Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Ruth

Why do you think Kathy was friends with Ruth?
Posted by at

4 comments:

kc said...

Good question! She seemed to see right through her and to even be contemptuous of her much of the time, yet she spent a great deal of energy dwelling on little details of their interactions, like a look Ruth gave or something cryptic she said, which I found rather tedious. Their relationships were hard to read. Did they really like one another, or did they just desperately need one another's company? Did they just feel kind of tied to one another like family members without really having all that much in common? Even in the love relationship between Kathy and Tommy I failed to feel anything amounting to romantic chemistry.

12:42 PM, September 09, 2009
Erin said...

I found Ruth so annoying. She clearly took Kathy's friendship for granted. She thought nothing of lying or throwing Kathy under the bus if she could improve her social status or impress the older students. She was often mean. And it made Kathy seem sort of pathetic for staying friends with her. But then, it didn't seem like Kathy had much of a personality.

And yeah, I saw no chemistry between Kathy and Tommy. Ruth tells them to get together, so they do. It didn't seem like they particularly wanted to. Or cared much either way.

And that reminds me of how sex is described in the book. It's like how a junior high kid would talk about it, even when the narrator is an adult. Like this:

Obviously, though, not everything was like before. For a start, Tommy and I finally started having sex.

Gee, how romantic.

8:08 PM, September 10, 2009
kc said...

Oh, great point about the sex! And the first time was Kathy giving Tommy an unreciprocated handjob, during which he shows no interest in touching her at all! I think we're supposed to think it was a sweet moment with a tender woman and an ill man, but I just found it slightly icky. It seemed like such a male point of view, which was ill-fitting for the female narrator.

And you're right, she just announces the fact of sex having occurred, as a teenager would announce it, and does nothing to convey the joy or romance of it. It's like she's telling us about some ho-hum food she had for lunch. Bizarre. Passionless.

There was some talk early in the book about gay kids, too, but I'll have to look that up. Not sure what that meant.

Then there was the stuff about how Kathy was kind of a sex maniac, but then, no, we learn that she wasn't a freak at all because Ruth admits to having felt the same urges. Huh?

And it was in the description of the sex scenes that I felt I could really tell that it was a man (Ishiguro) behind Kathy's voice. I just didn't think that a female writer would have written about sex in quite the same way. Her female characters would have been more believable, more emotionally involved.

8:38 PM, September 10, 2009
Erin said...

Yes, the unreciprocated handjob is a perfect example. It really made me cringe. And didn't they ever kiss or caress each other? We need those kind of details to make it seem like they are more than just robots.

Also this makes me laugh:

Then there was the stuff about how Kathy was kind of a sex maniac, but then, no, we learn that she wasn't a freak at all because Ruth admits to having felt the same urges. Huh?

I thought the same thing!

I do remember being puzzled about something with gay kids early on, but I don't remember it either.

1:40 PM, September 11, 2009

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)