Prompt1: “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck”. How does this sentence set up the novel?
- I believe that this opening sentence sets up the novel in a way that gets our hopes up for something exciting and then its a HUGE let down. It gives the novel a very depressing feel. It also disappoints the reader as well. The feeling of disappointments stick throughout the beginning of the book. When they first arrive at the moon they cant get in to any of the "cool" places and their minibars were locked because they didn't have their fake ID's. On top of that their hotel that they're staying in "was a pretty crummy hotel"(page 9). Then when they were all excited that they were gonna get some "fancy nutrient IV" drink from room service they drink it and all get headache's. Then they decide to go to this club that's suppose to be super fun and cool and it turns out to be closed down. Throughout the book we see how there's all this hype for an activity and it all goes to hell. There's lots of little disappointments throughout the book with all the characters. One bigger disappointment we see is Violets trip to the moon, "he saved up for a year to send me. Then i went, and that stuff happened"(page 103). This was Violets first trip to the moon and she gets attacked by this weird hacker guy and it ruins her trip. The opening sentence sets up the entire mood of the book.
Prompt2: "What is it like on the moon? Why is it a popular destination for young people?” AND “Feed begins on a Friday, when out of boredom, a group of adolescents decide to spend Spring Break on the Moon at Ricochet Lounge. In what ways does this spring break compare with what you envision when you think of spring break?”
- As described in the book “…the moon turned out to completely suck”(page 3). “…the moon was just like it always is, after your first couple of times there, when you get over being like whoa… theres just the ro
ckiness, and the sickness, and the craters all being full of old broken shit, like domes nobody’s using anymore and wrappers and claws.”(page 4). I believe the moon was such a popular destination for them to go because it gave them a place to go when they wanted to get away from their normal home and all the same people they are around everyday. There are dance clubs on the moon and it low-grav. I think being away could have also given them a sense of freedom as well. They went there for spring break. When I think of spring break I think of just getting away from EVERYTHING. All I want to do on my spring break is have fun and forget about any of the problems that I might have at that time. When they decided to go to the moon they knew what they could expect because they had been there before and had lots of fun but after awhile the novelty wore off. It’s just like with me and my friends, we’ll be hanging out and we won’t know what to do so someone will be like “lets go to the park” and even though we have all been there like 9 million times we go anyway. I don’t necessarily think its about where you go I think its about who you go with and what you do when your there and I truly believe its about getting away from your normal day-to-day life.Prompt3: “What do you notice about the language Anderson uses? What is his purpose for doing so? How is it effective?”
- When I first started reading this book the way it was written was very hard to follow. But as I read more of the book I began to understand why it was written like that. They way he writes make the characters sound very uneducated and there is a lot of futuristic slang, I guess. For example “meg limp” is translated into super lame or something else along those lines. They use the word “unit” in substitution for dude. When the characters talk you can tell when they are speaking for themselves or when the feed is speaking for them. When Titus first sees Violet I know what type of language he uses and when he says the word supple I automatically know it wasn’t him and that it was his feed. I believe Anderson writes like this to give the readers a little more insight on how uneducated these people are without their feeds and how much they rely on them. When I saw how the kids were talking with each other I assumed that the grown ups would sound a little more educated but I was wrong(sad face). I saw this when Titus’ father spoke to him in the hospital, “She’s like, whoa, she’s like so stressed out. This is…dude. Dude, this is some way bad shit”(page 55). I believe this is a very effective way to show us how much having a feed puts these people at such large disadvantages.
