Farewell

This week is filled with goodbyes. I think this will be my last blog for this class (right?). The reading is also filled with salutations as Bernard watched the death of his brother, Gary. The first part of the book was misleading in a way, since it seemed to be pointing towards Bernard's mother and father. In the end, the focus was his family, but most especially, his brother.

Looking back, the shorter essays from the first part make a lot more sense. Before, "On the Air" did not make much sense to me, but now that I know about his experience with the House of the Future and what it means to fly away. It is as if as an adult, he is still daydreaming about the perfect home and it is unattainable because it is impossible. His home is in his mind, where he is able to cope with the harsh reality that life is temporary and fading. This can be seen on page 101. After his brother died, his mother and father were not able to cope as the usually did but he "was somewhere far in the future, walking into buildings where the climate was controlled, wending my way through lobbies and halls."

Some of the main themes in part two are: Time (control of and lack thereof), flying, home, plastic (artificial & indestructible), mortality, and legacy. Ultimately, everything for Bernard can trace back to death and mortality since it is so intimate to him. After the death of Gary, he realizes what a menace the reaper is and how it can affect everyone's life both before and after the loss of a loved one.

Throughout the part two, Bernard realizes that he is already forgetting things about his brother and knows that he would forget even more once he is dead. Death has a way of stealing many things, one of which is memory, which goes hand in hand with the theme of Time. Most people have children so that they will be remembered. Bernard is so torn by Gary's death that he chose not to contribute more death to the world by having children who will one day die. Perhaps he imagined what it would be like to lose a child, just as his father lost a son. Or maybe he discovered that he is gay..which would be a way for him to be free in one aspect of his life. (Evidence: last chapter, pg. 110, Capiche?)

So long and thanks for all the fish,
Michelle

The Maps Burger

Reading Bernard Cooper's Maps to Anywhere is like eating a large, juicy hamburger. You need to grip it with two hands and devour it. Trying to eat it with one hand while driving or doing some other task is out of the question because the best parts would fall out and end up in your lap. No, you have to give it all of your attention so that every flavor burst into your mouth. It is the kind of savory meal that inspires you to become a cook so that you could make something as delicious for other people. At least, that's what this experience was like for me.

The short essays that make up the first half of this book may seem unattached, but ultimately point to the long essay at the end, "The Wind Did It". The first nine vignettes are written as if random bursts of memories or thoughts that drift through the author's mind. They illustrate how observant and creative Cooper is. An example of this is, "All week long, my mind has been filled with baked potatoes, aluminum-covered ingots, their plumes of steam obscuring everything, except my affection for friends." (pg. 23) The language he uses allows us to feel his unusual desire for potatoes but also reflects his closeness to friends. By looking at passages like this, we can see that one of the main themes of Maps to Anywhere is his relationship with other people.

Cooper's most important relationship in his life is his parents. This is most seen in the long essay which had been foreshadowed in most of the shorter ones. In the first essay we see him struggling with his name which had been picked out by his mother. He writes, "Even my mother had trouble with my name; calling me home at dusk, she's stand in the doorway and shout the name of my older brothers- Richard, Robert, Ronald!- before she remembered mine." (pg. 4) This shows a sort of distance between him and his mother. This distance can be seen on page 62 in the longer essay. "Otherwise she was far away, tanning on a stretch of sand." Because of the hardship she went through raising a dying son, she was often in another world, dreaming of the better places (like the Moulin Rouge). Because of this, she did not give much attention to Bernard. One time that the family was all happily together is when they all ate potatoes together, pointing back to his obsession with potatoes; we understand now that it's like a link to his mother's rare affection. We get an idea of their broken relationship when in the earlier essay he wrote that if he were to write a book about her it would be titled "Beacons Burning Down". The hazel eyes of the woman in Maps to Anywhere also points forward to the hazel eyes of his mother; he feels annoyance yet a strange attachment towards them both.

Cooper's relationship with his father is much deeper. After his father's divorce with Esther, the two spend a lot of bonding time together. At this time, Cooper realizes the similarities between them. He also mentions how they are both starting to look and sound alike. In the short essay, "The Miracle Chicken", we see that his father has a scrap book of all of the bizarre cases that he has ever been a part of. In a way, Cooper is making his own scrapbook (this book) with all of the bizarre stories that fill his life. "Capiche" shows that he has the same fantasies of far away places that his father does (who wanted to go to Machu Picu in the long essay). As he gets older, Cooper recognizes himself in his father and appreciates the love of the bizarre that his father has given him. Overall, that's one juicy burger.