Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Oooo.

I get to be the first poster. In general, this book was a good read, a few things I thought about:

-in the beginning (before I was introduced to Blossom, Abigail and Oliver) I kept trying to identify with either Peter or Lola and I couldn't really decide (did you guys do this too?) who I fit with better. Once the other three were part of the story, I kind of stopped since they all had such extreme personalities. I also thought that Peter was 8 or 9 until they told me they were 16.

-It was interesting how I knew nothing of the background. There was no mention of the world the teenagers were from until Blossom starts talking about houses (I couldn't figure out if she was kidding or not...that part kind of threw me) and meat. (btw, I hated Blossom as a character...but I think I was supposed to)

-the 'food' that the machine spits out, I kept seeing in my mind as some kind of SPAM product.

-whats with all these point-of-view changes? Are most Child Lit books like this? This style of writing always messes me up, I don't like the change, its distracting.
Opined by around

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Some general impressions:

Yes - the food thing was gross. I don't think the POV change is strictly regulated to ChildLit books - just a style thing.

I decided it was set in (dum da da dum!) The Future around pg 26, where Lola says she's used to synthetic protein. Also references to "residential megastructures," the bad air and old books. Blossom's reaction to being alone with a boy -- "immoral and dangerous" -- made me wonder if population control was in effect. And the whole stair structure is futuristic.

The characters seemed like a mini-cosmos of high schoo cliques. The jock, the nerdy kid, the pretty girl, etc. That set the stage for lots of conflict.

What was with the Oliver/Jasper thing? That was not resolved enough for me. I was certain Oliver was a twin, specifically chosen to work on Peter's dependencies (was that a homosexual relationship? It is never stated right out, being published in 1974, but I wondered.) and see how he'd react. It seems illogical to me to just happen to have an identical-looking person there.

I was convinced someone was going to die or be killed before the book ended and was disappointed when everyone lived. My thought was that Blossom & Co. would kill Peter or Lola with the understanding that a very bad act would give them unlimited food. The whole situation was very reality-show like, if I can coin an awkward phrase.

Throughout the book, I kept thinking about how I would react in the same situation - keep looking? Jump down a few flights and search for some sort of exit? Hide and cry?

Excellent last line. Creepy stuff.

February 15, 2005 at 2:45 PM
Sarah said...

And that would be high schooL cliques, sorry.

February 15, 2005 at 2:47 PM
JoBiv said...

I couldn't help but think of the food as something like those pellets you get at the petting zoo from those machines that look like they should dispense gumballs. And that smell like ARSE. They grossed me out (in the book and at the petting zoo).

And Sarah, I agree, I wanted the threat of death to be a bit more pronounced in the book. Teasing Lola and Peter with food was not going to be the end... It needed a Lord of the Flies-esque brutality to make the torture truly horrifying.

I kept thinking about this book as a product of the '70's. Maybe it was the snazzy cover of the various characters mid-dance - really groovy, man. But Sleator's treatment of teens, in general, felt like an early-YA achievement... he wanted to present a handful of different characters - representatives of cliques, maybe - and they had to be sort of extreme. I think this happens a lot in fantasy and science fiction. You need polarized characters who embody one emotion, thought, or theme to complete the whole puzzle of the constructed world. But the caricatured characters are also a sort of '70's YA thing... I kept thinking of M. E. Kerr's books, in which each character looks distinct in some way (think Dinky Hocker) and has strong character traits, complete with catch-phrases like a bad sit-com. To me, it's the Clue method of character development. "Lola... with the short hair... in the smoking room..."

February 17, 2005 at 11:14 AM
JoBiv said...

And kudos, Susie, for steppin' up and posting first!

February 17, 2005 at 4:18 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)