RESPONSE FOR 2/4

Response for 2/4

   Both "To Hell With Likeability"  by Rick Moody and "We Are Not Your Mother" by Janice Eidus try to teach the same lesson, which is to not worry about what other people will think or like, but to be true and to make your characters real. Moody really slammed that message home when he said, "if what you are looking for is gentle affirmations... or if what your require is reassurance that everything you personally have done is sweet and good nod worthy of admiration, I suggest go work in greeting-card composition!" (2) This at first shocked me a little, but then made me laugh. Greeting cards are supposed to be these one dimensional happy phrases and it was a really perfect reference. Janice Eidus then went on to talk about characters, and how we should make them complex, including all of the bad things in life. This I thought was a really important aspect that I need to think a bit more about, because a perfect character would be perfectly boring. Just like Eidus pointed out with her friend's character, Samantha, a perfect, one dimensional character is annoying and boring, because it isn't real (57). I think we see some of this in Aimee Bender's "Off" with the main character. For example, she shows up to the party completely out-dressing everyone, making the host feel under dressed and putting on another necklace (111). She then steals everyone's coats, and listens to them while sitting in a closet, pretending to be asleep so she can kiss a guy just to kiss him (116-118). While the main character isn't by any means a good person, she's interesting. Think of how boring it would be to read about a woman at a party, without anything happening.