A Collection of Everything

JonFen is quite possibly the most obsessive compulsive person I have ever seen. Well, maybe not the MOST, but he is pretty high up on the list.

Since I am a little bit of a pack rat myself, I can relate to JonFen in a sense. I often have a hard time throwing away even the most insignificant items, things that I will never even pull out to look at again. However, JonFen takes it to an all new level. He collects ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he finds. This is not to say that there isn't a deep meaning behind each object, just that it is a little excessive. I completely respect JonFen's quirky nature and obsessive ways, but at times it is rather eerie. The wall of random collected objects, including a set of used dentures, is almost enough to make someone cringe. On the other hand, there is a suggestion of brilliance in JonFen for finding a deeper meaning and relevance in these items.

Some might argue that his obsessive traits are annoying and unnecessary, but I respect his ability to find value in even the most insignificant objects, holding on to every piece of the past, as opposed to those who throw everything away. While it is important to move on with your life, I almost feel sorry for those who draw no emotional connections to items from their past. JonFen may go over the top, but every item he collects, whether be it from his past or that of a member of his family, invokes real emotion. It is depressing that some people go their entire lives throwing away every element of their past.

Without anything to draw back on, life almost seems pointless.

True Happiness.

Like many others, I was actually fairly pleased with the end of Happiness. I love when an ending of a novel isn't predictable. I grow tired of reading book after book with the same cookie-cutter ending of what society has pin-pointed as "true happiness". Who really knows what "true happiness" is and why does it have to be the same, or a similar variation, for every individual? For the characters in Happiness, I think Will Ferguson gave them the closest thing possible.

I honestly would not change much about the ending of Happiness. I guess the only thing that I would add to the story would be to have Jenni become more and more like Meg everyday, and likewise for Meg. I would also have Meg and Edwin end up together, only to add irony to the fact that he can never escape the "essence" of someone like Jenni. I imagined that Jenni, with her obsessive nature (as shown with the sticky-notes), would turn into an overly made-up, slimmer version of Meg. Meanwhile, Meg would continue to stop using the Crayola lipstick and become obsessed with self-help. I'm not sure how this would play out exactly, but I do think that it would add to the fact that with the constant need to be happy, Edwin never reaches it.

I think any other changes would compromise the point of the novel and make it far too predictable. Personally, I like the surprise of living unhappily ever after.

Self-Help Overload

Sorry for the delay...I had some technical difficulties.

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To me, the author seems to be creating a weird relationship between Edwin and Tupak Soiree. At times it seems like Edwin finds too much of the self-help book familiar, as if there is perhaps some deeper meaning than merely an editor-manuscript relationship. I can't tell if Edwin has seen this manuscript before, or if he is just that good at remembering where all of the pieces come from, or if it's simply the tone that is familiar to him. As a whole, the self-help book seems to be a jumble of numerous techniques to overcome certain habits, all comprised into a seemingly unorganized mass. While all components are intertwined, there are so many topics that it seems impossible for any given one to have a concrete focus. Personally, while I think self-help books are beneficial to some, they often seem excessive and seem to attempt to stop one obsession by replacing it with another (such as stopping yourself from binge eating by leaving yellow sticky notes everywhere). This new found obsessive-compulsive nature is not necessarily any better than the binge eating it is covering up. The books just tend to replace one habit with another.