question about Pygmy ending (SPOILERS)

After re-reading, it seems like he never infected the currency to begin with, but was still going to let it explode so that it appeared to his fellow agents that he was going through with the plan. Though I'm still not 100% sure.

He says that he forgot to infect the money - I'm wondering if he really did forget, or if it was intentional.

I was under the impression he was going to infect the money but didnt get the chance yet, then all the jostling and commotion before that moment prematurely triggered the bomb.

Also, the story makes you think that he killed pig brother, but it ends up he just tied him up. And then there's that part where he runs back and gives chicken mother the hug before boarding the plane. Was Pygmy already developing a love for America? That's why I'm thinking he never intended to kill anyone. But then why did he try to get cat sister to leave? I don't get it...

Well if you notice towards the end when he recites the periodic table he substitutes elements with things from western culture showing that he is really starting to like America. Plus he wanted cat sister to leave because there where still about 10 other agents ready to detonate their projects.

I didn't realize the other agents had similar projects that they were going to use as weapons? I thought they were just there to make sure everything went well with the Operation Havoc, which was centered around Pygmy's project.

But I do agree with you about how he was starting to like America already. Guess I still haven't figured out whether his intention was to kill everyone, and then he changed his mind? Or if he never intended to? Oh well.

i thought it was kind of weird how everything was centered around Pygmy with little mention of the actions of the other agents. but then i guess that's his self-centered, rugged individualism coming through. Pygmy is a true American.

oh no i read the ending now i can't read the book. crap.

Which is why I don't read the bible.

He was struggling betwen the decision to carry out his mission or not. I think that, when he went to DC, he very much intended to carry out his mission and kill everyone. he basically convinced himself that he was, in fact, going to kill everyone. he saw cat sister, and he had convinced himself that he was going through with his mission, and he became afraid for her life. as his project exploded he realized that he had, in fact, forgotten to lace the money. He had intended to, and he had even convinced himself that he had done it.... but somewhere in his head the imperialist pig filth america propaganda machine had convinced him to not go through with supreme top priority mission for all glory of sacred homeland.

I don't have a clear answer to this one. He could have genuinely forgot that he didn't use the neurotoxin, but I somehow doubt that. I think that he wanted to warn off Cat Sister to keep her from seeing him killed by the other agents, who would certainly exact revenge on him for his betrayal. He may have also been concerned about her getting involved in the fight, which she did with much dramatic effect. However you look at it, he had good reason for warning her off, but didn't clarify it to the reader before everything went down. He also didn't show the reader that he tied up Pig Dog Brother, either.

This makes alot of sense. Thanks Oberon567.

There's a fantastic beer named Oberon that comes out of a Michigan brewery called Bell's. Only out in the summertime. Its delicious.

Yeah forget what i had said i like Oberon567's idea.

A possible question to consider is, who is Pygmy's intended audience? For whom is he keeping these records of his actions? Obviously he's an unreliable narrator, but maybe, by the end at least, he's being unreliable on purpose.

I thought it to be a report initially designed to be submitted to his superiors. The blacking out of American places, as well as times and dates, may have been done by the US after confiscating it. If this is true, it would explain his constant propagandizing and his failure to explain why he ties up Pig Dog Brother and warns off Cat Sister.

This is kind of what I thought as well. There were some moments when it seemed otherwise... like why would he in more than one place admit to his superiors his love for cat sister and his inability to harm her, or his seeing of his parents at the parade? The other possibility was that it was just a journal he kept, not intended to be given to any superiors, and it was confiscated when he confessed. Or maybe he chose to publish it to make big money and become a more well greased cog in the American capitalist machine. I think the term "Dispatch" is what leaves us most questioning the intent of him writing about these experiences, but really with the way he used vocabulary it could be anything, I think, and Chuck left it open like that on purpose.

The periodic table reciting was a great way to show his turning around. Also, infected money exploding everywhere for people to stomp all over each other to get to, infecting themselves=genius.

When pig brother showed up out of the knots it reminded me of "What About Bob?" when Bill murray shows up untied with the bombs around himself.

I will say, though, that if all you're doing is infecting money which you hope to be put back into circulation with a 10 day latency, that is a stupid way to do it. It is dependent upon winning the science fair, going to nationals, and then manufacturing an explosive container to detonate at the appropriate time.

