Sharon's Second Reaction

       I found tonight’s reading to be significantly more understandable than last night’s. While he still characteristically writes in the deprecating voice, the narrator is beginning to go more in-depth about the reasons for his perspective. I was especially intrigued by his reason v. desire argument that while reason is important, life is composed of something more than that, like free will to act impulsively. And while I do agree that people may act against their advantages, sometimes to prove others wrong, I don’t think that acting against reason is the driving force behind every single action, as the narrator implies.

        Another aspect of the reading that stuck out to me was how the reader is treated. In all his arguments, the narrator continually thinks he is being mocked; he constantly tells the reader to stop laughing at his explanations and tries to prove them wrong with an additional argument. For example, in Chp 8, he quotes what the readers may think, and then cuts them mid-thought to claim that he had originally thought of the same thing, but the readers are not thinking as clearly or deeply as he is to recognize the validity of his own statements.