Characters intro and commence

A read another good section in This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff again this week. This section was the last of the intro of the book. Toby, now Jack, and his mother are settling into their new Utah apartment. Jack's mom gets a job as a secretary. Then Roy is introduced. No reason is given as to why Roy follows the two around all the time. He is around the mothers age and obviously loves her so I guess theirs you reason. He is described and turns out to be a good person who, is classically, a little rough around the edge, "He always seemed deep in thought, staring at the road through mirrored sunglasses. He had a tattoo and had been to war and kept a kind of silence about it that was full of heroic implication" (30). Roy seems like a powerful character. He has many little things about him that make him unique and interesting to read about. For instance, "He could fix the Jeep if he had to, though he preferred to drive halfway across Utah to a mechanic he'd heard about from some loudmouth in a bar." This seems like something I will do when I get my own car. Though I want to be able to fix it when I need to as well. Roy is a character I feel like I can relate to and he eases the tension of the family's situation by being an overprotective boyfriend. "He followed her home every day, idling down the street, pulling into a driveway here and there to let her get ahead." Once again seems like something I'd do once I have my car.

The main character Jack, whose point of view the story is told, goes through some childhood events that I can see in my own life. He attends church classes. He's catholic so confession is common. Being young Jack has never had a confession. He fails his first attempt and is convinced to go later. Sister James, his leading nun, gives him cookies and tries to help him. She tells him about her own sins. Next thing Jack does is go into the confession room and confess to the same sins. I found the irony quite humorous. Jack lies to the priest in confession. It amazes me how even in a true story the hilarious and ironic tails of childhood are there. They happen all the time. The next thing I noticed about Jack was a realization he made. I don't remember any age being given but I know he's early teens. While Sister James gives him Oreo's to sooth his tense soul, "But now, forced to look at Sister James across the narrow space of this gleaming table-I saw her differently. I saw an anxious woman of my mother's age who wanted to help me without knowing what kind of help I needed. Her good will worked strongly on me. I would have surrendered to her if I only knew how" (33). I can remember these same revalations from my childhood too. Adults are actual people!

This Boy's Life, by Tobias Wolff

So, I'm reading This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff; a memoir. The first thing that grabbed me in this book and is exactly that, the attention grabber, was indeed, the attention grabber... My point moreover is that it started with a very good attention grabber. Starting with a boiling radiator, often caused by too much water, too little coolant, and a blocked aircanal (just for anyone who wants to know why a radiator boils..., oh and it could be a bubble too), Toby and his mom are stuck on the side of a hot mountain highway. Then a semi-truck goes flying by, horn blaring, carreening down the mountain. "He's lost his brake!" (1). The sickened feeling of knowing what comes next sank into my stomach as mother and son peered over the edge of the now gaurdrail free mountain curve. The truck was billowing smoke from its upside-down engine bay, the whole top of the trailor and tractor crushed by its own falling weight. Obviously this has no connection with the book, but it says a lot about Wolff's style. It is casual, almost too casual for me, so this is the perfect way to start the book because it grabs the readers guts and yanks them into the book and still managers to bring you into the story.

The plot thus far is relatively simple and cliche. Father and mother got an angry divorce and now the child and mother are going cross country to start anew. I myself find this to be an overexamined predicament in way too many books so already I can feel myself dragging. However this story is about a boy, not a boy and his mom. We are introduced to some early issues. Cliche as it is the mother pathetically fails at finding the uranium ore that the two have come cross country for and can't find a job. This applies ample amounts of stress to the nerves in the left side of my head. Despite this Wolff spends little time on it and proves this book is worth reading with focusing on him. Toby hates his name. He wanted to be called Jack. "Odds were good that I'd never have to share a classroom with a girl named Jack" (8). Even in just this one small part of him we see into Toby's personality. He ends up calling his father to talk it over. The father of course wants him to keep the name he rightfully gave him at birth. He didn't last long. Jack it was. His mother who had disapproved was now more excited about it to spite her hated ex-husband. Toby we see here is an almost classic hot-headed young boy, probably almost in his teens if not already there (age is not told yet). He even went to catechism classes to acheive his new name. One other thing readers can deduce about Tobias Wolff is that he is a rather random person. This is noted in his writing. In one page he jumped from being named Jack, to Archery Club, and on the the lady next door's cats. I found this mildly entertaining for he also tells it all in a mildly humorous light. That I don't mind however it is an abused writing style. So far I'd give the book a 5 out of 10. Its not boring, but I wouldn't read it unless I had to.