is also a “coming of age” type of deal. Much like what we saw in Number 9 Dream, Eric’s quest really wasn’t about ridding his life of the Ludovician; it was more about him coming to terms with Clio’s death. We really haven’t seen much of the blame put in Eric until the last Light Bulb Fragment; there are many signs that lead to this realization. It may just be that this Eric Sanderson truly forgot about all of the blame that he put on himself for the accident. Though as a new mind, he is able to respond with acceptance rather than built up anger and frustration. I find it interesting to point out that as soon as makes the statement, “She’s dead and I’m so, so sick of surviving” (top of 422), Scout reappears from the ocean. In this way, Eric is being rewarded for his acceptance of Clio’s death with Scout’s life.
Lastly, I feel the whole newspaper clipping and letter to Randle are not to be treated so literally as they seem to be by most. For me, Eric’s adventure is his journey into an entirely strange and unusual world very different from our own world, (the real world). What these notes seem to suggest is that this is how Eric’s journey is seen by the real world. His “death” is his first and last venture into the “conceptual” world. This world, as we have seen, is filled with many outrageous things such as conceptual fish, reanimated conceptual corpses, meme viruses, conceptual shark boats floating on the sea of human thought and secret committees who look and take after everything within this world such us the Un-Space exploration committee and the Shotai-Mu. His death in the real world is not only his literal movement into this world but it is also his transformation into the new Eric Sanderson. This is his life now and there truly is no going back.
I felt a little bit satisfied with the ending of the story. I felt it was creative of Hall to recreate Jaws but at the same time I felt I wanted him to do something totally new. I did not know what to make of the ending until we talked about it in class. I really liked Teagan’s idea along with Naomi’s idea that it was all in his head. This would make sense of the picture. The picture could be “reality” and he leaves reality to live “in his head” with Clio aka Scout. I liked Hall’s description of the action and especially watching Jaws it was really easy to imagine and vision. The chapter called the Light Bulb Fragment Part 3 has the word everything written underneath it and that describes the chapter. I was surprised to find out that Clio had died scuba diving. I also loved the reality of their relationship. It brought the book “back down to Earth” and made me feel even more badly for Eric for some reason. I believe a relationship with faults proves to be stronger than a “perfect one.” When I first read the news article I took the article as being more metaphorical. I thought it was Hall’s way of reassuring us readers that Eric is okay and everything will be fine. I didn’t think an actual body was found but it could have been. What I have enjoyed about post-modern literature is how the book seems to be written by the reader just as much as it is written by the author. The reader gets to make sense of what he or she read and “fill in the gaps.” I kind of felt the unveiling of Scout as Clio was anticlimactic because I felt there was hints all along and I expected it. I think it would have been more shocking if she was not but I am definitely happy that she is Clio.
My favorite line in the last reading is “The view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view.” I believe Eric is in limbo this entire time and being with Clio scuba diving is what allows him to move on. He has failed to get past this limbo 10/11 times already and he doesn’t remember anything because he has died. I believe in this explanation because I don’t think all of these fantasies could be real. All of the conceptual ideas are parts of his memories and the shark, being the antagonist, is his last and greatest fear before his death, seeing as Clio died while at sea. This book was different and exhilarating.
The ending of the book as far as the shark scene goes was exactly like the movie Jaws. Especially when Scout gets out of the cage and Hall leaves us thinking that she died. But no, she didn't. She comes up and sees Eric. Typical love story, but it worked any way. I actually really liked it because I felt that Scout was/is the reason that Eric has come as far as he has. Without Scout, Eric would be nothing. He would have gone on a different route and who knows if he would have ever made it to Trey Fidorous.
