a question (spoilers)
Hi,
I'm new around here, and I recently finished reading Rant and I loved it, although I am slightly confused.
One thing I wonder about is what is says in chapter 37-Resolving Origins:
Chet was wearing a hospital bracelet when he arrived too late to stop his mother from getting raped, and Echo says he later gave her the bracelet, and the she says this: "The day Rant disappeared into the river, and the day Chet washed up, both days December 21."
I probably just don't remember, but when exactly did the book say Chet washed up from some river, and when does it say anything about him being in a mental hospital (where he got the bracelet)?
thanks for Your help
The book doesn't explicitly describe what happens to Rant in the times between his car accident and when he arrives too late to save Irene (now calling himself Chet). However, I don't believe that Chet turned up at the river right after Rant's Christmas tree accident. In the first chapter, Chet tells the car salesman that he escaped an insane asylum and hitchhikes cross-country before he arrives at the river too late to save Irene from being raped. I think that we can assume his experience was similar to that of Green Taylor Simms's first time travel experience, as described by Shot in chapter 35, about how he was found, taken to a hospital, assumed crazy, and then escaped before being admitted to a psychiatric facility.
Rereading it again, and that is exactly how I read it.
This is my favorite Chuck book now, and I've read most all of his works. This one to me, is the purest re-invention of American Folklore but done in the modern stylings of dystopian future and the scifi element of time travel. The way he weaves those elements together is breathtaking.
I'm also a huge Vonnegut fan and I think he would have totally appreciated this work.
I dont remember anything about the bracelets but the chet/rant river thing I think was when rant went over the bridge with the car and christmas tree on fire and disappeared and then he turned up in the past as Chet at the river where irene had just been raped.