Seriously, once you infect the money, there are myriad subtle ways to reintroduce it to the populace, ESPECIALLY with a 10 day latency, and even more so if you have a group of people willing to die. Even if you had to handle the money in order to reintroduce it, you have one operative do it for ten days, and then once dead another steps up.

It wouldnt be the same kind of show, but it would kill just as many, and be a LOT easier.

Or possibly its flawed on purpose. Showing the stupidity of a plan from a nation that prides itself in knowing all there is to know about America. I dont think it is too important to the story. But you have a point.

Didn't the science fair take place at the Smithsonian? if you have ever been to D.C. the Smithsonian is like 2 miles or less away from the capital and the white house.

I dont think it was, ultimately, too important to the story... You could easily make up a dozen reasons why the given plan was enacted as opposed to something less complicated with fewer places for failure, and any one of those reasons would have been as believable as the rest of the story.

You could argue that part of the take down of the Capitalist Terror Machine was the fact that an obvious show of greed, rushing towards exploding money that doesnt belong to you, is what took it down. But, I mean, it was a Global Peace Machine, and what else offers us peace besides money?

I personally liked the ending.

From my understanding I think Pygmy had already made a choice ahead of time that he was abandoning Operation Havoc. And I'd have to agree that the reason he was trying to get cat sister out of there was because of the other agents.

I think the ending just reveals the stupidity of everyone in america and those who condemn it. It also shows that after being trained to hate such a country Pygmy found something to like about it. Pygmy finally got to make a choice for himself. I like how chicken mother tells Pygmy why she'd understand if he wouldn't want to stay and be adopted. She admits how things in her country aren't any better than his native country.

For ages we've been trying to wipe out stupidity with stupidity.

Nicely put.

thanks i figured that one out all by myself

oh man i think i'm in proud, got a gold star, toddler mode

ahem, modesty.

haha.
...i never get to be proud of anything i do do i?

No, never. When you make a joke, it's considered proper etiquette to wait til other members of the said party laugh. If they don't, the joke sucked and then DEFINITELY don't laugh.

i laugh at funerals!

You're confusing me being drier than a 80 year olds box and me being serious. Im talking about the rules of life. Not the cult rules.

As for Laughing at funerals, I literally have laughed so hard at a funeral I started to cry. But its ok because he was my friend who died. Theres actually a really funny story behind that one.... they almost asked me to leave.

Also, I'd like to see how long we can quote each other before it becomes aggravating.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. Throughout the flashbacks, Pgymy's one-or-two sentence comments on how he felt (holding back tears, etc) obviously show that he's not just a heartless child being molded by this totalitarian state, so it shouldn't have struck me as unexpected that he ended up letting his feelings kind of overwrite his mission and obligation to the state. Instantly started comparing the last few sentences to the last sentences of 1984, which has kind of been bugging me. But god, Pygmy is such a brilliant and important book throughout. The end just didn't make nearly as much of a bang as the midsection of the book, kind of opposite of Rant, but there's no denying it didn't tie up the book really well.

This ending, which I will expand upon elsewhere, was the most horridly lazy piece of writing I've seen in a looooong time. I was already having my fair share of issues with the book, but it was decent enough that I'd finish it.

And then.

The whole thing fell apart. literally, arriving at page 236 of a 240 page book, I read lines that made me want to stop. So awful, that FOUR pages away from the end, I was ready to toss it.

Jesus, I'm disappointed in this book.

The ending was very abrupt and a little lazy. But I still think it doesn't take away from the meaning and the detail of the book. I'd still say I've read wayyyyyyy worse that a lot of people praise.

I'm not saying it's the worst book I've ever read, but I will say it's inexcusably lazy and bad writing in many many many aspects. There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's..."I need the following plot points to work, so I'm just gonna go ahead and bull on through and hope nobody really thinks about these things and their actual real-world consequences".

ARGH I'm pissed.

He HAS to write a better one for his next book...I know he's got it in him...

of course you have a point. but remember, he's just writing it for the sake of writing it. He jokes about how quickly he flew through it, its just him doing whatever he wants. and now he can get on the bestseller list because of the following he has. but regardless I liked it.

This is no excuse. He has an agent, an editor, a writing class. SOMEBODY should have stepped up and made some creative criticism here...I mean, you could conceivably salvage Pygmy into a decent book. I'd rather he wrote one really good book every three years than to have one per year that feels rushed, under-edited, poorly structured, etc etc etc

It's not so much the structure of the novel as the inconsistent/absence of story logic.

