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Monday, September 15, 2014

Curious Moments in A Visit from the Goon Squad

         I am currently tracking the words curious and curiosity through the novel.  I have read up to page 234, and so far have only been able to find these words three times.  The first occurrence was on page 26, where Bennie is wondering: "Could this be a side effect of the gold: curiosity?"  I think this is a small but important revelation on Bennie's part.  In this moment he connects with his son and instead of attributing it to his parenting skills or the way he interacts with Chris, he immediately wonders if the gold flakes are to thank for this newfound interest Chris has in his father.  This demonstrates Bennie's willingness to grasp for anything that could pull him out of his slump.  He is depressed by his strained relationship with Chris, failed marriage, past embarrassments, and the music industry as a whole.  

         The next appearance of the word curiosity occurred soon after on page 28.  This time it was used to the describe Bennie's feelings when seeing Sasha outside the family home of a band Bennie was looking into.  Once again, the use of the word curiosity seems to point out an important revelation.  This is the first time Bennie thinks about Sasha's life outside of work and considers his feelings toward her.  He acknowledges that he cares for her and takes the time to appreciate how much she does for him on a daily basis. 

          The last incident involved both keywords, and these words were used when describing Bosco.  On page 126, Stephanie and Jules had just arrived at Bosco's apartment and were surprised to find him awake and alert at ten AM.  I think that this use of curious and curiosity foreshadows the outcome of this business meeting.  Bosco is immediately drawn to Jules and at the end of the meeting he hires Jules on as his lead writer in covering his self-named "Suicide Tour," which in itself represents a huge change in the life outlook for both Jules and Bosco. 

           All of these instances represent important moments of thought for characters within the book.  I have noticed that many of these character are unaware of their emotions or position within relationships, and the usage of the word curiosity or simply curious seems to appear at key times when they do have small moments of clarity.  During these moments several of the characters seem to acknowledge changes within their lives or reflect on their emotional involvement with other characters. 

1 comment:

  1. I also followed the word curiosity/curious in the novel. The word also appears another time on page 200 when Drew and Rob are both high on ecstasy. When I read this it reminded me of the first instance of the word curious on page 26. Curiosity seems to be a behavior in the book which is artificially made, although whatever Chris was feeling was most likely a placebo effect. In the novel, curiosity is caused by some outside stimulus which a character hasn't felt before. I think your idea that curiosity appears at times when the characters have small amounts of clarity is an interesting one. I think that curiosity, while being caused by some phenomenon which hasn't been felt before, takes one of the characters back to an earlier time in their life and makes them reflect on how they have changed. Bennie remembers his relationship with his son before the divorce and how he has lost desire. Bosco remembers his time as a rock star and comes up with the idea for his “Suicide Tour.” Being a novel about time, curiosity seems to play a key role in how the characters are dealing with the way time changes things, so I would agree with your observation that curiosity causes the characters to reflect upon their past relationships and to acknowledge change.

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