Floating Opera (170-252)

XIX. A premise to swallow
-"Differences in degree lead to differences in kind." (p. 170)
-absolutely nothing has intrinsic value/the value of everything is assigned to it (p.170)
    -agree??
    -truth isn't valuable?
    -can you "stomach it"? (p.171)


XX. Calliope music
-Hamlet: "conscience does make cowards of us all" (p.172)
     -true?
-"that to choose suicide is to exchange unknown evils for known ones" (p.172)
     -Todd believes this position to be cowardly and unreasonable, why?
     -agree?
-"I merely hold that those who would live reasonably should have reasons for remaining alive." (p.173)
     -but what about death?  Those who would die reasonably should have reasons for dying, right?
-bad luck is not sufficient enough to account for suicide, which is why he became a cynic after his father committed suicide.

-Written in two separate columns to be read simultaneously.
      -why is it necessary that they be read simultaneously?
      -was this just a technique that John Barth or Todd Andrews wanted to try out?  Or does it actually have significance in being written this way?  What is such significance if it is present?
      -how did you read it?

-Morton v. Butler was never an actual Supreme Court case...although both names have appeared in more than one Supreme Court case


XXI. Coals to Newcastle 
-"Does one's father hang himself for a simple, stupid lack of money?" (p.183)
       -consider that "very possibly he would never again reach his former security or regain all his former respect."
       -what do you think of Todd's father?  Do you look down on him for killing himself?  Do you look down on him for knowing his son would find him?  Do you look down on him for the reason for which Todd thinks is most obvious as to why he killed himself ($$$$)?  Do you look down on him at all?  If he was your father, would you be mad at him?  Would you hate him?
-"Is five thousand dollars enough to pay for digging my fingers under that belt?" (p.184)
         -he mailed his money to the richest man in town.
                   -Why do you think he did that?
                   -do you think he knew Morton would react the way that he did?
                   -Were you upset that Todd did that?
                   -Would you have felt obligated if someone randomly donated $5,000 to you, and you were already rich?
                    -do you thin Morton actually wanted to give it back??  ""Here, take it back."  Again he extended nothing toward me." (p.185)
         -mad that you didn't get read the note?
                   -what do you think it said?  Anything about the suicide?

-"I proposed to whoever it was that we fling our glasses into the fireplace, as one should.
"There isn't any fireplace."
"Into the noise, then."
"You can't hit noise, silly."
"Regardez," I said, and threw mine at the drummer."  ahahaahahhah

-surprised at how crazy the party got?  I was
-groups of men taking cold showers together and singing???
-Danced with Morton's wife in the bathtub...initiated by her, as he says
      -when caught by Colonel Morton, the Colonel smiled.
      -replied, "Mrs. Morton dances well."
      -"one might call her Morton's Most Marvelous Tomato, mightn't one?"
              -what do you think of this line?
              -was going to say more but didn't want to be insulting...???!
              -See box


XXII.  A tour of the opera
-What do you think of Jeannine calling Todd "Honey"?
-"If you're finished before then and she gets on your nerves, pop her in a cab and send her home.  She likes that."  (p.197)
      -I considered her an irresponsible mother.  Was this common back then?  What did you think of this line?
-"You have to eat to stay alive.  They like staying alive."  "Why?"  "That's the end of the line again." (p.199)
       -Why did Barth add this in?
       -Todd previously declared that people must have a reason for staying alive.   Is liking it enough of a reason?
       -Around this point I thought he was beginning to change his mind about suicide, if subconsciously.
-acetylene seemed dangerous to Todd, did you think anything of this comment? (p.202)


XXIII.  So long, so long
-"I didn't bother to straighten out my desk, to say a last goodbye to Mr. Bishop, Jimmy, or Mrs. Lake, or even to take a final look at my office, at my wonderful staring-wall.  Why should I?" (p.205)
         -I thought this strange.  Of course, he thinks nothing has meaning, so I guess it wouldn't matter.
-"there are no ultimate reasons" (p.205)
-"Olfactory pleasure being no more absolute than other kinds of pleasures, one would do well to outgrow conventional odor-judgments.  It is a meager standard that will call perverse that seeker of wisdom who, his toenails picked, must sniff his fingers in secret joy." (p.206)
          -Why is this included?
          -Do you do this?
          -Do you think he is making a valid point: curious people should not be judged?
-decides to continue his eternal project--his Inquiry--despite the fact that it will end that night.
          -this also made me think that he was having second thoughts...
-What was Jane trying to explain? (p.210)  Did Todd actually understand?
-"I suddenly wavered in my resolution to die--was shaken, in fact, by reluctance.  The reason was simply that my suicide would be interpreted by the Macks as evidence that their move had crushed me; that I was unable to endure life after their rebuff.  And this interpretation would fill them with a deplorable proud pity.  Happily, the faltering lasted only a moment."  (p.213)
            -again, doesn't care that his best friends would think that.
            -actually happy because then his death would be interpreted in every way but the way that he intended, which was somehow significant to him.
            -any ideas to explain this line of thinking?


