Confounded

The crime of the heroes, perhaps, lay not so much in their treading the earth but their detaching themselves from it. Calasso pg. 358

This passage reminds me of the Magus especially Nicholas. In the novel once Nick notices that he is in a labyrinth he seems to believe that he can out think the game. What he does not realize is he is assembled against the top psychologist of the world, at least in this book. This proves to not be the case as I though that it would however the story took so many turns before Nick realized that he was outmaneuvered.

Most people in this class my self included have expressed their dislike of the ending of the book. I have come to realize after reading Jerrod's blog that the end was not the important part of this novel it was the journey that Nickolas and the other characters experienced. I knew that the end of the story was not the important part before i read his blog but i was so hung up on the ending or the lack of an ending that i could not see the importance the journey. Throughout the story i found myself relating to all of the characters at some point or another. Nickolas was the main character in this story due to his predominance in the story. This does not mean that he is the most important character in the story. In my opinion Alison was the brick that held the whole story together. She is integrated into the whole story and I as the reader did not even guess at her importance. This might have been because i was rooting for Nickolas and Julie or should i say Lily. That was not the case and never could have been under the circumstances. In fact that was one of the biggest twist in the story when i figured out that Lily was just another actress. The next big twist was when Alison turned out to be alive. As soon as I learned that Alison was not dead the overall picture of the story took shape in my head. If she was part of the god-game then there was no limit to what was real and what was simply a veil that the book put over your eyes. In the end i realized why the book ended the way it did and i can appreciate that method of story telling. In fact the ending of this book allows for virtually endless endings allowing the reader to go down any path that their imagination leads them.