DISCUSSION – PART VIII PAGES 286-330

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’NeilMr. WilsonLMAC 2011-2012

I started to laugh. In a way, being a bum was an attempt to feel good. It was about feeling low-down like a dog because they are less complicated than humans. (287)

Talking to [Alphonse when he was stoned] was like trying to have a conversation with a drowned corpse at the bottom of a pond. (288)

I had to turn tricks every night now. Since I’d started living with Alphonse, he had a shorter temper and didn’t cut me any slack in that department. (288)

But I got really pissed off when [Alphonse] yelled at me for wasting four dollars on A John LeCarré novel I’d bought at the drugstore. (289)

JOHN LECARRÉ

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1489419520/tt1340800

Irony of the Situation? (Unexpected)

A teenaged prostitute who buys books…

Romantic? (the “untamed” nature)

The [Romantic] movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and terror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It…made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

It’s like at the pet store – everyone wants to cuddle a kitten more than they want to cuddle a cat. (291)

N.W.A.

Lately I hated being kissed so much that I was wondering how much longer I could possibly bear it. It was hard to imagine not charging anyone to touch me. (294)

It seemed more and more impossible to ever go home… I would think about [Jules] laughing, and it would make me want to die. (296)

The guy who tried to sell you

a vowel on Sesame Street

was more menacing.

“Electric Bumbum” (298)

The heroin was in a folded-up lottery ticket, as it was done back then. (298)

[Heroin dealers] possessed the worst aspects of child that you don’t want to have anything to do with: neediness and loneliness. (298)

All street kids want babies. It’s a terrible kick. (303)

Feeling genuine emotion while on junk had made me sick to my stomach. (304)

Alphonse was insurmountable because he was an adult and we were just two kids. All that children can hope for is that the adults who were around them would be kind. (306)

Whenever [Alphonse] was annoyed, he threatened to move us to Toronto. (307)

When death takes someone you know, he holds you and whispers all his secrets in your ear. (308)

This was a normal amount for a child to be carrying: enough for a telephone call and some candy. (310)

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/reader/0739322060/ref=sib_dp_pt

The results of their investigation had clearly uncovered the fact that I was still a child. I had thought that every single thing about me was something seedy, but really, there was nothing wrong with me. (310)

I don’t know why they would put a mirror in that hallway. I couldn’t imagine anyone there was in the mood to look at themselves. (312)

I didn’t want to call out and get his attention. I decided to stand there and wait until he spotted me. (312)

I just needed, more than anything else, for him to love me like he did when I was a baby. (313)

He seemed to know something had been fixed between us, and he didn’t want to mess that up. He had to handle the responsibility. (314)

“I’m okay, You really don’t have to worry about me,” I said, not wanting to spoil the mood. “I just came to say hello.” (314)

“I wanted you all to myself, you know. But things are different. I think it might be better for you if you did stay with her.” (316)

I didn’t feel so bad about the idea of going. It was making a little bit more sense each second. It was as if I was climbing down a ladder. (316)

Being apart from [Jules] had not been the worst thing; the worst thing had been not knowing if he cared or not. (319)

[Withdrawal] wasn’t a real sickness. There wasn’t actually anything wrong with you. Your body would fake any kind of symptom to get another fix. (323)

EDWARD GOREY

“I was driving the car when your mother died, you know,” Jules said suddenly. (324)

I think that was the first time anyone had told me that my mother had loved me. I felt excited, like when you sneak up onto the roof of a building and you can feel the earth falling through space. (328)

[Janine] came running around the front of the van towards us, looking so comfortable in her skin it made us seem all the more awkward. We were like figurines that had been broken, and although they’d been glued together with crazy glue, you still had to be very careful while playing with them. (330)

THE END