The interaction between Scout and Eric where he realizes that Scout is Clio is quite brilliant. It slowly falls into place. Techincally, Hall did it over the course of the whole book. He planted the idea in our minds with the smiley face tattooed on the bottom of her foot, but she slowly progressed towards being more and more like Clio throughout the book. Then when she tells Eric that she loves him, that she always loved him and he replied with saying, "I enjoy spending time with you too," that's when it's set in stone. Hall writes it in a way that somebody could read over it since he only mentioned that line once or twice, in the beginning of the book. It's a small line, but it means everything to both Eric and Scout. Hall executed the scene quite well.
As for the ending goes and Eric being dead, I truly think that there is no better way for the book to end. Had the book ended without the news article, there would have been too many ways for the reader to picture the ended. Other than the love story in the storyline, there was nothing picture perfect about the book, so why would Hall end it with a picture perfect ending of Scout and Eric living happily together? Him being dead is unexpected, but once you read it and take it all in, it makes sense. Hall is a genuis with bringing in the foundation site where he was found, which ties into the hole where he threw the pictures Clio took. At least that's a possibility, it may not be right, but it's a possibility. There are many ways to interpret the ending of The Raw Shark Texts, but it was the right ending, in my mind at least.
I was kind of relieved that the book was over when I finished. Although I did enjoy it, I was kind of ready for it to be finished so there would be no more questioning going on, except Steven Hall definitely left us questioning about Eric. I don’t understand where he is or what he is doing. I thought that he was dead, but apparently not? I’m not too sure. I am glad though that the lightbulb fragment was decoded finally. It was a sad ending, at least in my opinion. I wanted Scout to transform into Clio, and have Eric and Clio live happily ever after. It was a pretty dark book I would say. Normally I like dark books, but this was definitely dark in a different way. (Maybe in a postmodern way?) I actually feel really bad for Eric, and I feel like he is definitely mentally disturbed. Even though he claims that he is happy and well, for some reason I don’t believe that entirely. Who knows.
It was obvious what was going to happen in this last part because it is the same as the part of Jaws we watched. While I liked being able to see the similarities between the book and the movie while I read, knowing how it was going to end before I finished reading ruined the ending. Even though I knew Fidorus was probably going to die, I was sad when he did. I really liked his character.
I honestly did not like the very end of the book. It was way too "And they lived happily ever after." I would have never guessed the book would end like it did. I think it was a cop out on the author's part. After all the amazing intrigue of the novel, the ending doesn't do the storyline justice. I saw this coming, actually! I knew from the first time Scout burst on the scene on her little motorcycle that the story might be ruined. I wouldn't have sold out the brilliant story line like Steven Hall did. However, over all, the book was awesome. What a great way to wrap up 12 years of assigned school novels! Wow, this is the last novel of my High School carrier. Now on to College literature! : )
Oh no! The End! is right. While the ending was very well done, as soon as I finished I was disappointed. I really didn't want it to end. Alright, here is my explanation of the end. The boat is called the Orpheus, right? Right. From Wikipedia: The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (also known as Agriope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and she suffered a fatal bite on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such sad and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety, as soon as he reached the upper world, he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever. Get all that? Orpheus went to the depths of the underworld to bring his wife back, only to look back too soon and lose her forever. Eric and Scout/Clio did the same thing. Eric, inspired by the legend of the conceptual shark, attempted to rescue Clio by descending into un-space. In a sense, he succeeded. Clio is alive again, as Scout--how that happened is a whole other blog post. But in the process, Eric lost himself--and so for his final test, where Orpheus was overwhelmed with the memories of love for his wife, Eric's loss of memory allowed him to reach the world of memory he had created, and join Clio once and for all. The view becomes the reflection, and the reflection becomes the view.
