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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
Yes, I loved the Colonel as well. It seems to me that there is a theme of memory running through the book [...]
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One of the notes I added to my own review was: A book of memory, not reality.
Many of the earlier, more consistent, parts of the book were so idealised as, it seemed to me, to invite the reader to imagine it was and older person reviewing their childhood. (I think issybird made a similar observation earlier.) It's what makes the ideal of a kids respecting the stories of the older generation so attractive, despite its unreality. Kids don't, but older people do, and may try desperately to remember those things they heard as a child.
And that thought, it seems to me, makes the connection with...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
The interest in old people and their memories is one of the things that felt false to me, given Doug's supposed age of 12. [...]
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I completely agree. One of the reasons why
The Simpsons episode went through my mind at the time I hit the scene with the colonel was that it had such a humorous unreality to it that the two could have been written by the same person.
You're right, kids of that age (approximately the age of the kids sitting down to listen to Abe Simpson) don't want to listen to old farts prattle on. Which is not to say they all miss it, some learn a lot by a sort of osmosis, but mostly they'll be grumbling all the while.
At the time of the colonel we had still managed to stay mostly with the boys, and I was still hoping for a consistent theme, and that theme, it seemed to me, might well be the unreality of the life we remember. Too much else came in to disturb that theme later, in my opinion, but it still remains the most pervasive feeling I am left with now, after this distance in time from reading it: it's an old man's memory of his childhood, so of course it is unreal.