Alden dennis Weer - page 26 to 42- First Impressions

I just finished reading these 16 pages today, and they are really dense, because Weer's flow of conscious memories takes us to strange places.

The last we saw Weer, he was recommended exercise by doctor, and he tells us that he likes to exercise with his Boy Scout knife in his garden, and his past time seems to uproot flowers and vegetables rather than weeds present in his garden, this sort of creates an imagery of haunted house to me, because we think he is living in a big house, which is dark most of the time, and then he has a garden in front of his house which is filled with weeds, and looks to be not being properly kept by anyone, this feels so much like a haunted house image to me.

Weer then goes on about talking about addiction, and he thinks the trees are addicted to sunlight more in the summer, and they are more alive in the summer due to drug of sunlight, he compares this addiction to his finding his boy scout knife, its a bit strange, but so are many things in the book.

Also I found the blind god can be Hod, then we have an Ape God, and finally Blind Idiot god is Azathoth which is an HP Lovecraft reference.

Then he compares the color of the leaves to the bruises on the skin of people, and then he goes in a complete different direction, where he starts thinking about if only we could have had mythical scarlet, yellow and brown races, and they were denied to be in America by a weird chance, he goes on to describe some islands which are mythical and some which do exist, the connection which I found to Fifth head was the Tethys sea the time when Gondwanaland existed, the shadow children tell us they are also from this land.

The stimulated stag also seems to be an extrapolation to me.

When he remembers about his knife he throws in a line that when my life was over I came to my desk, and this seems from an memory when he was asked to leave from his job, or the day when he left his job.

Then we shift into the Christmas day memory when he was gifted this knife at his Grandfather's place, he is travelling in a smelly old coach of train to his Grandfather's place, where his mother and Weer are picked by a chauffeur, we discover there that his Grandfather is having an affair with a woman named Mab Crawford, whose husband has ran away from her. Also Mab after three months went looking for her husband, or did she went for another purpose?, about that we don't get any definite information.

Also one thing which I noticed was a day before Christmas the streets are empty, and the shops are shut, this seems to be off, because the shops should be open, and they must be bustling with people, but here we don't have that.

The below things particularly stand out for in this section is that, The Weer's were not economically sound when Alden had to visit his grandfather, because not only they are travelling in second class of the train, his mother does not have any money to give to the taxi driver. Also one more thing which points me in this direction of thought is he is wearing shoes which are too small for him, and his mother can only remove those shoes, he tells us that his father will be busy hunting, but I don't believe him, because generally Christmas is the time which is spent with Family, but he has to go to his Grandfather to celebrate that, also it does not look to be a family reunion because his other aunt Arabella is not present there.

Also if Aunt Arabella is his aunt from his mother's side then who is Aunt Olivia ? Is she his father's sister ? Or she is one of neighbors of Weer's ? Because we don't any physical description of Arabella, so far which looks like she hasn't had his attention but his Aunt Olivia, played significant part in his childhood.

Weer also tells us that the memories from his childhood are the hardest to remember, and so remember what he may, may not be the accurate memory, and definitely his feelings which he is showing to be having are present prejudiced, and he may not have felt that way in that situation.

We also get a confirmation that Bobby Black did fall, and looks like Alden may also had the fall.

Also all the memories which he has about his grandfather's visit have an imagery of cold or snow associated with them, so may be these memories are not happy memories for him.

Weer also tells us that he thinks he directly arrived at the station, and does not remember more details about the journey, so we also have some kind of time dilation going on here.

You guys mentioned last week Inception, but I feel more like Weer's house is a black hole, where he is sitting alone and time has stopped for him, and he can see all the memories/events whichever he want in his life.

At the dinner we get a sort of confirmation that Mab and his grandfather are having an affair, because the way Mab is talking with Weer's Grandfather, also we have an interesting part where we have Grandfather mentioning "you have that little scamp to keep you on your feet whole day", so who exactly is he referring to ? Because Alden hasn't mentioned of a sister so far, does he mean someone whom Alden's father is having an affair with ? maybe Aunt Olivia ?

Also why does Mab accompany Weer's Mother to her room ? Is she is trying to hide something which has changed ?

Alden is not able to sleep due to the cold, and then he tries to go the parlor and loses himself in the house, he tells us that the house looks more like a museum, and he also mentions to us previously that if Santa Claus will actually come in this dusty house.

When he finally finds the parlor we have his Grandfather telling him the tradition about not opening gifts before breakfast, and also how his daughters use to sneak down same way on the Christmas night to see the decorations and the gifts, his mother has definitely gifted him the Mermaid book, the imagery of Mermaid he associates with wet girls he has seen in his life, which again sounds a bit creepy.

Also the toilet water seems to be some kind of alcohol bottle which his Grandfather although he says he is gifting to Mab, but gifts his mother. The necklace he gifts Mab.

Looks like his grandmother wanted to be buried Evadane(character who when her husband was killed, threw herself on his funeral pyre) with her jewels.

Also we have Grandfather asking to Weer to read time, but he is not able to do so, and he slips up into another memory where he describes America as an magical land, the house is moored in the universe by the stove and smoke coming from it.

For all of the memories it feels to me like he is giving us commentary, by being actually being present over there. And he remembers so much of his past, but he can't remember small things about his present.

He also gives us his definite age during the memories, which is so hard, because the memories which we have are random, and it's very hard to actually associate them with a age number, especially the childhood ones.

Well those are my thoughts so far about this section.Going through podcast now.