Character Sketch of Nick Shay

Appearence/job etc.:
Gray Haired/ Physically Fit (reasonably)/57 years old/ olive skin complexion/ half italian - half irish/ obssessive compulsive

First introduced on page 63 driving a (f**king) Lexus through the desert.

Examples of character:

p. 82 "I responsibly lived in the real...I did not stand helplessly before it" His overriding need to present himself as an upright citizen in control of his life.

p. 86 "I didn't like to run with house keys jiggling in my pocket. The ankle wallet answered a need. It spoke directly to a personal concern. It made me feel there were people out there in the world of product development and merchandising and gift catalouging who understood the nature of my little nagging needs." Materialistic and attempts to connect to the world through things rather than people.

p. 87 "Leaving the reflecting surfaces of the bronze tower, the way people modeled themselves on someone else, a few people, it's only natural, most mimicking up, repeating a superior's gestures or expressions." Nick's professional life, which is very much part of who he is, is essentially a protracted farce of sorts.

p. 282 "Corporations are great and appalling things. They take you and shape you in nearly nothing flat, twist and swivel you. And they do it without overt persuasion, they do it smiles and nods, a collective inflection of the voice. You stand at the head of a corridor and and by the time you walk to the far end you have adopted the comprehensive philosophy of the firm, the Weltanshauung." Recognition of the hollow nature of his professional life.

p. 296 "todo y nada" He is both everything and nothing. Or this is an example of him blowing things out of proportion to make himself seem high and mighty.

reading my butt off for class- will be posting character sketch of marvin tomorrow

CHARACTER SKETCH: TEXAS HIGHWAY KILLER (aka Richard Henry Gilkey)

In the pages between 262-272,we find our first "formal" introduction to the Texas Highway Killer (THK)--as a man, not just a story. We come to find that he's forty-two years old, and an ultimately non-descript white male. There is much ambiguity about definitive physical features. Even his friend Bud couldn't recall whether or not Richard wore glasses (p68). He is a grocery store clerk. the reality is that the THK could be anyone. part of the draw of the idea of the THK character is that he's just like anyone else, this leaves his victims quite vulnerable.

THK/Richard Roles in the novel:
1.Overarching representation of the Cold War- as the THK he is a background threat, something that is always around, always lurking
2.as many other characters and events in the novel, THK serves as a means of making connections between people and places, past and present- an integral strand in the web of history (p.179 notes that in the history of "the ball" one link of ownership was traced back to a victim of the THK).

Actual first introduction: Part 2: "Elegy for Left Hand Alone"
p.155- Nick's son is watching "the video" on the television which depicts a shooting of a man in a car caught on tape--the latest victim of the THK. From this point on the THK carries a known presence throughout the novel, far before ever reading anything from the character's own perspective.

Many passages involving THK carry significant commentary on other themes throughout the novel.
What we come to understand about THK's character is the motive behind his actions. We (our awesome group) decided that Richard was looking for an identity, he wanted to know he existed. all of the passages we chose have to do with his actions and how he responds to the people around him.

p.266 "...Richard had to take everything outside, share it with others, become part of the history of others, because this was the only way to escape, to get out from under the pissant details of who he was." In taking lives, he forever becomes a part of their families' histories, immortalized in newspaperclippings and death certificates.

p.270 in talking to Sue Ann, the reporter, on national television is when he actually grows into himself "He spoke more confidently as time went on. He was coming into himself, shy but also unashamed...She had so much radiance she could make him real."

and later on the following page, "He came alive in them (his victims). He lived their histories, in the photographs in the newspaper, he survived in the memories of the family, lived with the victims, lived on, merged, twinned, quadrupled, continued into double figures."

p.217 THK on the phone with Sue Ann, he's describing the "philosophy" of the way he attacks his victims...similar to our notion of the Cold War??? "...you want to get as close to the situation as humanly possible without bringing the two vehicles into contact..."

p.157 this shows how the THK succeeds in creating himself into existence. there is an awe about his presence which the public cannot ignore, sort of like an atom bomb- so destructive yet so intriguing. (commentary on the viewers watching the video) "And you keep on looking. You look because this is the nature of the footage, to make a channeled path through time, to give things a shape and a destiny."

All of these things show the interrelatedness of history and identity and how things "come into themselves"

Character Sketch of Klara Sax (born Sachs)

Tall, pale, turned mouth, evasive eyes, raspy voice; 72 years of age in 1992, 32 years of age during affair with Nick, which event breaks up her marriage to Albert Bronzini; artist, nicknamed "The Bag Lady" for her recontextualization of trash; smoker.

