Response to Wreckage of Reason

The stories that we were assigned to read in Wreckage of Reason were all interesting and some of them were also rather confusing. One of my favorite stories in this book is called New York/LA Whirlwind Romance by Karen Lillis. I found this story very entertaining and it was also one of the easier ones to read. I found this story interesting because it is all dialogue and just what this man was saying to this woman that he hadn't even met yet. In class my group and I believed that these two people must have met over the Internet because they never met in person and were only conversing over the phone at first. While they were on the phone the guy just continuously gives the woman compliments and starts talking about how  he could be in love even though he has never met her. Then on page 72 he also says, "I don't want to do the distance thing again...Maybe we should cu this off right now...Maybe we should hold out for someone in our own city." When he said this I believed that he was starting to have second thoughts about talking to this woman. Another example of this is on  page 73 going into page 74 where he says, "I think it's going to be fine...I think it's going to be more than fine..I think it's going to be great...Today I woke up from meditating and i realized, it's going to be fine." My group and I thought that since he kept saying this, it wasn't the woman who he was trying to reassure but himself. I kind of wish that we could see what they woman was saying in response to everything that he was saying.

In this story there are also times that he contradicts himself. For example on page 74 he says, "Today I woke up from meditating and I realized, it's going to be fine." Then later on down the same page he says, "I'm not a Buddhist:in Buddhism there's no desire. I DESIRE this. I want this to work." I'm not going to say that Buddhists are the only ones who meditate but it just stood out to me that he was meditating earlier in the day and then comes out of nowhere saying that he is not a Buddhist.

Another place that he contradicts himself is on page 73 when he says. "I think you're a brilliant writer." And then on page 75 when the woman had made it to Los Angeles, he said, "Someday you'll write something real. Not just this id stuff, this ego stuff." And also on page 76 he says, "You've got a lot of baggage. That's what your novel is, your baggage. its psychobabble." He tells her how great a write he thinks she is and then when he finally meets her its like he was holding back the truth and can't stand to hold it in anymore. On theses parts my group and I also thought that maybe the woman could be a Psychologist because id and ego are something that you learn in an introductory course for psychology. This story overall was very interesting and I am glad it was assigned in class.