Monday, April 27, 2009
Chicken or egg?
I felt that Billy's alcoholism was intimately related to his ordeal with Eva, but then there's also the feeling that alcoholism was common in that community/family, that it was almost fate. Did you think Eva merely exacerbated a strong predisposition or did the sadness really drive him to drink?
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3 comments:
I think it's probably the former. I had the impression that Billy most likely would've been an alcoholic anyway, but maybe he wouldn't have been so desperate for it, so resistant to change.
Yeah, I had the same feeling. I think what you say about change is important. There's that theme of "This will not change" and "I am still here" mentioned explicitly several times in the book, which has to do with loyalty and reliance mainly, but also maybe with stagnation.
Dan Lynch offered an interesting perspective on the alcohol, too.
Maybe for some people it's a disease. But maybe for some there are things that happen in their lives that they just can't live with. Things that take the sweetness out of everything. Maybe for some it's a sadness they can't get rid of or a disappointment that won't go away. And you know what I say to those people? I say good luck to those people. I say maybe they're not as smart and sensible and accepting as every one of us ... but they're loyal. They're loyal to their own feelings. They're loyal to the first plans they made... Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed. Say he made way too much of the Irish girl and afterwards couldn't look life square in the face. But give him some credit for feeling ...(I wonder if Dan's opinion would change any if he knew the truth).
Yeah, that was an interesting passage. I'm always interested in different takes on alcoholism -- whether it's a "disease" and all that. And I can see why some people would prefer one explanation over another. I appreciate that Dan Lynch loved Billy's romanticism and capacity for great feeling and didn't see it as weakness.
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