I liked this reading because of the action and the fact that this is the end and the truth was revealed. The encoded section on page 410 says “everything” referring to everything being over. I liked the scene where Eric got the guts to confront the shark and fight back without fear. He finally got bravery and courage. I feel respect for him now. I’ve been waiting to see him man up since a long time earlier in the book. When the shark exploded after going against Mycroft Ward began to compare it to “Jaws” and the exploding shark…such a good movie. The come together and in a way cancel each other out. This liberates Eric and Scout to live happily ever after in the “HEAVEN”. I always thought that the shark was the evil concept that would not stop preventing them from leaving “limbo” and go into the “HEAVEN”. I always knew that Scout was Clio, and this reading made it really clear. It’s as if Eric went tot the underworld to rescue Clio and fought his way through limbo and the shark to finally reach “HEAVEN” with his loved Clio. Clio was being erased from his memory due to the conceptual shark that would eat away his memory. After the shark and Mycroft Ward cancel each other out, I think that his memory returns which makes him recognize that Clio and Scout are the same person.
I think it's safe to say that this book was a fitting finish to high school literature classes. The ending was wonderful. I can't help but think in the back of my head that if Jaws had been more like this book then it might have turned out to be a better movie. The emotional tone after Scout disappears and Fidorous is eaten, is so heavy, when Eric is sending Ian off on his little boat to keep him out of danger is almost upsetting. Not to mention the sheer (but predicted) elation at Scout's survival and Ian's subsequent recovery which more than makes up for the massive downer before the explosion. How about that climax come to think? I practically stood up from reading and yelled “Smile you sunova-!” when Eric threw nobody's laptop into the shark's mouth. Now it makes sense to me how that whole matter and antimatter situation with the Ludovician and Mycroft Ward worked. Since the laptop is streaming Mycroft's being, the shark's remaining instinctual feeding was able to ride the data stream back to the source of Mycroft's expansion and utterly obliterate him. I don't know if I'm the only one who hasn't realized this until now, or if I missed something stated in the book, either way, sorry! Something on the subject of Fidorous' death, since the conceptual shark ate him inside this conceptual world, wouldn't that mean that somewhere in the real world his body is still alive but like Eric has had his memories lost? Another thought I had was, since the Ludovician was destroyed in such a violent matter, wouldn't that mean that the memories that it was comprised of could have returned to their proper owners? Is it possible that Eric after emerging from the conceptual ocean with Scout fully regained his memories? One thing that could negate that possibility is that when Mycroft Ward colided the shark, all those memories were destroyed with the two of them. As far as the ending is concerned, I'm going to differ to Amy's opinion that these unspace places were real, in a sort of Neverwhere-esque fashion. I simply don't like the ideas that Eric's journey wasn't actually happening in any sense. The story wouldn't be as good in my humble opinion. So in conclusion, the book was fantastic as was the class. - Asher
17 comments:
It was exactly like the ending of Jaws. Dr. Fidorous dies like the captin of the movie dying. Scout is the one to go into the shark cage and survives the attack of Ludovician. Eric is the last one on the boat and manages to kill the shark. What I saw that was completely out of character was Ian. He usually has this smug expression on his face like he knows everything but in this chapter he is completely terrified. Something in this chapter that I found intresting was when Scout is telling Eric that it was not his fault, it was an accident and that there was nothing he could do. I felt that his held a double meaning both for what happened to Fidorous and what happened to Clio. What I thought was sweet of this moment was that Eric realizes that Scot is Clio an immidately starts telling her that he loved her and always has loved her. What I thought was strange in the end was that Eric finds happiness in this conceptual world where everything is made of concepts while in the real world he dies. I just really liked that Eric gets to live happily without ludovican interfering in his life with Scout and Ian.
The ending was definitely not what I expected, but I loved it. I noticed the recursion of the line "the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view." Not sure what this is supposed to mean, has he somehow changed places with the Fist Eric Sanderson? Or been transported into a parallel world? At first I wasn't sure what the significance of the line was, but began to believe everything was happening inside Eric's head, especially when Eric describes his phone as making a "burr burr, bur burr." noise on page 412, the same one made by the shark.
I think pages 408-409 were done very well, Hall just lists the things Eric sees, giving the section a fragmented and climactic feeling - which I found very affecting.
On 405, Eric mentions that he knows some things have to happen. I desperately wants Scout to stay out of the shark cage but believes she must get into for some reason. This made me doubt the real-ness of the situation. What universe are they in exactly?
