Michelle’s Weblog

the part of the book that i have been most interested from the start when i looked through all the pages was the 2 and a half pages of number that tell the “sum of [Oskar's] life”(269). once i read that part of the book everything made much more sense: he was typing into the phone the words he couldnt say because he doesnt speak. i found out how to translate the numbers into words but i can only get so far. he says he pressed 5,6,8,3 for love and 3,3,2,8,4 for death. after reading this i pulled out my phone set it to T9word and started typing. i found out 5683 types love and 33284 types death. so on to the huge babble of numbers. i6 got this far : ” my name is…”and the only name i can make from that is eli. i know one thing for certain. its not thomas.

i chose this image because i am still uncertain about the meaning of the images of the person falling. i know that oskar talks about how he wonders how his father died, if he jumped or if he burned. it makes me wonder if this picture is supposed to represent his father, showing that his father actually did jump. i hope in the last chapters we find out the meaning of the person falling. towards the end of the book there are 15 pages of a person falling in the form of a paper movie. it is actually very disturbing. but it definitely catches your attention because ive already looked through all the pictures in the book even though i have not gotten to that part of the book. it helps me ask more questions as i read on and wonder what the significance of each picture is.

as i was reading over the people on mr. black’s cards the one that stood out most to me was susan sontag: thought. i have a lot of interest in the human brain and why it works the way it does, and i know nothing about her so i figured its a great way to learn something completely new.

susan sontag is an author. her books and essay have been translated into over thirty languages. she has done almost everything having to do with literature and speech. she is a human rights activist and has directed a play. she wrote mostly on photography.

susan sontag died december 28, 2004.

from what i have researched i understand that she does have a lot of thoughts on different topics but i see why that would be the main word foer would associated with her. any writer has a lot of thought and i feel it was a good change for foer to add a writer to the list.

why does oskar always feel the need to lie to people? “he asked, ‘how old ar you?’ i said seven, because i wanted him to feel more sorry for me, so he would help me. Lie #34.” (90) why does anyone lie? is it to hide something; to make the person look better, feel better? “‘how old are you?’ i told her twelve- lie #59- because i wanted to be old enough for her to love me.”(97) what were all the lies in between there?  along with the lies he states his disappointments… “‘i’m sorry,’ she said. ‘why are you sorry?’ ‘i’m sorry i don’t know anything about the key.’ disappointment #3.”(97). why does he feel the need to point out the disappointments he encounters? does it make him feel better? i would love to research some psychological reasoning behind lieing to get a better understanding of why he is doing this…