The first part of this book really resonated with me and my own experiences growing up. Until recently, I was pretty tiny, and throughout my early school career I was usually the smallest kid in my class. It didn't really help me either that I wasn't particularly athletic, due to all the time I spent indoors reading books and doing other uncool things.
I remember making a lot of the same weird word associations and gathering memories in the same way Stephen did in the beginning of the book. One of my earliest memories was actually me walking on my driveway, looking down at my feet, and thinking to myself: "I will remember this exact moment." I still do. Which is weird, I wonder what kind of space I'd have for more important things in my brain if I didn't remember things like that.
In the more recent readings, Stephen struggles with himself because he believes he is unique in all the things he has going on in his mind. Everyone goes through that stage where they think to themselves how interesting and introspective they are, not realizing that every individual is undergoing the same thing. It's a really difficult thing for me to grasp, because I will only ever experience my own perspective. I will almost never be able to understand what those other people go through as a result of that. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is really interesting to me since it's essentially the next best thing in being able to see the process of maturity again through the eyes of someone else.
In the early parts of the book, Stephen falls into one of those trap questions, the dreaded "do you kiss your mother at night?" As we talked about in class, there really is no correct answer besides not really responding. I remember falling for a lot of those back when I was in middle school. Including, but not limited to:
"Hey, I like your shoes."
If you looked at your shoes, they would punch you and laugh and say that you were a woman for having multiple pairs of shoes and needing to see what you were wearing.
"Do you like fish sticks?"
When you say "fish sticks" fast, apparently it sounds like "fishdicks." If you say yes, they say: "well then you must be a gay fish." If you say no, they would go on about how delicious and wonderful actual fish sticks were.
There were a few others, like holding your hand a certain way and if you looked they would punch you.
Thinking back about these is making me pretty mad and confused. I'm glad we're all passed those.
