An Intricate Beginning

It's hard to find a book that since the beginning leaves you with a feeling of uncertainty inside. I can say I was hooked immediately by the memoir "This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolff, as it's different from the usual stuff you get to read. From the first chapter you read through very intriguing events when seen as a whole: a car accident, and a mother-son who are escaping from an apparently bad person. I don't know about you, but it's as good as it gets for me. There are many things that let me unsettled from this timed reading. The most notable is of that malignant figure described from the beginning (the reason tobias and his mom left their home) who is later called Roy. Roy from what I inferred is a grade A stalker who followed Tobias and his mom all the way to Utah from Florida. He never could his mom slip away apparently. At first it seemed to me like a man in love wanting a second chance "My mother didn't tell me what went on between her and Roy, the threats and occasional brutality with which he held her in place. (p.14)" After this I was seriously disturbed with what I was reading. The man who was beating his mother, and the reason they left Florida was back. And as if nothing he just starts hanging out with Tobias and his mom as if the nothing. This is very messed up. The worst part is Tobias's passivity with what was going on. Without any type of emotion whatsoever, now I could start to see how dysfunctional this family was.

It was now very clear how Tobias had been shaped by his childhood. He came from a separated family, from whom his dad afterwards didn't take care of him (apparently his dad was very rich). This and the problems he was facing with his mom and Roy made him sort of emotionless. As if he was repressing all this feelings inside so much that he became numb on the outside. This I can support more clearly when he is confessing himself at church, at first he isn't able to: so the father tells him to take a break. He then goes with a nun who gives him a glass of milk to help him clear his mind, so that he can try to confess again. In the doing the nun tells him about some sins she made when younger. The point is that afterwards Tobias confesses, but he tells the father everything the nun told him as if it had happened to him. I saw this as a sign that he is not able to tell what he feels, thus having to make up sins and things that never happened. In this point I differ with Juan Jose Castro who is reading this same book. He says that Tobias is mature towards mom related issues, but I see that it's more of a state of numbness from suppressing what is going on. It's a question I want to answer as well as a debate I am looking forward to have with Juan Jose. All around I find this book very intriguing as it is controversial and very devious, I hope it keeps on like this.

Vocab:

Tomcatting: To promiscuously pursue a woman or women for purposes of sexual gratification. Used for males.

Coyness: (esp. in a woman) the quality of feigning shyness or modesty in an attempt to seem alluring.

Bellicose: demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight.

Grubstake: an amount of material, provisions, or money supplied to an enterprise (originally a prospector for ore) in return for a share in the resulting profits.