I was pretty convinced from the beginning of the section that Scout and Clio were one in the same. On 392 Eric describes a sense of familiarity toward Scout, and later on 401, 410, and 422 I noticed allusions to Clio when Eric sees Scout. One page 424 Eric finally realizes what the something is that was bothering him; I believe the realization that he is actually dead.
Especially after reading the newspaper snippet on 426, I believe Eric has been in limbo ever since his apparent death in Manchester. I think he was only able to go to heaven, or whatever awaits him after death, after he gave up trying to be something he wasn't. The first Eric Sanderson said on page 414: "I can't stand being me anymore" he seems to have been so shaken by Clio's death that he didn't know who he was anymore. Clio was Eric's life, and he just couldn't accept her being gone. He could finally be with her in death, after he really learned who he was, and became The First Eric Sanderson.
there should be one more paragraph break in the 3rd paragprah, sorry it didn't come out right when I pasted it in!
Pg 283- end
The end of the book!
I loved the barrels of phone books etc. weighing down the shark – how all the stories and histories that go along with phone numbers are really powerful.
The expression “the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view” was really cool. This really ties into the Borges story of mirrors and alternate universes that switch places. When Eric sees the island, I thought that it was Clio’s island- Naxos! Maybe because of the lightbulb fragment, the new Eric has only this tangible memory of the old Eric – a physical island in a sea of concepts? The sea is Eric’s memory, the place where the Ludovician lives and thrives. The only place the shark cannot go is the memory bridged from the first Eric to the second – the island.
On pg 398, Fidorous says, “The truth is a complex mechanism” – again bringing machines into concepts. Plus, throughout this book, we don’t know what is true or how reliable memories are and how important memory is in our conception of reality.
Pg 413 had a really cool idea about the difference between a real person and stories. Our memory tells us a story – it remembers the physical people and story, but not the CONCEPTUAL people and places, where they are REAL people, not just ones that look like them.
The fact that Clio drowned is even sadder when you think that Eric lost her to the sea twice – once when she actually drowned and once to the shark.
The end of the book is like the beginning of the book with Clio! It is as if Eric has gone back to an alternate universe… Maybe in one where he went scuba diving with Clio (now Scout) and they both survived??
excuse my french but what the fuck is up with the ending....tht was a crap ending in my opinion. yeah it was a happy ending all that good stuff but i was hoping there was a nasty twist in the story . by far this has been a really great book i really enjoyed it, one of the few books ive read and actually enjoyed. The scene where the boat starts sinking i could clearly picture it like in the more recent Jaws movies. I am going to admit i did begin to cry when Eric decided to let IAN go and the cat just meowed ahhhhh it broke my heart, it was so touchy. Fortunetly, he did recover IAN at the end and he also recovered Scout. So Eric did have what seems to be the two loves of his lives. It was about time that Scout was CLIO YAYYYYYY.....Well Over all im glad that eric died in a happy way ...I give this book 5 stars.
O my gosh! This ending reminded me so much of the ending of Lost. If Eric did actually die then it's really like Lost because in Lost they all created this world where they could find each other again after they died and that's exactly what Clio and Eric did. If he did die I think the moment he died was on page 306 "something changed. The physical me vanished". Or you can think Eric and survived he did succeed in preserving Clio and this is how he found her again. The body they thought was Eric was actually Fidorous's. Or Eric does have Fugue and all of this is in his head and he thinks he found Clio again but really he didn't and is just living in Greece all by himself.
The saddest part of the whole book was when Eric sent Ian off in the little ct carrier/boat. I was on the verge of tears when he described how he put Ian in the boat. "Ian looked up at me, trembling. His big face pleaded with me to pick him up again, but he didn't move...Ian danced to be lifting out of the little dinghy. I stroked his head and he nuzzled up hard against me...'Good luck,' I whispered and he began to gently drift away" (pg. 416). Saddest thing ever!!!!!! Poor Ian, for him to lose his composure like that he really must have been scared!
