Balto: Should There Be Any Sympathy For The Dad?

In class today, it was obvious that everyone had sympathy for Angelle. But when the question was asked if anybody felt bad for the dad, nobody raised their hand. Whenever I hear about kids being taken away from a parent, I automatically think about Mrs. Doubtfire for some reason. In that movie, Robin Williams plays an irresponsible actor who through divorce loses his right to see his kids, and when he does he has to be accompanied by a court official. In a short story, you don't get a complete tale so we don't know what actually happened, but we can all speculate that he lost all rights to his kids.

I am not taking the dad's side at all by saying that he was right driving under the influence, cheating on his wife, and taking it to the extreme by letting his 12 year old daughter drive an automobile, but you have to feel even the slightest bit of sympathy to a man who can't see his kids. There was no ending but I think a good solution would be to have him not see his kids for a couple of months; just long enough to let the pain set in. Maybe then he would realize how much of his life he is missing without his kids.

My Year of Meats: The Movie

As we went over possible settings, actors, and various ideas for the possible movie of My Year of Meats, all I could think about is how unappealing it is. I don't mind the book, in fact, I actually like reading the book. But even picking out an interesting scene to be seen on the big screen was difficult. Maybe it is because we don't know of many Japanesse actors or actresses, but there has been nothing, so far, that has struck me as being a great movie. In Happiness, it was fun coming up with ideas and joking around with possible actors for the movie. I don't know what it is, but there isn't much appealing about two Japanesse women; one getting beaten by her husband, and the other sleeping with the most boring man on Earth.

Edwin's non-Transformation

Normally in novels, the main character changes in some way. Not in Happiness. At the beginning of the book, Edwin was a cold man that only looked out for one person. He couldn't care less if he lost his job, and clearly didn't care what other people thought about him based on his work ethic. I thought that his transformation was about to start when he promised he had a book ready for Mr. Mead at a meeting, then went back to his desk and it was gone. He looked for the book constantly and it was the first time, in the book at least, that he actually cared about anything.

He almost went completely back to the careless Edwin when the alcohol and tobacco mob was after him. He had the week to change Mr. Mead's mind and get What I Learned on the Mountain off the shelves. He never put forth a valiant effort towards Mr. Mead and with one or two days left he really didn't care that he was going to die. But then the men spared his life and he slowly went back to giving a crap about what he did. But of coarse, at the end of the book Edwin showed that he doesn't care. I think if he would have transformed at all in the novel, he would have shown it twice when May walked away and he did nothing.

New Ending for "Happiness"

For me, the way Happiness would end would be quite different than the way the actual book ended:

Edwin would be contacted by "Tupak Soiree" via fax, and be told to meet at a park near Panderic. When they both scheduled a time that works for both of them, they met and Edwin walked up to a man with glasses and a casual hat drinking a water. Nigel turns to look at Edwin and says something to the extent of 'guess who' or something that implies that Edwin was shocked; which he was. They sit down on a park bench for several hours and Nigel explains to him what all happened and how he pulled it off. He said that the man who answered the phone calls at Paradise Flats was a cousin of his that happened to be crazy so he really thought there was a man named Tupak Soiree. He convinced him that a man came in and out of the desert and meditated for 18 hours a day.

Nigel also explained that the man who was on Oprah was a random man from the Philipeens. He said that he didn't even know his real name, he just saw him walking down the street and asked if he wanted to make easy money. He had him read the book and study it over and over. Nigel laughed and said that every slip up that the random man made, like saying he loves watching Oprah even though he was meditating, Nigel fined him a thousand dollars.

Towards the end of the conversation, Nigel gets a phone call and he says to the person on the other line, "yes, now is a good time. Come here." No more than two seconds later, May steps out from behing a big oak tree and gives Nigel a big kiss on the lips. She is wearing her lipstick again and it is becasue she says that now she feels wanted and loved by Nigel, something she never got from Edwin. She says that they have been seeing each other for a couple monthes now and shows him a big diamond that must have cost a couple of slots on Oprah's show. She says that they are so in love, but Edwin thinks that their love is as real as the Crayola lipstick she is wearing right now.

Other topics that were discussed on that park bench were Jenni, Rory the Janitor/Millionaire, and money. It turns out that because Nigel never like Edwin, he clearly didn't like Jenni even though he had never met her. They did talk via fax, and Nigel sent her off to somewhere in Montana. They don't know, or care frankly, what she is doing now. Nigel said that Rory was completely random and not planned. He knew that once Rory turned into a multi-millionaire and quit his job that the book would be a hit. So Nigel was happy that it happened and it was very reassuring for him. Lastly, Edwin pleaded his case for why he needed and deserved some money out of the deal. He said that Jenni stole all of it and he had nothing to do. He quit his job at Panderic and had no plans for the future.

Nigel's solution to this was for Edwin to publish one last book written by Tupak Soiree. It will be called "What Really Happened on the Mountain." The book would explain to the world that all this was not real and they all fell for it. Tupak (the Philipino character) would be murdered by hitman that Nigel and Edwin would hire, and everything would slowly, but surely, get back to normal. The books ends with Edwin and Nigel being friends and successful business partners.