The Lazarus Project

One of the first things that I noticed with this story is the in the beginning. There were many ominous words used such as creaking, broken, tormenting, and so on. The man's appearance at the door was one that was suspicious as well as well as the describing of the town. All of these things I am guessing is a technique to foreshadow the death of the man later on and other events to happen in the book. Another thing I noticed was the way the people saw the foreigner on their first times seeing him. They were all very critical of him and almost afraid. This reminded me, like in Orbiting, how easily we can be to judge sometimes. I think we can be so easily frightened by things and people that are different from us and it can cause us to criticize without really even knowing. As bad as it is, I know that I have found myself doing the same thing before with foreigners due to not knowing where they are from or how they act. With America being a home to so many foreigners, I think that it can be kind of nerve racking sometimes since people are so oblivious to how other cultures work. A quote that I really liked was "the world is always greater than your desires; plenty is never enough." When thinking about this, it really is true. There is always something new that the world is offering that makes what we have already not quite good enough. In addition, the world can either help or hurt you with obtaining your desires. Whether it's a natural occurrence, money, the life you were given, etc., your dealt hand can sometimes be a helping or hurting hand. With Americans and others living in our country, I think this can also apply. There seems to always be a higher position, more money offered, etc. that people are trying to reach. In some foreigners' cases, they desire to be a part of our country but then create desires for certain things to be changed. Basically, I took this quote as nothing is ever going to be quite enough to completely be satisfying.

With the beginning of this story, I can not quite tell where the plot is going. Between the research about the begin and travels, I am sure that many interesting things are to come. I can see myself getting quite confused with the times switching back and forth, but hope to be able to keep up.

lozenges (pg 38) -

a small, flavored tablet made from sugar or syrup, often medicated, originally diamond-shaped.

"His suspicion is confirmed by a bag of white lozenges much akin to poison pills..."