I love Eric and Scout's conversation where they talked everything out. I also love that when they woke up in the morning Eric thought it was creepy that Fidorous brought them a blanket but Scout thought it was sweet.
The line that keeps repeating "the vie becomes the reflection, and the reflection,the view" (pg. 402) is really important because that's when Eric's view shifts and he's no longer in unspace but now in the real world. I think.
I love that the Dictaphones become a real shark cage! That's so cool. Poor Scout has to go down into the shark cage! I liked that the process of her going down into the shark cage is like the process of how to get into unspace. "'This is how it goes, it's what happens next'...The post card, the island, Fidorous, Randle, even the Ludocivian. Everything that had happened to me from the moment I woke up on the bedroom floor...was all a part of the same big something, and Scout going down in the cage was part of it too. It had to happen" (pg. 405). Everything has to happen in a certain order and Scout going into the cage is the next step.
I liked the "Wizard of Oz" reference on page 406 "a tired and apologetic old man stepping out from behind his grand curtain".
The encoded section of the Light Bulb Fragment was soooo sad! I felt so bad for Eric. As soon as Eric said "Clio the A-level student with her army shop clothes and chin length hair" (pg. 410) I knew Scout and Clio were one in the same. It made me think that Eric really did have fugue when he said "I can't stand being me anymore" (pg. 414). So maybe Eric blocked out of all of his previous memories so he didn't have to be himself anymore and he made up this whole new reality. So maybe the letters from the first Eric Sanderson were just a figment of his imagination.
I loved when the shark exploded! That was so cool!
The title of the last section does make me think he died though because it was called "Just Like Heaven" (pg. 420). That postcard thing was so weird! It was like teleporting in a postcard.
I loved when he finally found out that Scout was Clio! It was amazing. They found Ian too! I'm glad they were all okay.
The newspaper article threw me for a loop. That's what really made me think of Lost. But then there's a post card with the line from Casa Blanca and only Eric knew about that conversation so if Eric's dead who sent it? There are so many ways this book could go!
I love this book so much! I'm so glad this the book I end my High School career on.
As Brenda also said, the ending of this book is almost exactly like Jaws, he has the cage for Scout to escape out of when the shark attacks, and Fidorous being eaten by the shark. The death of the conceptual shark was slightly different from the movie but the idea was the same. Shark is blown up in both scenarios. I thought this was an interesting allusion to make. I am unsure as to what purpose it serves. It may be as simple as it just being an allusion to a similar circumstance but it feels like there should be more substance to it.
The way Scout and Eric get back together felt real and very convenient. It makes us forgive Scout because Eric does and it helps to make us more nervous when she gets into the cage with the shark. This scene as I said before is almost exactly like what happens in Jaws, and like in Jaws I was so glad that Scout survives.
I am so relieved that we finally find out what happened to Clio. I was worried that Clio had died from a recurrence of cancer and that Eric had a mental break as a result. The fact that she died suddenly makes the pain that Eric feels even more severe because there was no preparing for it. He most likely goes looking for the shark because he feels responsible or has a strong case of survivor's guilt. He most likely feels guilty because Clio pressured him to go but he refused. His search for the shark becomes even more clear given this new information. His guilt pushes beyond where he would normally go.
The fact that Scout turns out to be Clio adds a strange ambiguity to the book. If Clio hadn't really died, where had she been all that time? Why does she decide to go after Eric now? When was she infected with part of Ward, or was she infected at all? All these questions make me think that the world Eric enters isn't real. He may be in Limbo or an alternate universe, but he left his old world behind. This also leaves the ending a mystery.
We will never know if Eric really did die when he dropped Clio's pictures into the hole or did die later or did he just enter a different universe? The way that Hall leaves it completely open makes the story a complete mystery but had Hall tried to solve it, it would have weakened the story. By letting the reader chose he keeps his book very post modern and gratifying to the reader because they can assign any meaning they want to it.
