@#83 I think that's some very dodgy ground there.
I'm not saying your friend didn't have some interesting boundaries. But couldn't he equally accuse you of having a Broken Social Module for being a prude?
Ooops, apologies to Clifton. Trying to keep the photo out of my brain whilst talking about his personality clearly put me under undue strain!
He posts a close up to show that the "wet spot" is actually a shadow. I won't repost it to save on bleach, but he's right.
I read the thread to and I agree with Mickey Phoenix and Fragano - hats off to the guy for having a sense of humour and running with it.
I loved the idea of being able to offer this to my son (13, in boarding school) to read on his laptop at school - so I sent him the link on craphound.com. He phoned me two days later to ask if I'd read it yet. I had to admit I hadn't - he was already halfway through. He grumbled and told me to please catch up so he could talk to me about it.
We did a lot of talking once we both finished it - he definitely found it thought-provoking! We discussed terrorism and how it has been used. About Marcus and Ange and their relationship and that Marcus seemed young to be having sex but then again he was 17 so not so young (I see this as a good sign that my son identified with him) and a lot of long talks about about authority and security and the balancing act of government. At 13, he really does want security ("Shouldn't that be illegal" is a frequent refrain that makes me want to scream) and I've been trying to help him to understand the importance of personal responsibility.
The info-dumps were needed for him to be able to keep up and it was also an important part of him keeping faith with the author as understanding kids, rather than pretending to have a grasp of the culture. Doctorow did well at this, although my son did mightily object to the usage of h4wt which he said was too nerdy for the people using it.
The British mother and London references was great from my point of view, avoiding the "crazy Americans" as being an isolated example. My son has a US passport but identifies as British (and we live in Spain - it's confusing) so this was an important twist.
At 13, he's in a similar position of knowing the tech better than most at the school although he did struggle with some of the concepts (as did I, tbh - my head hurts trying to understand how the DNS servers are sending image parts) but that was good, it meant he looked up to the MC as doing the kind of thing he wanted to do.
Personally, I enjoyed it and found it a good fast read and I was happy with it as a thriller that would broaden my son's horizons. I found myself having a mommy-moment that there wasn't some discussion of the difference between reaasonable actions against authority instead of just trouble-making, but I got over it pretty quickly.
There were some minor logic issues that slowed me down a bit. The main one was the importance of the camera phone ... showing a photograph with some kids in it. This is really not proof that Darren was hurt and kidnapped that day. But nothing show-shopping really. I half-thought Ange was going to turn out to mess things up for him somehow - the gun on the wall that never did go off. I suppose I just expected her to be a bit more crucial in some way. And does anyone under 25 really use Livejournal?
I'm trying to get my son to write up his thoughts which will probably be a lot more interesting than mine :)
I'm glad you posted the full text - it is beautiful and sad and touching. Excellent writing, TNH. A wonderful piece.
@52 - well said!
@83 - as a true vegetarian I would not want to try to eat in Japan. As has been said, seafood is considered totally acceptable for a vegetarian diet and you will struggle to explain that you eschew fish as meat.
I am allergic to iodine so although I'll happily eat meat I have to avoid all shellfish and most fish. I tried to explain this to my Japanese hosts just to have it dismissed (without my knowledge) as a fear of sushi. I was offered crab soup and told it was chicken. I described it as the most amazing chicken soup I'd ever tried before the reaction set in and I asked if there was seafood in it.
I didn't need to wait for the answer, by the time I'd finished the question, I knew. But the response? As I choked and spluttered, I got told, "but you liked it!"
YES, I do! I just can't eat it. :/
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| 2008 | 7 |
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