The Rules Of Attraction: after reading.

Now that I've finished reading The Rules Of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis I'd like to discuss the characters a bit more.

Sean seems to have never really acknowledged his secret relationship with Paul in the chapters that he narrates, which leaves me wondering if he just doesn't want to admit it ever happened, or if it's a figment of Paul's imagination. It's rather depressing that Sean was so in love with Lauren and thought she was the one writing love notes to him, even though in reality it wasn't and she never loved him, hardly ever liked him. I wish we got a bit more information on the spontaneous proposal to Lauren when she finds out she's pregnant. It's selfish of her to say that she's sure it's his, when the father could be any of four or so guys. And it's surprising that she accepted his proposal and seemed happy enough about it but still just as happy when they decide she should get an abortion.
I also think its really interesting how different characters see each other differently. The characters who are in love with someone describe that person as magnificent, beautiful, like they can do no wrong. But other characters will describe the same person as pretty but nothing special. It really makes you realize how much of our world is what we perceive it to be, and perfection is really different for everyone.
As for Lauren, I wish we could have gotten more emotion out of her. She goes through a lot in the book: missing her ex boyfriend who she was very much in love with, several boyfriends, switching majors several times, getting pregnant, getting proposed to, trying to make the relationship with her fiance work, getting an abortion, and finding out the only boy she ever really loved doesn't even remember the sound of her voice or think her at all a significant part of his life.
I wonder if the girl getting an abortion earlier in the book was foreshadowing or if it was just to show that she's not a special case, it happens fairly frequently.
I wonder who the girl who was actually writing the love notes to Sean was and if they could possibly have worked out.
And last but not least, Paul. He goes through just as much as Lauren, if not more. It's a rather awkward love triangle when Paul comes home to find Sean has left him for Paul's ex Lauren. I think one of the most touching moments in the book is Paul and Lauren's meeting in the end. It gives a sense of reality, that life must go on even when people have experienced and lost so much.
The title definitely fits the book well. The rules of attraction aren't a specific set of dos and don'ts, more the fine lines between falling in love and falling out of it, the little things that make people attractive to certain people but not to others, and just how fragile all of it really is.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Since I enjoyed Everything Is Illuminated so much I decided to read Foer's other novel as well. This one is newer and takes place in America. The story is about a young boy living in New York in 2003 whose father died in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. He and his father always played little games with each other, and after his father is dead, Oskar, the boy, discovers a small key in an envelope that says "Black" on it in red pen. Assuming this is a clue to a new game, Oskar goes on a quest to discover what the key opens.

Some of the things that I really enjoy about Foer's writing are the unique, three dimensional characters who each tell their story with a different voice, and the variety of media he includes in his books. This one especially has many interesting things to break up the monotony of prose. There are pictures that Oskar is collecting throughout the novel, letters he receives from people he sent letters to, as well as various stylistic aspects of other characters.
I like how this book is mostly from the perspective of a young boy. Even though the character isn't one hundred percent believable, you can see his innocence and naivety through his reactions to events and experiences. He's constantly eager to learn more and meet new people.

I think that this novel is easier to understand than Everything Is Illuminated. Maybe it's because its from a younger point of view, or maybe its because Foer had more experience when he wrote this book so he knew how to make it clearer for the reader. Already I have way fewer questions about the plot than I did with the Everything Is Illuminated. We'll just have to see if this clarity continues till the end.

"Most Cab Drivers Have Liberal Arts Degrees" (39).

The book I'm reading now is The Rules Of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. I'm about a fourth of the way in and so far I can tell its about the lives of several liberal art students in the eighties and their various experiences, few of which involve any actual classes. I think that it would be good for me to discuss the characters because keeping track of them can be confusing at times, since each chapter or section is a different character's point of view. Here we go...

character's whose heads we get inside of:

Sean: sleeps with Deidre, drinks a lot, very interested in Candice

Paul: Lauren's ex, bisexual, still in love with Mitchell who has a thing with Candice now, Drama major, accidentally asks Sean out to dinner because he thought Sean was asking him, but doesn't make it to the date because Harry the freshman seems to have ODed and they have to take him to the hospital

Lauren: in love with her ex boyfriend Victor who's in Europe, constantly switching boyfriends, sleeps with Steve

Victor: has a crazy time in Europe

There's also parts written by a mysterious anonymous girl who is very much in love with Sean and sends him love notes constantly even though he probably doesn't know she exists.

All of these characters have different friend groups so it takes a while to get used to reading the constant change of characters, even though the events are mostly the same.

Finished the book...

Now that I've finished reading Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, I'm going to go back and check to see if my questions were answered, and continue to compare the movie and the book as far as the rest of the novel.

Does Augustine come before or after the much adored Brod, and what relation does she have to Brod and Yankel?
Augustine comes after Brod, and even though I'm still not really sure of Augustine's exact identity, assuming we mean Augustine as Alex thinks of her, Augustine wouldn't be directly related to Brod, but she rescued her grandson, or great grandson, from the Nazis.

Speaking of Yankel, what is this story about him swindling some man while his name was Safran?
We learn more about this in later chapters, although it never goes into detail about what he did, just tells you that he was sentenced and had to wear a bead to show his guilt.

And does the main character Jonathan Safran Foer and the author having the same name have any significance as far as the story? (Its fiction).
Not that was revealed, not that I can tell.

Why do people in Trachimbrod, or Sofiowka, behave so strangely?
This could either be simply an invention of the real Jonathan Safran Foer, or an invention of the Jonathan Safran Foer in the book who is writing this section, or it could just be how people acted back then.

Do they really record their recurrent dreams as it describes, even though they would seem, at least I imagine, such private and intimate dreams one wouldn't want to share with their whole village?
Apparently they do...

What makes Brod so special?
Mostly what makes Brod special is the strange circumstances that are her birth and adoption into Trachimbrod. She's also very beautiful, and this plus the mystery factor is I think what makes her so desirable and despiseable (to men and women respectively).

Who were her parents, why was she found the way she was, and what is up with the scene where she uses her telescope to look through a wall of a neighbor's house and read a recording of her apparent first rape, when there was no mention of her being raped before? What does this mean about her, about the book?
We still don't know who her parents were, nor why she was found the way she was, nor really what was happening in this scene, except if it was after the fact of her actual first rape, then it was just her reading the Trachimbrod book where they record everything that happens to everyone. In this case it doesn't really mean anything about her or the book.

Some new questions that were raised in the middle and end sections of the books are:

What is the reader to make of the relationship between Jonathan and Alex? Did they both discover their sexuality on this search, and have something of a fling, or did they just get so emotionally close it could be mistaken for such?
Who is Augustine? Is Lista the same Lista that Jonathan's grandfather slept with? What of the deceased mother and child who died in the Brod river? Why are so many women attracted to Jonathan's grandfather's dead arm? Does he only ever fall in love with his unborn child?

Basically I'm still confused about a lot of things after reading this. And even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I'm just wondering if I'm simply not intelligent enough to understand or if I'm not making the right connections or wasn't paying enough attention or what's going on to make me remain confused.

And lastly, the book and movie ended up varying an awful lot, because the movie cut out a huge section of the book, everything in the past about Yankel and Brod and Trachimbrod and Jonathan's grandfather. They do hint at Alex's grandfather's past, but I'm pretty sure in the movie his grandfather was a Jew himself, not just his best friend. Also, in the movie the grandfather kills himself while they're still on their journey and Alex never kicks his father out of the house. So although they are mainly the same story and have much of the same dialogue, I'd still say they are very different works of art.