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Cooper is one of another world. He brings up outer space multiple times in order to try and share how distant he felt from his peers. His outlook on the world is utterly artistic. Once, as a child, he explains how in biology class, "instead of concentrating on the position and function of the bones in the skeletal system, [he] imagined Ulna, Tibia, and Fibula as visitors from outer space" (5).
Cooper's interests embody his unique way of thinking. For instance, as he reveals his mesmerized state over spin art, he says "the results of that frantic squirting and turning look like cosmic phenomena: exploding supernovas, swirling stars, comet trails, nebulae" (32). Even if the reader doesn't know what spin art is, they are shown the beauty of his unique eye in relation to such a hard scene, his brothers death. Not many can mesh art and death so smoothly.
In Cooper's flow of describing his artistic ability through artistic passages, he decides to sneak in a passage which shows just how much this notion is within him. The reader is so absorbed in his changing style and diverse subject matter that they don't even realize they are being lied to. He reveals his secret at the end of the passage with a halt, "But suddenly this adventure is over. Everything I have told you is a lie. Almost everything… But lies are filled with modulations of untranslatable truth… I was so moved by the strange, abstract trajectories of sound [of my morning] that I wanted to take you with me somewhere, somewhere old and beautiful, and I honestly wanted to offer you something, something like like the prospect of sudden love… All I had was the glass of language to blow into a souvenir" (20). So many of his quotes can be broken down and questioned. The question lingers on everyones mind, what does he mean? And they begin to answer.
I really like how you pointed out how he uses cosmic/outer space imagery. I hadn't really payed attention to that motif, but I completely agree that it is important because it conveys both his feelings of isolation from his peers and his artistic sense of aesthetics.
ReplyDeleteAmanda brings up a good point, Hannah, as you do. The sense that one is "different" is hard to convey and finding that imagery (and other fantastic, dream moments) in the book is a strong way to say, I wasn't like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteThis is great, could be more developed and deal with more of the book.
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I appreciated your comment "even if the reader doesn't know what spin art is..." they will understand his meaning. I think Cooper is a master at this; making what is unknown to the reader know through his description. Even if the reader hasn't been to Italy, or had a brother die, or had a distant lawyer father, I could go on and on. The point is Cooper again and again brought the reader microscopically close to his experiences in a way that makes everything just click, as if you experienced it yourself.
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