XXIV.  Three million dollars
-to decide whether to get Harrison the 3 million dollars or not, originally depended on the strength Harrison and Jane showed, which they did show.  But he decided that morning that the deciding factor would be Jane's response to his note.
            -"If she chose to make Capt. Osborn the happiest old satyr in the country, I'd make her the richest woman in the county; if she was as angry and insulted as Harrison had been by the incident in my office in 1933, then I'd destroy the letters...  She'd been neither angry nor insulted, nor had she felt obliged to carry out her end of the bargain.  She'd simply laughed at the whole thing."  (p.215)
            -what do you think of him changing his deciding factor?
            -what do you think of what he changed it to?
 -"had no feeling about [the Macks] at all" (p.215)
             -truth?  lie?  self-deceiving?
 -decided to make sure the Macks got the money despite the fact that the nickle decided against that
             -mean that he really did care about them?
             -or did he only want to make his own choices and not be ruled by a nickle?


XXV.  The Inquiry
-This is where I decided that he was slightly insane.
-"causation is never more than inference"" (p.218)
             -thoughts?  agree?
             -point of the inquiry is to determine the cause of his father's suicide, but to actually determine a cause he must make an inference which he never plans to do, only to shorten the gap between the cause and effect, and this makes the inquiry a truly eternal process.
                          -why even bother then?
                          -"It doesn't follow that because a goal is unattainable, one shouldn't work toward its attainment."  (p.219)   ...yes it does.  At least, I think it does.  What do you think?
-knowing that he is biased, he keeps a peach basket with notes on himself
-life-inquiry: inquiry into his father's life and the workings of his mind
-death-inquiry: inquiry into why his father committed suicide.
-self-inquiry: inquiry into himself
-letter to his father: intensified the need for it because now his father can't receive it
             -logical?  crazy?
-relationship between him and his father
             -what do you think of it?
             -what does this make you think of his father's suicide?
-Todd doesn't think financial loss is a good enough reason for suicide, but believes the mastery of his problem is a good enough reason
               -agree?  flawed logic?

-MASKS
        -assumed and then justified, including the suicide one
        -YOLO mask at John Hopkins, then Saint mask brought on by Betty June's slashing and prostate problem discover, and then father's suicide caused his third mask: cynic
                   -is he still a cynic?

Emotions
         -Betty June: mirth
         -Argonne hole: fear
         -father's suicide: frustration
         -Jane Mack affair beginning: surprise
         -night before intended suicide: despair
                        -this night was the first time he had ever used the term "masks" to describe those stages
                        -extremely sad and distressed due to the idea "that all my masks were half-conscious attempts to master the fact with which I had to live; that none had made me master of that fact; that where cynicism had failed, no future mask could succeed; that, in short, my heart was the master of all the rest of me, even of my will....  There is no way to master the fact with which I had to live." (p.226)
                                       -do you think this is also the first time he decided the names for his mask and realized that this was cynicism?

I. Nothing has intrinsic value.
II. The reasons for which people attribute value to things are always ultimately irrational.
III. There is, therefore no ultimate "reason" for valuing anything, including life.
IV. Living is action.  There's no final reason for action.
V. There's no final reason for living.


XXVI. The first step
-point of this chapter??
-boating metaphors: why?
            -p.229
            -"a new philosophical position, like a new rowboat, should be allowed to sit a day or two at the dock, to let the seams swell tight, before it's put to any strenuous application." (what was the new position btw?)
            -"One should not have to make such decisions quickly; it's much like launching a new rowboat into the teeth of a nor'easter."  (isn't that exactly what he did while deciding on suicide this morning?)
            -"As a boatwright might examine his craft for leaks, with considerable interest if little real anxiety, so I examined myself.  Can he be called a builder who shies at launching the finished hull?  For what other purpose was it finished?


