The Repetitions
I read the book over the summer, but only just registered here. I'm prefacing just in case I get something factually wrong, because it's been a while since I read it. Anyway, did anyone else take a while to realise Pygmy was replacing some of his repetitions with American things? E.g At one point I think he replaces a periodic element with Xanax. I only realised after a while, because I'd started absent-mindedly jumping over the repetitions to get to the actual plot, but when I realised what Chuck had been doing, I did a double-take and looked back and saw that I hadn't realised he'd been doing it for a few chapters.
What was your reaction to this? I actually laughed out loud, I thought it was brilliant from Chuck. Also, why do you think he did it? My first reaction was that Chuck was saying that Pygmy was getting brainwashed by American culture, and that's the interpretation I'm more pleased with, but I recently read that some people think Pygmy does it not because he's brainwashed by American culture, but because he embraces it.
It's been a while, but I seem to remember Pygmy embracing it towards the end, but does he embrace it because he's been brainwashed, or because it grew on him?
If he embraces it because it grows on him, he's doing so because he likes it. He wilfully embraces American culture. He prefers it, he chooses it. If he does it because American culture has brainwashed him, than he is conditioned into embracing it. If he's brainwashed, the replacements in the repetitions are metaphorically hostile. American culture pushed other information out of his mind, and he embraces it akin to a hostage embracing his captor when suffering from Stockholme Syndrome. Under this interpretation, he doesn't really have a choice in embracing American culture.
Can you explain the difference between the one and the other?
This is why we can't have nice things.