A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Read Online Free PDF Page A

a number of ways. And though it seems inconceivable to lose both parents in the space of 32 days—there was that line from The Imp. of Being Earnest: “ To have lost one parent, Mr. Worthing, might be considered a misfortune. To have lost both smacks of carelessness ” —and to lose them to completely different diseases (cancer, sure, but different enough, in terms of location, duration, and provenance), that loss is accompanied by an undeniable but then of course guilt-inducing sense of mobility, of infinite possibility, having suddenly found oneself in a world with neither floor nor ceiling.
    b) The Brotherly Love / Weird Symbiosis Factor This thread will be going throughout, and was as a matter of fact supposed to be the surprise conclusion reached at the end of the book, the big pay-off, as it were, that, while the author searches for love—there will be some episodes involving that—and his brother searches for, you know, whatever little kids search for (gum and pennies?) and together they try to be normal and happy, they actually will probably always be unsuccessful in any and every extracurricular relationship, given that the only people who they truly admire and love and find perfect are each other.
    c) The Painfully, Endlessly Self-conscious Book Aspect
    This is probably obvious enough already. The point is, the author doesn ’ t have the energy or, more important, skill, to fib about this being anything other than him telling you about things, and is not a good enough liar to do it in any competently sublimated narrative way. At the same time, he will be clear and up-front about this being a self-conscious memoir, which you may come to appreciate, and which is the next theme:
    c.2) The Knowingness About the Book ’ s Self-consciousness Aspect While the author is self-conscious about being self-referential, he is also knowing about that self-conscious self-referentiality. Further, and if you ’ re one of those people who can tell what ’ s going to happen before it actually happens, you ’ ve predicted the next element here: he also plans to be clearly, obviously aware of his knowingness about his self-consciousness of self-referentiality. Further, he is fully cognizant, way ahead of you, in terms of knowing about and fully admitting the gimmickry inherent in all this, and will preempt your claim of the book ’ s irrelevance due to said gimmickry by saying that the gimmickry is simply a device, a defense, to obscure the black, blinding, murderous rage and sorrow at the core of this whole story, which is both too black and blinding to look at— avert.. .your.. .eyes! —but nevertheless useful, at least to the author, even in caricatured or condensed form, because telling as many people as possible about it helps, he thinks, to dilute the pain and bitterness and
    thus facilitate its flushing from his soul, the pursuit of which is the basis of the next cluster of themes:
    d) The Telling the World of Suffering as Means of Flushing or at Least Diluting of Pain Aspect
    For example, the author spends some time later relating his unsuccessful, though just barely unsuccessful, attempt to become a cast member of The Real World in 1994, when the show ’ s third season was being filmed in San Francisco. At that point, the author sought to do two related things: 1) to purge himself of his past by trumpeting his recent life ’ s events to the world, and thus, by spreading his pain, his heartbreaking story, to the show ’ s thousands or millions of watchers, he would receive in return a thousand tidal waves of sympathy and support, and never be lonely again; and 2) To become well known for his sorrows, or at least to let his suffering facilitate his becoming well known, while at the same time not shrinking from the admission of such manipulations of his pain for profit, because the admission of such motivations, at least in his opinion, immediately absolves him of responsibility for such manipulations ’