Post by Apple on May 11, 2021 15:51:29 GMT -5
Jack:
I'll get to one of Forrest's poems, Ode to Peggy Jean, at the end of this post.
But first, circles in TTOTC. Why? He develops that motif extensively, particularly in the first half of the book.
From the perspective of a work of art, it’s to help express one of the book’s major message: our goal is “to enrich those with whom [we] interact” (as expressed at end of My War for Me). Artistry. This is explored below.
From the perspective of a treasure hunt? I don’t know.
Do you think there is a treasure hunt purpose to circles and interaction?
Is this some of what Jack is talking about when he says the treasure hunt poem and his other writings aren’t “separate things?”
Circles:
(1) My Spanish Toy Factory is a circle factory. Marbles = balls. Explicitly so: “pretty round marble” and “make them round.” Chapter’s illustration shows a circular border. Forrest’s other toys? Round: “yo-yos and spinning tops.” Narrative transitions from “toy factory” to “pie factory.” Use of “pie factory,” not the more colloquial pie bakery or pie kitchen, likely to indicate parallel notions between both factories. Pies = circles. Concluding paragraph, many pies: “pie factory,” “pineapple pies,” “pineapple pie,” and “two pies.” More speculative: letter O is a circle. Long vowel sound: Forrest buys Fritos and Coke. Weak reason for his description being not just toys but Spanish toys? Long vowel sound again: games in Spanish = juegos.
(2) Me in the Middle = encircled. “I was in the middle and that was significant because I felt somehow surrounded” and “it sure would be nice if they could all come back so I could be in the middle again.” Me in the Middle photo caption reiterates: “June, Me, and Skippy at Hebgen Lake.” Bessie and Me photo caption reiterates: “that’s father in the back, brother Skippy on the left, sister June on the right, and me and Bessie in the middle.” More speculative: Me in the Middle picture of Forrest and June is cropped into an ovoid shape and a drop cap circular letter “O” begins the chapter (p.35). Encircled. By what? Relationships, human connection, family. Comfort.
(3) Now return briefly to My Spanish Toy Factory. Marbles associated with relationship, acknowledgement: known as “Grand Marble Champion” and “all the girls knew.” Pies associated with relationship, remembrance: the “grandmotherly” woman still presents herself in Forrest's “best dreams.” Marbles, pies, circles gets associated with relationships, human connection, even family. Encircled.
(4) Gypsy Magic = Forrest, initially an outsider, ends having “touched [the dancers] with” his “eyes and became part of it.” Human connection, relationship, union, partnership. Recalling idea of encirclement in Me in the Middle: is gypsy magic also associated with circles? The gypsy camp and action evoke circles and circular motion: it is a “big circle,” “the dancers “swish[ed] long skirts back and forth,” “swirled by,” and caused Forrest to move “back and forth in the sway.”
(5) The Totem Café Caper concludes with “we got to be a pretty good team.” Teamwork, partnership, union. Climatic action involved a “Grandma” and “pie caper.” Forrest uses grandmothers and pies to relate The Totem Café Caper to My Spanish Toy Factory: serves to reinforce intention to link partnership and circles.
(6) My War for Me Laotian jungle. Going into shock after being shot down. Think pleasant thoughts and literally encircle himself. Comfort, partnership, connection, even family: think “about being with [his] father on the Lampasas River in Texas” and remember “the clearing and the beautiful waterfall.” Protective encirclement: he “spread the pepper in a circle around [him], hoping to deaden the noses of any dogs” because “the Pathet Lao didn’t take prisoners.” More substantial encirclement the following day: the rescue is a cacophony of circles. “‘Sandy’ propeller driven fighters,” “two Jolly Green Giant helicopters,” and “a Crown C-130 aircraft circling at 15,000 feet.” Partnership, union, connection is overt: the “Air Rescue Service” who “showed their strength when [he] needed it most.”
(7) Gypsy Magic mirrors My War for Me Philadelphia incident. Connection, partnership. In both stories Forrest is set apart from others, at night, and there are lights: the blinking gauge, lights of Philadelphia, and gypsy camp fire. In both Forrest comes to an understanding of others, his relationship to them. Fenn is set apart, or “alone,” in the dark of night, but he sees the light and realizes that he is actually “part of it;” therefore, alone could be a poor holorime for “all” “one”—as in his epiphany “each one is as important as the all.” Union, connection. Circle camp of former, circle gauge and eyes of latter.
(8) Similarly, The Totem Café Caper “pie caper” and My War for Me “Philadelphia caper.” Both are “capers” to draw a parallel. Lesson of former: team, relationships, connection. Lesson of latter: partnership (i.e. City of Brotherly Love), human connection (i.e. covering his eye/”I” to see that there are other eyes/”I’s”). Circle pie of former, circle gauge and eyes of latter.
(9) This isn’t the extent of Forrest’s use of circles in TTOTC. For example, “cow pie” when literally tied to Bessie and his childhood home address number “1413,” which is a reversal of the first few digits of the circle related mathematic constant pi. Obviously pie is a homophone for pi. Which raises the notion of circles in Skippy's chapters. Etc.
Now, on to Ode to Peggy Jean. Describes his reaction to cancer. Previously he described the illness as exacting “tolls on [his] spirit and body” and that “he was disappearing into the black abyss” before his wife lead his “team” that “saved [his] life.” In the poem, we are presented with an image of him looking towards the sky in each of the poem’s four stanzas. In each stanza he sees something different. Over the first three stanzas these images become increasingly sinister: first we have a joyful sparrow, next we have an ominous raven, and then we have Forrest’s shadow. After each image, his response to these images also becomes more despairing. In the last stanza, he remarks that despite his distress, he “saw that he shall never die” because Peggy Jean takes care of him. His team. His partner, union, human connection.
