A Couple More Blacks

To begin this post, I want to clarify, both to you and to myself, something not quite clear of this book. Ever since the beginning, there have been chapters of things I don't understand, and for so, I have skipped this chapters in my previous summaries. However, after reading this week, I have gotten to somewhat understand, what these chapters are all about. These chapters are letters written by someone I hadn't met before, and were directed to a confusing receptor. Bellow, in the summary of this week's reading of the book, I will explain everything I have gotten to understand about these letters and chapters.

      As usual, Oskar kept on looking for the lock the key opened, and the Black it belonged to. First he went to see Agnes Black. It turns out she didn't speak any English whatsoever and she was only fluent in Spanish. For Oskar's good luck, Mr. Black was there to help him translate and communicate with this women. After much conversation, Oskar came to the conclusion she new nothing about the key at all. Then, they met Albert Black, who came from Montana and craved to be an actor, but he didn't want to go to Hollywood. Afterwards, came Alice Black, a women who lived in a building only made for industrial purposes, a place where no one should live, but still had nothing to do with the key. Allen Black was next, he was a doorman with no idea about the key. After, came Arnold Black, who simply stated he couldn't help Oskar at all.
    After the weekend, Oskar went through a terrible week. On Tuesday he had to go to his psychologist to get help with his father's dead, something he didn't understand why he had to do, but did anyways. The rest of the week went by with nothing interesting, until the weekend came again. Oskar and Mr. Black had looked for the key and the lock for six months, and that was one Mr. Black backed out. Oskar felt as if he had just been stabbed right in the heart after this happened. He felt empty and lonely all over again. It was then Oskar knew he had to talk to someone about what was going on, and that someone was his Grandma.

     He went over to her apartment, only to find she wasn't there. The only human habituating the place in the moment was his Grandma's renter. He was a man named Thomas, with no ability to talk, he couldn't say a word and he had the word "YES" tattooed on his left hand, and the word "NO" tattooed on his right hand. Reflecting back to the mentioned letters, the man who wrote them was named Thomas, just as the renter, and had no ability to speak either. With this, I infer the guy who wrote all those confusing letters was him. After a while of chatting with this man, Oskar felt the need to unburden, and so he did.
       He began telling him the story about the key the lock and all the Blacks he had met. From the ones all ready mentioned before, to Bernie Black, Chelsea Black, Don Black, Fo Black, Georgia Black, Iris Black, Jeremy Black, Kyle Black, Lori Black, Mark Black, Nancy Black, Ray Black (who turned out to be in jail), ending up with Ruth Black, a women who worked in the Empire State Building. Ruth didn't only work as a tour guide on the building, but actually lived there. Even though Oskar met several Black's, he didn't find a single one that had something to do with the key, the lock, or his father. It was after Ruth Black that Mr. Black decided to leave Oskar, once again alone, in his journey to uncover his father's secret. Oskar couldn't sleep that night, so as usual he started inventing, but this time he had a shocking idea, to dig up his father's empty coffin.

I have to admit that the pages I read this week were not the ones mostly filled with great quotes, however, there were a couple that stood out to me. The first quote goes like this:

"Life is impossible" (Foer 201).

    This quote stood out to me because I believe every one of us has said this before. When we are having a hard time, we all say life is impossible, we all believe we won't make it through our issues and we all believe our lives are way too hard. In my opinion, life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Us, humans, spend our time stressing out about everything, running from one place to another, doing one million things at the same time, without stopping and looking at what surrounds us every once in a while. Life was made for the wellbeing of humans, not for them to break down everyday because of it. Is life really impossible? No. Life is not
very hard, even worst impossible. If we try our best everyday, if we live happily, if we are in peace with ourselves and with others, if we aren't rushing life and if we stop and look around to what is beside us, life will be real simple, trust me.

The second quote I found interesting was the following:

"I knew it was there, I just couldn't see it" (Foer 252).

    The moment I read this quote, I had a flashback on, basically, my entire life. It happens almost everyday to me, that I am looking so badly for something, that I know is standing right in front of my eyes, that I just can't see. I am almost sure this has happened to many other people as well. For me, it is really frustrating to not be able to achieve what I want, or get to where I want, just because I can't
see what I want, even if it is right in front of me. It might seem rather illogical for this to occur, but those are the facts of what happens in life, at least in my life. I know things are there, but I just can't see them. Sometimes I wish I knew how to fix this or end with it, but I don't have a single idea on how to do so. It feels like if I'm suddenly, unintentionally, blind to what I want to see.  

   To finalize this post, I want to admit that these chapters were not my favourite ones so far, but were still very interesting and compelling. With these pages, my interest was shifted a little, from uncovering the lock mystery, to uncovering the letters mystery. The letters are far more confusing than everything else in the book, and now that I have a new clue on who is the person that wrote them, I am one step closer to discovering the reality of them, one step closer to solving one more mystery.