The Floating Opera (170-252)

I feel like there's so much irony in this part of the book:

• Mister Haecker is the one that commits suicide after the conversation that he and Todd had in the previous reading... (248-9)
• also, Todd never even stops to think that he might be partly at fault; he was the one that said life has no intrinsic value, so he might have been the one to convince him
• How do we feel about the attention it gets? 
• Irony of the Inquiry: 
• Todd takes all the notes, writes the letters, and analyzes himself so he can find perfect communication with his father, but his father dies before he can achieve it (222)
• tries to deepen his communication, but instead isolates himself in order to try to talk to him and ultimately can't communicate at all
• does he really want to end The Inquiry and admit an actual reason for his father's death?
• other examples?

• The style at the beginning of Chapter XX, Calliope Music - how did you read it? why was it introduced this way?

Todd's manipulation

• He and Parks make a game out of the case that they are working on
• Todd obviously thinks it is dumb, but he really enjoys manipulating the players and arranging them just so - Morton ends up suing his own son
• doesn't even bother with the case after he sets it up; the end/winner doesn't matter to him (179)
• foreshadowing? quitting when all of the pieces are aligned and ready? doesn't follow through once he has control?
• he almost doesn't want to commit suicide because then other people would take it the way they wanted to take it (the Macks thinking it was all their fault) instead of how he wanted them to
• then changes his mind because then he can manipulate them more that way
• has fun deciding if he's going to give Harrison the three million or not (214-5)
• at the end does he change his mind?

• incomplete consistency again
• what is the significance of the $5000 dollars?
• starts Todd's distaste for money and dumb things because it was not enough to make up for discovering his father's body and dealing with the corpse; nothing would make up for that
• and it seems that he killed himself because he owed too much money and his reputation was at stake, which explains why Todd doesn't care about that stuff
• when Todd tries to give it away, why does he get so much grief about giving it as a gift? They obviously value the money highly because Morton doesn't actually want to give it back (repetition of "he extended nothing toward me" 185)
• and the stuff with Morton's wife... so goofy
• Todd explains the Floating Opera (life) to Jeanine but still doesn't get it
• "They like being happy, just like you...They want to earn money; They like eating; They like staying alive"(199)
• kind of gloomy and a bit unnerving that he never talks about himself...

• Masks
• frat boy to saint to cynic
• "All my masks were half-conscious attempts to master the fact with which I had to live....my heart was the master of the rest of me, even of my will. It was my heart that made my masks, not my will" (226)

• What does he do on the Floating Opera when he went backstage? Why does he do that?
• Why is all this about the Floating Opera included?

The Floating Opera (XXIX)

• "Nothing makes any final difference...including that truth" (251)
• Is he crazy? I actually want to know... 
• Has Todd changed at the end of the book/ the day he changed his mind?