“It is over, isn’t it?” Despite my last blog, I definitely did see the connection to Jaws in this reading. A few notable exception were the varying in craziness between Fidorous and the captain of the Orca, their specific deaths and the quickness of the “last stand” from the novel versus the long and drawn out fight sequence in Jaws. I felt that Hall made a really good decision in keeping that scene quick and fast. Along with the writing style and use of incoherent verb phrases and repeated actions, it seemed to add to the paralyzing fear that Eric felt during the last attack, his anxiety and nerves taking over him as he is struck certainly deaf and blind by the supposed death of Scout then the actual death of Fidorous. I felt it was also a little less cheesy than the way it played out in Jaws, (the captain’s death was more funny than sad or melancholy). Though we can’t tell for sure what actually happened to make the Ludovician “explode” the way it did, we can only assume that by swallowing the computer linked to Mycroft Ward, this tactic produced the same effect, as the spear would have otherwise.
The remaining scenes are indicative of the “calming of the storm” or final resolution where we discover the real truths about all of the questions that the book proposed. Is Scout really Clio? She and Eric both share essentially the same bond that he and Scout did before her scuba diving accident so as far as they’re concerned, I believe that Eric and Clio have been reunited in a way. By Scout telling Eric “she’s always loved him” we can kind of assume that she’s definitely had the same feelings of a past love that he’s been experiencing since they first met. As Scout had said previously, “things were meant to be this way” meaning that Eric and Clio were meant to with each other.
It is also important to note that this ending is also a “coming of age” type of deal. Much like what we saw in Number 9 Dream, Eric’s quest really wasn’t about ridding his life of the Ludovician; it was more about him coming to terms with Clio’s death. We really haven’t seen much of the blame put in Eric until the last Light Bulb Fragment; there are many signs that lead to this realization. It may just be that this Eric Sanderson truly forgot about all of the blame that he put on himself for the accident. Though as a new mind, he is able to respond with acceptance rather than built up anger and frustration. I find it interesting to point out that as soon as makes the statement, “She’s dead and I’m so, so sick of surviving” (top of 422), Scout reappears from the ocean. In this way, Eric is being rewarded for his acceptance of Clio’s death with Scout’s life.
Lastly, I feel the whole newspaper clipping and letter to Randle are not to be treated so literally as they seem to be by most. For me, Eric’s adventure is his journey into an entirely strange and unusual world very different from our own world, (the real world). What these notes seem to suggest is that this is how Eric’s journey is seen by the real world. His “death” is his first and last venture into the “conceptual” world. This world, as we have seen, is filled with many outrageous things such as conceptual fish, reanimated conceptual corpses, meme viruses, conceptual shark boats floating on the sea of human thought and secret committees who look and take after everything within this world such us the Un-Space exploration committee and the Shotai-Mu. His death in the real world is not only his literal movement into this world but it is also his transformation into the new Eric Sanderson. This is his life now and there truly is no going back.
I felt a little bit satisfied with the ending of the story. I felt it was creative of Hall to recreate Jaws but at the same time I felt I wanted him to do something totally new.
I did not know what to make of the ending until we talked about it in class. I really liked Teagan’s idea along with Naomi’s idea that it was all in his head. This would make sense of the picture. The picture could be “reality” and he leaves reality to live “in his head” with Clio aka Scout.
I liked Hall’s description of the action and especially watching Jaws it was really easy to imagine and vision.
The chapter called the Light Bulb Fragment Part 3 has the word everything written underneath it and that describes the chapter. I was surprised to find out that Clio had died scuba diving. I also loved the reality of their relationship. It brought the book “back down to Earth” and made me feel even more badly for Eric for some reason. I believe a relationship with faults proves to be stronger than a “perfect one.”
When I first read the news article I took the article as being more metaphorical. I thought it was Hall’s way of reassuring us readers that Eric is okay and everything will be fine. I didn’t think an actual body was found but it could have been.
