Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Storiesby
Most people read this book in (junior) high school or college. I just got around to it, lol.
All the stories here are wonderful and thought-provoking, but I spent a good deal of time thinking about "Goodbye, Columbus." Some questions I know I'll still be thinking about:
1) What's the deal with Neil and Brenda's argument over her getting a diaphragm? (pp. 56-59, 69-70) Why didn't Neil just be understanding and drop the issue?!
2) What's the deal with the argument over whether Brenda "subconsciously" wanted her mom to find the diaphragm?! (pp. 89-97) Couldn't Neil just take Brenda at her word that it was an "oversight" or "simple mistake"?
3) "It had been so simple to be intimate with water pounding and securing all our pores," Neil says, "and later, with the such heating them and drugging our senses...but now, in the shade and in the open, cool and clothed on her own grounds, I did not want to
voice a word that would lift the cover and reveal that hideous emotion I always felt for her, and is the underside of love. It will not stay the underside--but I am skipping ahead..." (p. 19)
What evidence is there that Neil's feeling for Brenda have a "hideous emotion" on the "underside" of things? Is this true if all love, as Neil seems to claim?
4) "What was it inside me that had turned pursuit and clutching into love, and then turned it inside out again?" (page 97)
What evidence is there that Neil and Brenda's relationship takes on these three stages? Are love-relationships often like this?
5) Since both Neil and Brenda mention Mary McCarthy (pp. 58, 89), I had to look it up
6) It might be nice to compare the mores found in this book with the contemporaneous novel, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
All the stories here are wonderful and thought-provoking, but I spent a good deal of time thinking about "Goodbye, Columbus." Some questions I know I'll still be thinking about:
1) What's the deal with Neil and Brenda's argument over her getting a diaphragm? (pp. 56-59, 69-70) Why didn't Neil just be understanding and drop the issue?!
2) What's the deal with the argument over whether Brenda "subconsciously" wanted her mom to find the diaphragm?! (pp. 89-97) Couldn't Neil just take Brenda at her word that it was an "oversight" or "simple mistake"?
3) "It had been so simple to be intimate with water pounding and securing all our pores," Neil says, "and later, with the such heating them and drugging our senses...but now, in the shade and in the open, cool and clothed on her own grounds, I did not want to
voice a word that would lift the cover and reveal that hideous emotion I always felt for her, and is the underside of love. It will not stay the underside--but I am skipping ahead..." (p. 19)
What evidence is there that Neil's feeling for Brenda have a "hideous emotion" on the "underside" of things? Is this true if all love, as Neil seems to claim?
4) "What was it inside me that had turned pursuit and clutching into love, and then turned it inside out again?" (page 97)
What evidence is there that Neil and Brenda's relationship takes on these three stages? Are love-relationships often like this?
5) Since both Neil and Brenda mention Mary McCarthy (pp. 58, 89), I had to look it up
6) It might be nice to compare the mores found in this book with the contemporaneous novel, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
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