First introduced on p65 when Nick sees the faux taxi and calls her name.

p76, "Power meant something thirty, forty years ago. It was stable, it was focused, it was a tangible thing...Many things that were anchored to the balance of power and the balance of terror seem to be undone, unstuck."

Klara describes a world relative to a single, fundamental point: the instantaneous destruction of 100,000 of its denizens, and potentially of the world itself. How can an object within the world possibly anchor human values if they are otherwise untethered and subjective?

p76, "Because they had brought something into the world that out-imagined the mind. They didn't even know what to call the early bomb...And Oppenheimer said, It is merde."

In suggesting that the bomb lies beyond the realm of human imagination, Klara places it outside the world. Thus it is allowed to anchor concepts and values, as it is not part of the system it informs. However, it was in fact created by man. The bomb has a sort of inside/outside existence: created by man, but too massive, too great to speak of. It is a cosmological instrument.

Also, by existing outside the world, the bomb becomes shit. It becomes that of which it is unnecessary to speak, as it is common to all.

p77, "...millions of components stamped out, repeated endlessly, and we're trying to unrepeat, to find an element of felt life, and maybe there's a sort of survival instinct here, a graffiti instinct--to trespass and declare ourselves, show who we are."

Here Klara defines more clearly the purpose of her junk art. By painting the bombers, she reclaims them for life, reduces their status as symbols of death, as harbingers of nuclear apocalypse. She paints the bombers in order to erase their homicidal impersonality. In this way, all of her junk art recontextualizes lost or dead items. The abandoned bombers are then her ultimate canvas, as they are both dead and designed to kill, waste meant to make waste.

p393, "You take your object out of the dusty grubby studio and stick it in a museum with white walls and classical paintings and it becomes a forceful thing in this context, it becomes a kind of argument."

Here Acey underestimates the value of Klara's work, suggesting that she merely changes the context of a large hunk of trash. However, the context of an object is not merely spatial. It is also temporal, historical. A urinal in a room of impressionist paintings provides a stark contrast at one point in time, but its origin and endpoint provoke insights that I haven't the time to unpack here.

p375, "'You should visit daddy,' Teresa said...'There's nothing to be gained and he knows it and I know it.'"

Here Klara, great collector and reexaminer, contradicts herself in suggesting that her own past isn't worth reappraisal. Perhaps she finds no interest in approaching the already-human, that which is already the product of a felt life. In this light, the statement is not so contrary, as her marriage was not manufactured in the absence of human affection. She has no business defusing the symbols of her own past when there are such monumentally destructive forces lying in the rubble.

Nick Shay

57 yr old male- middle class- italian heritage- obsessive compulsive- born and raised in Bronx- probably physically fit- gray hair- in a complicated marriage- career in waste management

first introduced on page 63 driving through the desert to see klara sax

page 97- "To commemorate failure. To have that moment in my hand when Branca turned and watched the ball go into the stands--from him to me."
his sort of obsession with the idea of failure and need to embrace it, also his consistent acknowledgement of bad luck and the number 13

page 299- "Killed him. I was seventeen when it happened and to this day I'm not sure whether the intent was express or implied or howsoever the law reads. Or was it all a desperate accident?" clues us in to nick's shady past and his uncertainty of motive displays his inability to understand what he calls the science of what is behind dark forces

page 301- "I was the juniormost fellow with the fixed smile. There was a spirit of generous welcome, the spirit of one-of-us and how-many-kids and let's-have-lunch. I wanted to be bound to the company. I felt complicit with some unspoken function of the corporation. I stayed late and worked weekends. I corrected my foot-drag step. I heard my own voice and saw my smile and earned and office at the end of the hall, where I wore a crisp gray suit and grew stronger by the day." this is what he becomes in his company and in life, almost like playing a role of himself

page 416- "He was shaped and made. First unmade and then reimagined and strongly shaped and made again. And he was somber and self-restrained at times and not free-giving..." Matt is talking about Nick- Nick is defined by the things that happen to him and he mentions some qualities that fit Nick's character

page 209- "Once he got her to say yes, they'd be able to spend untrammled time remembering together." Nick making reference to his mother- shows his desire to be in control of her and keep her safe in ways his father didn't and also his need to remember his childhood and to preserve the image he has of his father

Cotter Martin/Student/14
Black, tall, scrawny

Cotter is first introduced on page 11 [October 3, 1951] when he skips school to gate-crash the historic playoff game between the dodgers and the giants.