In answer to the OP though, I'd say th other operatives were all getting leery of him at that point. They knew he loved Cat Sister. So if he didn't pretend to be concerned that she was there, if he didn't try to save her, they'd know the bomb was a dud. that was the least of my problems with the ending.

I see where you're going and will now cease and assist.

Well for the plot's sake he is writing dispatches back to his government and what more does he have to say to a country he is now a traitor to. He pretty much said fuck you guys peace out. What would you do be pen pals with them and tell them how things are going after you betrayed them.

I'll agree that the novel lacks a kind of internal realism. There's no clear explanation for the bad syntax use when the operatives' spelling and vocabulary is so proficient... and the story wraps itself up in an extremely crazy way, from the hidden operative to his host siblings jumping into the melee. Absolutely hokey. I think the reader needs to accept the hokeyness to this and view this as an absurd story. I've warned friends that they'd like this book so long as they can continue to suspend their disbelief right up to the last page of the book. That's hard for a lot of readers to do, I think, which is why I won't go about recommending PYGMY to anyone and everyone.

If the hokeyness serves a purpose, I'm all for it. There's a series of novels by Gideon DeFoe about a group of Pirates (ironically entitled The Pirates!). It's completely historically inaccurate, there is little to no story logic beyond the initial premise, but each story kind of lightly deconstructs modern pop culture, cinema, etc. Absolutely absurd, but hilarious and entertaining nonetheless.

Pygmy, like Snuff, didn't do this. It just felt lazy, like he got to the 60K word mark and decided to wrap everything up.

Maybe that was the point. Listen to most stories you hear verbally. There is mostly no great winding climactic ending were it eases off. Most kind of end abruptly, such is life. I mean the whole point to writing Pygmy he says was just for humorous purposes, snuff too.

Yeah, that's why life can be boring and people find other forms of entertainment, such as novels, to derive pleasure. It's why I dont pay to talk to co-workers around the water cooler. Sure, once in a while we need some art to kick us in the gut and remind us how miserable our existence is, and to be senseless and purposeless and devoid of joy or meaning mimicking (or mocking) life, but usually we want art to go somewhere, to move us in one way or another, something besides apathy...

I actually really enjoyed Pygmy, for its flaws, which didnt bother me as much as others, so the above paragraph doesnt really relate to Pygmy so much as the somewhat absurd rationale behind your justification...

explain why you think its absurd. And its not so much of a justification more as an example.

some people will complain about stuff just for the sake of complaining. The same can be true for art. Some people will criticize and analyze art negatively for the sake of trying to affect or 'move' themselves because they are bored, like you said. But I still maintain that an artist creates work more for his/herself more than for the purpose of process and for the purpose of affecting themselves. Or at least from the ones I've worked with, and been with. You can't generalize everyone.

My only point is that most written stories have some sort of climax and resolution, even if it is a subtle one. Stories your freinds tell you that lack them, or that are poorly told, are boring. While there will always be an element of art that is replicating that for one reason or another, most novels hope not to be boring. I think that Pygmy certainly had a climax and resolution, though maybe not a very good one... I just think the argument that since you tell your friends tell stories that have no direction and are boring after a while an author would choose to replicate that in his writing isn't logical, why would someone want to put out a product that is boring and leaves people going either "Meh" or "Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get it over with, already..."? I dont really feel that, for the most part, they would.

This is a generalization.

Maybe you left out the part where I said "from the ones I've met and worked with." I can't infer what an artist does if I've never spoken with them.

yes the rules of life. where are they written? or is that what that black cloud over downtown LA is? Or is that the 80 year olds dryness(from celibacy) being released into the air after opening her legs?

I think my mother is cursed, for the past ten years I think she's laughed at almost every funeral we've gone to. Most everytime laughing hard enough to make herself cry. People would go up to her and comfort her but one time she was sitting in the row right behind the family and one of the ladies smacked her hand like a little child to get a hold of herself, which I think made her laugh even harder. I think it would be great if funerals ended with a giant chorus of laughter at the expense of the dead guy. All in good taste of course.

And I think I can continue this quote business.

It's almost the equivalancy of a stare down.

Who's gonna blink first?