Cutting Through Carrots

Coming Through Slaughter frequently has off-beats, awkward shards of text placed in weird place such as the following: "The woman is cutting carrots... If she thinks what she is doing she will lose control. He knows that the only way to catch a fly for instance is to move the hand without the brain telling it to move fast, interfering." (p.31)

After reading through the book and coming upon this part again, I found this seemingly random part not as random. In fact, the whole book, which seemed to be arranged in a rather 'drunk' fashion, was not random at all.

I'll get back to that statement in a second. For now, let us concentrate on the carrots.

Actually, never mind. Let me talk about Buddy Bolden's lifestyle.
Buddy, both a barber and a jazz player, is a very eccentric man. He seems to be the kind of guy that would be able to swoosh off whatever hits his face, whether it be a break-up, a death, or a pie.


Anydope, Buddy is always in the 'now', with no concerns for the future or recognition of the past. According to Crawley, "he doesn't talk about his past... he's only concerned with the next ten minutes of his life."
Everyone who had known Buddy would agree that if one hasn't "heard him play some place where the weather for instance could change the next series of notes - then you should never have heard him at all." (p.37) Well, he doesn't seem to be a planner, does he? I couldn't have described him better than Frank Lewis did: "He was never recorded."

Back to the carrots.
It is only when one does not think about things deeply that they can manage to do it.
One cannot cut carrots if one is too intent on the act of cutting. You know how you always mess up on the things you think you're going to mess up? Well, think less.
So why did Buddy lose control?

*insert smooth jazz music*


Speaking of jazz, let's get back to how the book's form is actually not random. Putting it simply, the whole book is jazz. The seemingly random bits and pieces form what closely resembles jazz music. It's like as if the chorus is Webb's search and the verses are Bolden stuff. Throughout the novel, the story just seems to fluctuate as if it were musical notes. The song doesn't make sense until the song is over, until you finally get that time to organize and think about whatever you just heard.

Oh, great. Now I have to think about how to wrap this blog post up.
Um...

Judging a Book by Its Cover

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

This quote is from 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it's not an exaggeration to say that this is one of the most classic American novels to date. (Plus, my copy is published by Penguin Classics. Yay!)
Moreover, this quote is posted up in my English classroom, so it must be important, you know?

Gatsby is a fairly young, rich individual who opens a party in his house every weekend. People don't know much about Gatsby, however, leading to inevitable human curiosities and funky rumors about him.

On the other hand, there's Nick, the narrator of the book, who wants to find out more about Gatsby (who happens to be his next door neighbor) and starts by going to one of the spectacular parties himself.
Of course, there's excessive party rocking going on.
In the party, Gatsby is nowhere to be seen, but Nick does come upon a random, presumably drunk, weird dude in the library (dubbed Owl Eyes), rambling about the books in the library.

"They're real."
"The books?"
"Absolutely real - have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard... It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too—didn’t cut the pages." (p.47)

Oh, yes, that is great. They're real books.
But wait! There's more!

There's clearly some symbolism/figurative-stuff floating around here and there. Although it seems as if Owl Eyes here is drunk and doesn't know what he's talking about, what he says actually makes perfect sense.
Gatsby is rich and has all these parties, but this outward side that is shown, does it match with what lay inside the man? We can infer from this part of the novel that Gatsby is hiding something indeed, and that all his parties might just be a facade to hide the 'durable cardboard' inside.
People generally see Gatsby as the type of person that would not have 'real books', but rather books only to show off the covers to show off, to impress someone *coughDAISYcough*.


Why is he hiding? Why won't he show who he really is? Why doesn't he want to reveal himself?

Gatsby, I think, represents humans pretty well. He has his goods and bads. He has things he wants to show-off and his things he want to keep under the bed. How about you think about it for a while: are you what you are on your cover?


On a side note, if you haven't read The Great Gatsby, I recommend you to read it. Just saying.

"So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past."
LOL

How's the Buddy?

"Buddy Bolden began to get famous right after 1900 come in. He was the first to play the hard jazz and blues for dancing. Had a good band. Strictly ear band. Later on Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard – they all knew he began the good jazz. John Robichaux had a real reading band, but Buddy used to kill Robichaux anywhere he went. When he’d parade, he’d take the people with him all the way down Canal Street. Always looked good. When he bought a cornet he’d shine it up and make it glisten like a women’s leg."

Well, that sure sounded like a happy guy.
Before we continue further in, I introduce you Buddy Bolden from the book 'Coming Through Slaughter' by Michael Ondaatje.

Anyways, Buddy Bolden has a life (unlike most people these days with their neverending Facebook spree, sparkling vampires, etc.) ...or had least used to have one.
He had his own life, routine, and of course, cornets. I mean, it's not like this happy, joyful, feisty, [insert another adjective here] man's life could go wrong, right?

Wrong. (Haha, I've always wanted to do that.)


Here's a piece of text that comes later:

"He was frozen. He woke to see the train disappearing away from his body like a vein."

Obviously, it doesn't sound like he found his happy place (or rather, doesn't know how to go back to the happy place, seeing that he used to be happy). Something about that train, something to do with the train leaving, had set this poor guy into what can be described only as ... struck. I can't think of a better word right now, so suggestions would be appreciated.
Anyhow, I'm quite interested to how the author would have thought of comparing a disappearing train and a vein. Some figurative stuff going around here! *raises eyebrows*

"He continued to stand hiding behind the mail wagon. "Help me." He was scared of everybody."

Nope, definitely NOT his best day. I mean, he's hiding. We can infer that he's hiding from SOMETHING. *bows to Dr. Obvious*
Something must have happened for such a change to happen to good ol' Buddy.

"He didn’t want to meet anybody he knew again, ever in his life."

Until here, we can already tell that this either one emotional erratic man, or something very serious/harsh/morbid/hectogerasmicalipic had happened. Although this doesn't really tell much about the true nature behind Buddy, we can sort of infer the situation he's in.

Whatever it was that happened, it left a big impact on Buddy Bolden. I mean, he went missing right after that. It was the last time someone saw him.