I was really sad to miss class last Thursday, first because I don't like missing class, second because I was sick as hell and wanted not to be, and third because I really wanted to talk to other people about this book. Your blogs helped a little, primarily Ashley's and Lisa's, but I still don't know what I think.
Perhaps I have what Marie calls "reader fatigue," but I thought reading this novel was annoying. The prose's absolute drudgery made it a slow read (which I can only hope was a device so the reader can share the main characters' long, drawn out experience), it was depressing (all that drama and animosity between the two main characters, neither of whom is a particularly good or interesting person), and the story line didn't seem to really go anywhere.
I kept trying to make something of the novel. Maybe it was about the duality of man (I half expected the reveal to be that the two men were one). Maybe about social class. Maybe about ethnicity (East vs. West) and progress. Maybe about religion and progress. Maybe about colonization and superiority (E vs. W again).
I recognized many smaller pieces - symbols, the idea of identity, of reliance, of blame. But I was unable to stitch the pieces together into a coherent, overarching point.
In the end, I felt like I had just read Melville's "Bartleby, The Scrivner." I don't get it, I'm not going to reread it, and I'll never get that time back. Only Melville's story is better written and far shorter. At the very least, "I'd prefer not to" goes over well with lit. professors and has gotten me out of reading crappy "write a poem about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in five minutes, then we'll share with the class" activities in front of the class. (This is my way of ending on a good note.)