What I have enjoyed about post-modern literature is how the book seems to be written by the reader just as much as it is written by the author. The reader gets to make sense of what he or she read and “fill in the gaps.”
I kind of felt the unveiling of Scout as Clio was anticlimactic because I felt there was hints all along and I expected it. I think it would have been more shocking if she was not but I am definitely happy that she is Clio.
My favorite line in the last reading is “The view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view.” I believe Eric is in limbo this entire time and being with Clio scuba diving is what allows him to move on. He has failed to get past this limbo 10/11 times already and he doesn’t remember anything because he has died. I believe in this explanation because I don’t think all of these fantasies could be real. All of the conceptual ideas are parts of his memories and the shark, being the antagonist, is his last and greatest fear before his death, seeing as Clio died while at sea. This book was different and exhilarating.
The ending of the book as far as the shark scene goes was exactly like the movie Jaws. Especially when Scout gets out of the cage and Hall leaves us thinking that she died. But no, she didn't. She comes up and sees Eric. Typical love story, but it worked any way. I actually really liked it because I felt that Scout was/is the reason that Eric has come as far as he has. Without Scout, Eric would be nothing. He would have gone on a different route and who knows if he would have ever made it to Trey Fidorous.
The interaction between Scout and Eric where he realizes that Scout is Clio is quite brilliant. It slowly falls into place. Techincally, Hall did it over the course of the whole book. He planted the idea in our minds with the smiley face tattooed on the bottom of her foot, but she slowly progressed towards being more and more like Clio throughout the book. Then when she tells Eric that she loves him, that she always loved him and he replied with saying, "I enjoy spending time with you too," that's when it's set in stone. Hall writes it in a way that somebody could read over it since he only mentioned that line once or twice, in the beginning of the book. It's a small line, but it means everything to both Eric and Scout. Hall executed the scene quite well.
As for the ending goes and Eric being dead, I truly think that there is no better way for the book to end. Had the book ended without the news article, there would have been too many ways for the reader to picture the ended. Other than the love story in the storyline, there was nothing picture perfect about the book, so why would Hall end it with a picture perfect ending of Scout and Eric living happily together? Him being dead is unexpected, but once you read it and take it all in, it makes sense. Hall is a genuis with bringing in the foundation site where he was found, which ties into the hole where he threw the pictures Clio took. At least that's a possibility, it may not be right, but it's a possibility. There are many ways to interpret the ending of The Raw Shark Texts, but it was the right ending, in my mind at least.
I was kind of relieved that the book was over when I finished. Although I did enjoy it, I was kind of ready for it to be finished so there would be no more questioning going on, except Steven Hall definitely left us questioning about Eric. I don’t understand where he is or what he is doing. I thought that he was dead, but apparently not? I’m not too sure. I am glad though that the lightbulb fragment was decoded finally. It was a sad ending, at least in my opinion. I wanted Scout to transform into Clio, and have Eric and Clio live happily ever after. It was a pretty dark book I would say. Normally I like dark books, but this was definitely dark in a different way. (Maybe in a postmodern way?) I actually feel really bad for Eric, and I feel like he is definitely mentally disturbed. Even though he claims that he is happy and well, for some reason I don’t believe that entirely. Who knows.
It was obvious what was going to happen in this last part because it is the same as the part of Jaws we watched. While I liked being able to see the similarities between the book and the movie while I read, knowing how it was going to end before I finished reading ruined the ending. Even though I knew Fidorus was probably going to die, I was sad when he did. I really liked his character.
I honestly did not like the very end of the book. It was way too "And they lived happily ever after." I would have never guessed the book would end like it did. I think it was a cop out on the author's part. After all the amazing intrigue of the novel, the ending doesn't do the storyline justice. I saw this coming, actually! I knew from the first time Scout burst on the scene on her little motorcycle that the story might be ruined. I wouldn't have sold out the brilliant story line like Steven Hall did. However, over all, the book was awesome. What a great way to wrap up 12 years of assigned school novels! Wow, this is the last novel of my High School carrier. Now on to College literature! : )
Oh no! The End! is right. While the ending was very well done, as soon as I finished I was disappointed. I really didn't want it to end.
