Looking for Light in the Darkness of Tragedy
Aaron, the narrator and protagonist, is an unusual kind of guy. If, that is, his narration is to be believed. After all, the very definition of an unreliable narrator is one who suffers from memory problems and Aaron’s fate is to one day become a victim of a truly nightmarish condition called interograde amnesia. But don’t let that stop you from admiring the eternal sunshine of his spotless optimism:
“I’ve become this happiness scavenger who picks away at the ugliness of the world, because if there’s happiness tucked away in my tragedies, I’ll find it no matter what. If the blind can find joy in music, and the deaf can discover it with colors, I will do my best to always find the sun in the darkness because my life isn’t one sad ending—it’s a series of endless happy beginnings.”
Maybe Not Entirely Spotless Optimism
Of course, it is worth nothing that the Aaron who is a happiness scavenger is not the same Aaron at all points throughout the book. A linear progression of his chronological timeline would reveal significant alterations to his state of mind and state of being. The happiness scavenger metaphor pops up a good deal later in the story than this one:
“If you looked inside me, I bet you’d find two different hearts beating for two different people, like the sun and moon up at the same time, a terrible eclipse I’m the only witness to. My worlds collided and I can’t get up.”
Aaron without the Optimism
In fact, one of the Aarons that can be located along that linear progression is one for whom optimism has completely vanished. Depression is not, of course, about the absence of an optimistic attitude. People who think that get the wrong way around. It is not depression which is created from pessimism, but pessimism which is the unwanted offspring of depression:
“The memories are still rattling around my head, twisting into me like a knife. I don’t want to wait around to see what comes next for me in this tragic story I’m living. I open up one of my father’s unused razors and cut into my wrist”
The Abandoned
In fact, Aaron’s father actually did use one of those razors to attempt suicide and his attempt was successful. Aaron views this act as a betrayal of abandonment. And as anyone who has ever dealt with the unexpected reality of someone you came to trust would always be there actively making the decision to not be there, no razor blade cuts sharper or more deeply:
“This is one of those times where you swear you have to be sleeping and living a nightmare because it’s so impossible that your life can only be a string of bad things until you’re completely abandoned.”
The Power of the Redhead
There is just something about redheads, it seems. Maybe it is the relative rarity of the color among all that hair covering all those heads in the world. Whatever the case, it just seems that for most people it is easier to recollect having met a person with red hair more easily than recollecting brunettes or even blondes:
“But there’s one woman I sort of, kind of, definitely recognize, something to do with her piercing green eyes and tousled mass of red-orange hair. That hair is like a candle’s flame.”
