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Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - KRW - 04-11-2007
webby Wrote:I agree. I hadn't quite thought of it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense.
As rarely as I make sense, I"m gonna bask in this!
Spoilers ahead!
Seriously though, Jack has always tried to hide who he really was from his dad expecting the disappointment that came with it. His dad always figures Jack was the loser of all of his offspring. What a touching moment it was when Tom heard about his wifes killer coming to justice by his own sons hand. In the reverse, Jack has always thought of his dad as an accountant and an investment broker and never dreaming of him wanting to exact revenge as Jack did.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - bones weep tedium - 04-11-2007
wdg3rd Wrote:I have to assume you never spent any time in military service. Very few "tough guys" actually spend time in the military -- there's a weeding process even when they're drafting folks. No sniper I ever met was a "tough guy". Don't believe the crap in the movies and the recruiting adverts, bigtime crock of shit.
Most of what I know of my father's service record I learned from an FoIA request after he was dead (only a few years back, maybe 15 or so). It was "friendly fire" on that Korean hilltop that crippled him 2+ years before I was born. A US mortar shell that killed most of his squad.
Admittedly, I had little to do with my father -- my mother divorced him when I was 8 (that's when the random drunken beatings stopped), the next and last time I met him was when I hitched from Travis AFB down to San Diego when I was 20, we had nothing in common except our name (he was Jr., I'm III), our blood type and a tendency to self-inflict liver damage. He had a whole dozen books in his apt, all crappy best-seller crap, in my barracks room up at Travis I had a couple thousand SF novels.
I assume that means you close your bedroom door when you ... (sorry, I was about to get personal).
I never got a thrill from keeping a secret. Not that I compulsively tell people stuff -- the IRS and other FedGoof groups will have to use the traditional methods they inherited from the Inquisition to get me to "volunteer" information. Most of what I divulge under duress will be the best lies I can think of. Most of my "secrets" are stuff that I'm ashamed of. And a couple that could get me a boyfriend named Bubba in a small cage. Those are overlapping sets. I was well into nominal adulthood before I found the Zero Aggression Principle.
As interesting as your post is, I don't think it really says much about the book.
To me the entire appeal of Repairman Jack is his under-the-radar way of working. The fact that he came from a normal family and kept his real agenda secret from his closest relatives and had as little to do with them as possible was one of the most interesting things about the character.
I thought Jack's father's reaction to what Jack did to his wife's killer was good, but it got a little hard to swallow when he got all tooled up and went off to battle the swamp guys.
I think it was the beginning of a trend in the Repairman Jack books that I didnt really like so much. As each memeber of Jack's family turned up and found out his secret, a little bit of his myth disppeared.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - WGB - 04-11-2007
bones weep tedium Wrote:As interesting as your post is, I don't think it really says much about the book.
I think it was the beginning of a trend in the Repairman Jack books that I didnt really like so much. As each memeber of Jack's family turned up and found out his secret, a little bit of his myth disppeared.
I think it says alot about the book. Jack renews a relationship and then it is taken away from him. The branches are being trimed from the spear. It the entire point of that part of the story line.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - bones weep tedium - 04-12-2007
WGB Wrote:I think it says alot about the book. Jack renews a relationship and then it is taken away from him. The branches are being trimed from the spear. It the entire point of that part of the story line.
My problem with it was the Repairman Jack from the Tomb had trimmed his own branches. He had nothing to do with his family, and did his best to avoid his dad. The only branches that needed trimming were Gia and Vicky, and that was totally fluffed up.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - WGB - 04-12-2007
I like Gia and Vicky. I have a beautiful, talented, and loving blonde hair wife and daughter at home and I can say from personal experance that Jack is lucky to have them.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - Sigokat - 04-16-2007
Wow...this thread seemed to turn into a battle of "I know more about such and such then you...so I am right..."