Alright, here is my explanation of the end. The boat is called the Orpheus, right? Right.
From Wikipedia: The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (also known as Agriope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and she suffered a fatal bite on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such sad and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety, as soon as he reached the upper world, he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.
Get all that? Orpheus went to the depths of the underworld to bring his wife back, only to look back too soon and lose her forever. Eric and Scout/Clio did the same thing. Eric, inspired by the legend of the conceptual shark, attempted to rescue Clio by descending into un-space. In a sense, he succeeded. Clio is alive again, as Scout--how that happened is a whole other blog post. But in the process, Eric lost himself--and so for his final test, where Orpheus was overwhelmed with the memories of love for his wife, Eric's loss of memory allowed him to reach the world of memory he had created, and join Clio once and for all. The view becomes the reflection, and the reflection becomes the view.
I liked this reading because of the action and the fact that this is the end and the truth was revealed. The encoded section on page 410 says “everything” referring to everything being over. I liked the scene where Eric got the guts to confront the shark and fight back without fear. He finally got bravery and courage. I feel respect for him now. I’ve been waiting to see him man up since a long time earlier in the book. When the shark exploded after going against Mycroft Ward began to compare it to “Jaws” and the exploding shark…such a good movie. The come together and in a way cancel each other out. This liberates Eric and Scout to live happily ever after in the “HEAVEN”. I always thought that the shark was the evil concept that would not stop preventing them from leaving “limbo” and go into the “HEAVEN”. I always knew that Scout was Clio, and this reading made it really clear. It’s as if Eric went tot the underworld to rescue Clio and fought his way through limbo and the shark to finally reach “HEAVEN” with his loved Clio. Clio was being erased from his memory due to the conceptual shark that would eat away his memory. After the shark and Mycroft Ward cancel each other out, I think that his memory returns which makes him recognize that Clio and Scout are the same person.
I think it's safe to say that this book was a fitting finish to high school literature classes. The ending was wonderful. I can't help but think in the back of my head that if Jaws had been more like this book then it might have turned out to be a better movie. The emotional tone after Scout disappears and Fidorous is eaten, is so heavy, when Eric is sending Ian off on his little boat to keep him out of danger is almost upsetting. Not to mention the sheer (but predicted) elation at Scout's survival and Ian's subsequent recovery which more than makes up for the massive downer before the explosion. How about that climax come to think? I practically stood up from reading and yelled “Smile you sunova-!” when Eric threw nobody's laptop into the shark's mouth. Now it makes sense to me how that whole matter and antimatter situation with the Ludovician and Mycroft Ward worked. Since the laptop is streaming Mycroft's being, the shark's remaining instinctual feeding was able to ride the data stream back to the source of Mycroft's expansion and utterly obliterate him. I don't know if I'm the only one who hasn't realized this until now, or if I missed something stated in the book, either way, sorry! Something on the subject of Fidorous' death, since the conceptual shark ate him inside this conceptual world, wouldn't that mean that somewhere in the real world his body is still alive but like Eric has had his memories lost? Another thought I had was, since the Ludovician was destroyed in such a violent matter, wouldn't that mean that the memories that it was comprised of could have returned to their proper owners? Is it possible that Eric after emerging from the conceptual ocean with Scout fully regained his memories? One thing that could negate that possibility is that when Mycroft Ward colided the shark, all those memories were destroyed with the two of them. As far as the ending is concerned, I'm going to differ to Amy's opinion that these unspace places were real, in a sort of Neverwhere-esque fashion. I simply don't like the ideas that Eric's journey wasn't actually happening in any sense. The story wouldn't be as good in my humble opinion. So in conclusion, the book was fantastic as was the class. - Asher
mit service seo expert backlinks backlink services
Post a Comment