XXVII. The Floating Opera
-describes the show
-describes the audience's reactions and the socially appropriate responses
             -"We applauded eagerly."   "We cheered."   "but we were alert, and laughed especially loud."  "We murmured sympathy for ourselves."  "we pleaded."  "We voiced our disappointment, some of us resentfully."
             -seemed robotic-like movements, unemotional and unfelt...described exactly how audiences react
-pennies: feel bad for T. Wallace Whittaker?
            -why does he keep repeating his full name?
            -"I greatly admired him."  "...shaking both fists at us through a copper shower (to which I, too, contributed standing up and flinging all my change at him)  (p.237)
                                  -what?  for social acceptance?  Doesn't seem to care about social acceptance at the Morton's party or with what he says to Harrison....or ever...
                                  -rationalizes his action: "What was I doing, then, but assisting T. Wallace Whittaker in the realization of his principles?  for now, surely, having been hooted from the stage and fired from his job in the cause of Shakespeare, he would either abandon his principles, in which case they weren't integrated very strongly into his personality, or else cling to them more strongly than ever, in which case he had us to thank for giving him the means to strength."  (p.237)
-do you think Todd was actually amused by the show?

-decides to blow up the boat
       -even though his friends, his potential daughter, the entire town was aboard
       -even though all the work he did for Harrison's money would go to waste
       -selfish?
       -crazy?
       -why did he decide to do it this way, when it would harm so many people?
       -imagined Jeannine dead: "I considered a small body, formed perhaps from my own and flawless Jane's, black, cracked, smoking."  (p.243)
       -"I smiled at the thought that i might expire of natural causes before the great steamboat explosion."
       -what do you think of Todd now?
     

XXVIII. A parenthesis
-"Need I tell you that I felt no sense either of relief or of disappointment? ...I merely took note of the fact that despite my intentions six hundred ninety-nine of my townspeople and myself were still alive."
        -basically, "oh well."
        -WHAT?!

-"Why not step into the river? as I had asked myself in the afternoon, "Why not blow up the floating Opera?"  But now, at once, a new voice replied casually, "On the other hand, why bother?"  (p.246)
         -reason he decided not to kill himself
         -great enough reason?
         -I thought one needed a reason to live?  But then again no reason has value
         -so why was this day so momentous?  It was exactly like every other...he did the same things as usual, he made conclusions and then rationalized them as usual, and he contradicted himself as usual.

-Pretty much loses friendship with the Macks
          -acts like he doesn't care... does he?
          -why do you think this happened?  Really just because they moved?

Mister Haecker
-"It was doubtful that a man of his age and circumstances would be either out or asleep at ten-thirty." (p.248)
          -what?  I think he'd be asleep by nine!
-finds that he attempted suicide :(
          -surprise you?
          -why did Barth add this?
-"Then the two of us (Todd and Hurley Binder, the night clerk) returned to Mister Haecker's room with Capt. Osborn, who pleaded with us to help him up the stairs so that he wouldn't miss the excitement, and had our drinks there while waiting for the ambulance to arrive."
           -what do you think of Capt. Osborn's character now?
           -if you were on the medical crew that responded to the call, how would you view Todd and Osborn?
-Todd thought Haecker would find the remaining years less burdensome than the previous after this, and says he was right:  Haecker went to a sanitorium because he had tuberculosis and there he tried to kill himself again, and succeeded.  (p.249)  I don't see how that is enjoying his remaining years more?


XXIX. The Floating Opera
-"no emotion was necessarily involved in it [his reasoning].  To realize that nothing makes any final difference is overwhelming;" (p.251)   Everything is meaningless.
             -do you think emotions were involved?  Is that why he ultimately changed his mind?  did that have anything to do with his deciding to kill himself in the first place?  He felt bad not being the master of himself.
-"faced with an infinitude of possible directions and having no ultimate reason to choose one over another, I would in all probability, though not at all necessarily, go on behaving much as I had thitherto.." (p.251)

New project
-"if I was ever to explain to myself why Dad committed suicide, I must explain to him why I did not." (p.252)
            -both of these tasks are impossible and eternal
            -however, I believe that this book is an attempt at the second one...
            -does he just like to write these crazy things?
            -is he insane?
            -could he be any of us?

"Even if I died before ending my cigar, I had all the time there was." (p.252)
            -what does this mean?

Did it bother you that the book ended on chapter XXIX and not XXX?