Role in the book:
a) obtains the baseball; the premiere celebrated symbol in the text
b) embodies the minority/impoverished
c) represents a raw/youthful perspective

Five Insightful Passages:
P20 “It’s a thrill-a-minute show but Cotter feels an obscure danger here. The guy is making gum visible, shaming him in his prowler’s den. Isn’t it strange how their common color jumps the space between them? Nobody saw Cotter until the vendor appeared, black rays phasing from his hands. One popular Negro and crowd pleaser. One shifty kid trying not to be noticed.” Up until this point Cotter is largely defined by his athleticism and this aura of invincibility. He gains advantage by being a phantom and being in flight. Here he is stationary and, by virtue, detectable, rendering him vulnerable. Moreover, association he has with the peanut vendor is a racial one, underscoring the isolating force of color.

P31 “Cotter likes this man’s singleness of purpose, his insistence on faith and trust. It’s the only force available against the power of doubt. He figures he’s in the middle of getting himself befriended. It’s a feeling that comes from Bill’s easy voice and his sociable sweaty gymnasium bulk and the way he listens when Cotter speaks and the way he can make Cotter believe this is a long and close association they share—boon companions goes the saying. He feels a little strange, it’s an unfamiliar thing, talking to Bill but there’s a sense of something protective and enclosing that will help him absorb the loss if it should come to that.” This passage reveals Cotter’s trusting nature. When he first meets Bill, he is enchanted by his affability and opens up quite quickly.

P48 “And Cotter holds the rival’s arm with one hand and goes for the bal with the other. He sees it begin to roll past the seat leg, wobbling on the textured surface. He sort of traps it with this eye and sends out a landing hand.” This passage demonstrates Cotter’s mental agility and physical dexterity. It is also a turning point for him, as he obtains this highly coveted object/artifact.

P57 “The maneuver makes Bill slow down. He looks at Cotter backpedaling, doing a danceman’s strut, but he doesn’t detect an opening here. Because the maneuver makes him realize where he is. The fact that Cotter’s not scared. The fact that he’s parading the baseball.” This passage shows Cotter’s confidence and fearlessness, the flipside of this of course being his cavalier manner and smug attitude.

P147 “Cotter sees a kind of panic building, an intimate guilt that he has brought about by mentioning money, the ancient subject of being broke. His father is in retreat, his eyes treading inward, escaping the place he has just built for them both, the world of responsible things. This is a terrible moment, one of those times when Cotter realizes he has won a struggle he didn’t know was taking place. He has beat his father into surrender, into awful withdrawal.” Cotter is very adamant about keeping the baseball even though his family stands to gain a lot for selling it. Still, this passage indicates his keen understanding of the complexity and delicacy of the situation his father is in; he feels strangely guilty for his father’s resignation at the end of their discussion.

finally...the character sketch of Marvin, aka, "Murray" Lundy
his first appearance in the text:
"Marvin Lundy opened the door, a hunched fellow in stylized shuffle, in his late sixties, holding a burnt out cigar." (pg 169)

description:
*obsessive
*short wih a toupe
* reminds Brian of pinkie rings and prostate cancer- cheescake and cigars
*carries himself as if he's ill when he's not

role in the novel:
he is the keeper of a large collection of baseball memorbilia, including the homerun baseball. he also may be considered the embodiment of finality old age and the human state of loss.
passages:
"...and he saw billboards for Hertz and Avis and Chevy Blazer, for marlboro, Continental and Goodyear, and he realized that all things around him...- all these were on the billboards around him, systematically linked in some self-referring relationship that had a kind of neurotic tightness, an inescapability, as if the billboards were generatingreality, and of course he thought of Marvin." (pg 183- Brian driving home after meeting with Marvin)

""Reality doesn't happen until you analyze the dots.' Then he got to his feet with a certain effort. .."(pg 181)

""All that frantic passion for a baseball and he finally understood it was Eleanor on his mind, it was some terror working deep beneath the skin that made him gather up things, amass possessions and effects against the dark shape of some unshoulderable loss. What he remembered, what lived in the old smoked leather of the catcher's mitt in the basement was the touch of his Eleanor, those were his wife's eyes in the oval photographs of men with handlebar mustaches. The state of loss, the fact, the facticity in its lonely length." (pg191)

Marvin speaking: "You feel sorry for yourself. You think you're missing something and you don't know what it is. You're lonely inside your life. You have a job and a family and a fully executed will, already, at your age, because the whole point is to die prepared, die legal, with all the papers signed. Die liquid, so they can convert to cash. You use to have the same dimensions as the observable universe. Now you're a lost speck. You look at old cars and recall a purpose, a dimension." (pg 170)

"Marvin thought of his bowel movements as BM's..." (I'll stop here- the passage continues on for sometime about Marvin's battle with BM's when entering Communist territory...pg 310)