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Running With Scissors: A Memoir

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Yer, that cracked me up yesterday reading that. The ministers wife muff diving on his mum. His mum just sat there, not a care in the world he walked in... and the ministers wife was out the door like a shot, all embarrassed.

A slightly weird family makeup. I'm at the part now where she has signed him over to the Dr... mind you, very strange that everyone seems to endorse him having a relationship with a 30+ year old, at 13 years of age, gay or not... kind off f*cked up.
 
kind off f*cked up.

Anthony wins the gold medal for the understatement of the year:p.

The more I am reading of this, the more disturbing it becomes. Augustens relationship with Neil is just so wrong. Their first sexual encounter was rape.

The families are so ill, the way Hope kills her cat and then tries to dig it back up. His Mothers relationship with Dorothy and then the 'lumberjack' episode.

Then other parts make me laugh, him and Natalie, opening up the kitchen ceiling and how can I forget the toilet bowl readings.

I'm now having a coffee to help bring me back to relative normality before I read more.
 
Ok... after reading this I'm now going to have to read Augensten's other few books. Reading some reviews, he seems to be quite the comical writer. This book certainly was piss funny... like I nearly wet myself at times from laughing so much.

Whoever picked that book out for reading, +100 for you. That was a truly awesome pick... comical genius.
 
Well, you guys who think this book is 'funny' could be another chapter in this book. Your ideas fit right in with the book, I guess. No insult intended.

I don't find it at all funny. Kicking up stuff, I guess. It makes me want to cry to feel his need for someone to care, his crazy self absorbed mother....Why is the harm being done to this child by a 30yr old man funny? I thought we called that abuse? My question is for real? So somebody please give me some boundaries??

What I did find interesting was how much 'grooming' Bookman did and how deeply ran Agusten's need to be valued.
 
There is no denying what occurs is abuse by the law, being an older man with younger than 16 child. Saying that, Augusten takes control of that relationship and he controls Bookman, until the point Bookman leaves due to him wanting more than Augusten is willing to give. You have to draw a line with abuse, between law and what a person actually finds abusive within their cultural environment.

Within countries you have communities, of which all have different values. There may be a law for the country stating something is abuse, however; that does not mean the person / people involved find something abusive. Augusten clearly cites that the Finches gave him more than his own family... he was messed up with his parents, then he loosened up to life with the Finches, albeit they are disfunctional looking in, though it works for them.

When the neighbour came over and knocked on the door for them to turn the music down, and Natalie puts her vagina on the window... that is just priceless. Their neighbourhood was all upper class, snobbish people, and then within it was this dysfunctional family that was allowed to do anything they wanted. Augusten became a writer, Natalie a psychologist, Bookman was never heard from again... Hope continued helping her dad, etc etc.

Abuse is subjective to an individual and what they define as abuse, not just what a broader law states.

You only need do a search on cultural peculiarities to find instances of what one community may find abusive, the other finds normal.
 
Thanks Anthony. I really needed the clarification. You are quite right about different communities and cultures drawing the lines for appropriate and inappropriate behavior in different places. This book and use of language seems to me to be American. As a cartoon, it might even be funny to me. In a book it seems more real. I am only 1/2 way through so maybe some of it will be funny later on. Thanks again.
 
Well, the book is American, as the writer is the person in the book, being a memoir from his childhood.

My point was more about within a country, there are cultures and communities which don't necessarily reflect what another may. It comes back to the old ideology of, what one finds traumatic another finds relaxing. At no point, that I remember reading, did Augusten mention his childhood as traumatic... but more, it was what it was and he did the best with what his life was. Now... he's a published author who's books have near all been #1 New York Times best sellers, this one was made into a major movie which was huge, and another of his books is being made into a movie.

And all of this... still he doesn't mention feeling his childhood was traumatic, because he seemed to be making his choices from a young age, as dysfunctional as that may sound, he made his choices as the adults around him didn't pressure him to do anything other than what he wanted to do.

I think Augusten really put a unique perspective on dysfunctional childhoods and they are what they are, within the eyes and mind of the person.

One could directly relate this to, why does this person get PTSD from x, yet another doesn't? One views it differently than the other, is why.
 
He does have an interesting take on life. I'd guess most young people would hanker after a life where no-one tells you what to do and to be allowed to make their own choices like Augusten does.

I found it really interesting when he writes 'The problem with not having anyone to tell you what to do, I understand, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do'.

 
Yes, he does hunger for parenting and having someone really care for him. I agree that he does not sound traumatized by all this disfunction. It seems to me (please correct me if I have misunderstood) he thinks of all this novelty as a grand adventure.

I guess Americans, in general, aren't the rugged individualists we think we are. Trying to fit in has made some immigrant groups make decisions they would never have entertained at home. Assimilation, becoming more invisible, seems to be the average path. But we do enjoy our eccentrics. We would never had the electric light bulb had not Thomas Edison been so afraid of the dark. He went through hundreds and hundreds of filliments before he found the right one.
 
I don't think there is a right or wrong Mercy... but your opinion and interpretation is yours to have, and is unique based on your life. What we read into others opinions and beliefs is also individualistic. We aren't here to make an opinion right or wrong, more just to express our own interpretation. If you see something more than your own opinion from reading others, then that is ok. If not, that is also ok.

The concept of book club in general, to my understanding, is that you get a variety of different views back, being individual interpretations. One can then change their view based on other feedback not seen or thought of, of further deepen their resolve to their own view on hearing feedback, which to a person only reinforces more of their beliefs.

The idea though is to look at more angles than just your own... what you choose to take from them, all your choice.

See the connection to healing trauma in book club?
 
The concept of book club in general, to my understanding, is that you get a variety of different views back, being individual interpretations. One can then change their view based on other feedback not seen or thought of, of further deepen their resolve to their own view on hearing feedback, which to a person only reinforces more of their beliefs.


This is one of the great things about reading that I love. I can escape into the story and form my own images and interpretation. I can come to my own decisions about the characters and their situation in a way that say watching a movie could never provide.
 
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