Member: elenalda

Hi,

Saw you liked Trainspotting, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in reading my new novel and posting your comments here (as well as on a few other book-related sites). Thought you might like my novel since it's also about a group of disturbed kids and a bit dark. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 3:13 pm (EST) on Apr 6, 2009

hey, thanks for reviewing my book! i think you're the first of the library thing reviewers to actually mention its relation to existentialism, so it's nice to see someone's taken the time to look beyond mere plot points and character traits. i just wanted to say that i intended the story not as an existentialist piece per se, but rather as a critique of such thought. i made aaron such a blantantly flawed and self-destructive character so that the role his own choices play in his fate would be obvious, but i also tried to implant him in such a dysfunctional environment (i.e. war on the macro level, alcoholism and other self-abuse on the micro) that this would have to be taken into account in the story's outcome too. in this way i hoped to emphasize the relativity of what's considered destructive action, and also highlight the ambiguity between attributing the trajectory of aaron's life to his own decisions as opposed to the social/ecomonic/cultural conditions that have shaped him as a character. i wanted aaron to be a character lost in this ambiguity as it exists in lived experience generally, one who has grown too tired by it to attempt figuring it out any longer. this is the essence of aaron's loss of idealism: he has lost the ability to think that things could possibly be better, and has resigned himself to the fog of nihilism - whether justifiably or not being left to the reader's interpretation.

anyway, that's all. hopefully you found the book thought provoking, if nothing else, and thanks again for reading it!

J.

posted by JSandham at 12:36 pm (EST) on Dec 8, 2008