Thats not what I intended at all. I wont restate my points, but I will just add that anyone who has served in combat (yes I said combat...not just in the military) will understand why Tom hid his past...its not exactly something you really want to talk about...but Jack opening up to Tom and then them running off to the swamps together to go shoot up the bad guys seemed awfully fake to me.
Yes the Jack of The Tomb is completely gone IMO...he's not the same person that drew me to the books to begin with. I will continue to read the books, but some of the allure is already gone...hopefully CrissCross will be better.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - bones weep tedium - 04-16-2007
Crisscross is very good. I'd say my favourite Repairman Jack books are:
The Tomb
Crisscross
The Haunted Air
I think that the rest tend to have very thin plots, and take an awful long time to warm up. Crisscross and The Haunted Air both have very cleverly plotted stories, and seem to have an awful lot happening in them.
On another note, I don't think it's necessary to have been in the armed services to comment on books.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - Sigokat - 04-17-2007
bones weep tedium Wrote:Crisscross is very good. I'd say my favourite Repairman Jack books are:
The Tomb
Crisscross
The Haunted Air
I think that the rest tend to have very thin plots, and take an awful long time to warm up. Crisscross and The Haunted Air both have very cleverly plotted stories, and seem to have an awful lot happening in them.
On another note, I don't think it's necessary to have been in the armed services to comment on books.
Once I finish the book I am currently reading, I am going to start Crisscross.
I think you may have misunderstood what I meant. Of course you don't need to have served in the Armed Forces to comment on books. I was just making a reference to that particular aspect of Tom's character. I can sympathize with the character's experience because I have had similar ones (I'm not a Jarhead sniper though). Something as personal and emotional as combat is not something that can easily be described in books by authors who have never lived it except on TV and the internet. (Sorry FPW, not trying to generalize here...I know nothing of your background). That's just my opinion though.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - bones weep tedium - 04-17-2007
sigokat Wrote:I can sympathize with the character's experience because I have had similar ones (I'm not a Jarhead sniper though). Something as personal and emotional as combat is not something that can easily be described in books by authors who have never lived it except on TV and the internet. (Sorry FPW, not trying to generalize here...I know nothing of your background). That's just my opinion though.
What about authors and film makers who have had experience of combat? Do you think that Platoon is inherently better than Saving Private Ryan?
Just becasue I've never signed up to the army doesn't mean I don't have personal experiences of combat
I think I have a pretty good idea what war is like, and what soldiers are like. I also have first hand experience at being a person, so if someone behaves unrealistically I can spot that as quickly as anyone else.
Finished Gateways-SPOILERS - Sigokat - 04-17-2007
bones weep tedium Wrote:What about authors and film makers who have had experience of combat? Do you think that Platoon is inherently better than Saving Private Ryan?
Just becasue I've never signed up to the army doesn't mean I don't have personal experiences of combat
I think I have a pretty good idea what war is like, and what soldiers are like. I also have first hand experience at being a person, so if someone behaves unrealistically I can spot that as quickly as anyone else.
I don't know what your personal experiences of combat are, but I am interested. You can PM me if you don't want to share on here. I'll share something about my combat experience with you. Do you have ANY idea what it feels like to have to aim your weapon at a child and be ready and willing to kill that child at the slightest provocation of violence? I do. And I would do it in order to protect myself and my Soldiers because while in Iraq I became so desensitized to the local population that I didn't see a child...I saw a potential insurgent. That child I did not have to shoot. My company commander had a child in Mosul pull a pistol on him. How do you think he felt? Being ready, willing, and able to kill so you don't get killed is what war is. The hidden threats of IEDs is always on our minds...how do you fight an unseen and cowardly enemy?
I'm not saying I am better then you at all so please don't think that. What I am saying is feelings and experiences like the ones I had can not be easily depicted in a book to someone like me who KNOWS what it really is like. Thats all I'm saying.
I'm not sure why you are comparing Platoon to Saving Private Ryan because I know little about the filmmakers (I dont follow their personal lives at all...I have my own) but they were both were good depicitions of the hell of war and what war can do to a person (Platoon more the SPR on the last comment)