With this in mind, a corruption of the poem’s title “Ode to Peggy Jean” is “owed to Peggy Jean” (i.e. owed his survival to her) and, recalling the circle and partnership motifs discussed above, “‘O’ed,” or encircled “to Peggy Jean.” And thus parallel to circle imagery in his other near death experience in TTOTC: shot down in the Laotian jungle with pepper circle and circle rich rescue team. This type of word play would not be uncharacteristic of Forrest, and even more the rule than the exception. Certain, no. Plausible, I happen to think so.
What do you think? Flawed? Nothing? Missing the point? Either from an artistry or treasure hunt perspective?
If you buy it as something and more or less on point, consider how it might tie in to Forrest’s ball of string. Does that imbue the circle and partnership motifs with more treasure hunt significance above and beyond simply memoir artistry?
The treasure hunt poem “is imbued with emotion just like every other poem he wrote. It's one with that oeuvre, not a separate things.”
I'll get to one of Forrest's poems, Ode to Peggy Jean, at the end of this post.
But first, circles in TTOTC. Why? He develops that motif extensively, particularly in the first half of the book.
From the perspective of a work of art, it’s to help express one of the book’s major message: our goal is “to enrich those with whom [we] interact” (as expressed at end of My War for Me). Artistry. This is explored below.
From the perspective of a treasure hunt? I don’t know.
Do you think there is a treasure hunt purpose to circles and interaction?
Is this some of what Jack is talking about when he says the treasure hunt poem and his other writings aren’t “separate things?”
Circles:
(1) My Spanish Toy Factory is a circle factory. Marbles = balls. Explicitly so: “pretty round marble” and “make them round.” Chapter’s illustration shows a circular border. Forrest’s other toys? Round: “yo-yos and spinning tops.” Narrative transitions from “toy factory” to “pie factory.” Use of “pie factory,” not the more colloquial pie bakery or pie kitchen, likely to indicate parallel notions between both factories. Pies = circles. Concluding paragraph, many pies: “pie factory,” “pineapple pies,” “pineapple pie,” and “two pies.” More speculative: letter O is a circle. Long vowel sound: Forrest buys Fritos and Coke. Weak reason for his description being not just toys but Spanish toys? Long vowel sound again: games in Spanish = juegos.
(2) Me in the Middle = encircled. “I was in the middle and that was significant because I felt somehow surrounded” and “it sure would be nice if they could all come back so I could be in the middle again.” Me in the Middle photo caption reiterates: “June, Me, and Skippy at Hebgen Lake.” Bessie and Me photo caption reiterates: “that’s father in the back, brother Skippy on the left, sister June on the right, and me and Bessie in the middle.” More speculative: Me in the Middle picture of Forrest and June is cropped into an ovoid shape and a drop cap circular letter “O” begins the chapter (p.35). Encircled. By what? Relationships, human connection, family. Comfort.
(3) Now return briefly to My Spanish Toy Factory. Marbles associated with relationship, acknowledgement: known as “Grand Marble Champion” and “all the girls knew.” Pies associated with relationship, remembrance: the “grandmotherly” woman still presents herself in Forrest's “best dreams.” Marbles, pies, circles gets associated with relationships, human connection, even family. Encircled.
(4) Gypsy Magic = Forrest, initially an outsider, ends having “touched [the dancers] with” his “eyes and became part of it.” Human connection, relationship, union, partnership. Recalling idea of encirclement in Me in the Middle: is gypsy magic also associated with circles? The gypsy camp and action evoke circles and circular motion: it is a “big circle,” “the dancers “swish[ed] long skirts back and forth,” “swirled by,” and caused Forrest to move “back and forth in the sway.”
(5) The Totem Café Caper concludes with “we got to be a pretty good team.” Teamwork, partnership, union. Climatic action involved a “Grandma” and “pie caper.” Forrest uses grandmothers and pies to relate The Totem Café Caper to My Spanish Toy Factory: serves to reinforce intention to link partnership and circles.
(6) My War for Me Laotian jungle. Going into shock after being shot down. Think pleasant thoughts and literally encircle himself. Comfort, partnership, connection, even family: think “about being with [his] father on the Lampasas River in Texas” and remember “the clearing and the beautiful waterfall.” Protective encirclement: he “spread the pepper in a circle around [him], hoping to deaden the noses of any dogs” because “the Pathet Lao didn’t take prisoners.” More substantial encirclement the following day: the rescue is a cacophony of circles. “‘Sandy’ propeller driven fighters,” “two Jolly Green Giant helicopters,” and “a Crown C-130 aircraft circling at 15,000 feet.” Partnership, union, connection is overt: the “Air Rescue Service” who “showed their strength when [he] needed it most.”
(7) Gypsy Magic mirrors My War for Me Philadelphia incident. Connection, partnership. In both stories Forrest is set apart from others, at night, and there are lights: the blinking gauge, lights of Philadelphia, and gypsy camp fire. In both Forrest comes to an understanding of others, his relationship to them. Fenn is set apart, or “alone,” in the dark of night, but he sees the light and realizes that he is actually “part of it;” therefore, alone could be a poor holorime for “all” “one”—as in his epiphany “each one is as important as the all.” Union, connection. Circle camp of former, circle gauge and eyes of latter.
(8) Similarly, The Totem Café Caper “pie caper” and My War for Me “Philadelphia caper.” Both are “capers” to draw a parallel. Lesson of former: team, relationships, connection. Lesson of latter: partnership (i.e. City of Brotherly Love), human connection (i.e. covering his eye/”I” to see that there are other eyes/”I’s”). Circle pie of former, circle gauge and eyes of latter.
(9) This isn’t the extent of Forrest’s use of circles in TTOTC. For example, “cow pie” when literally tied to Bessie and his childhood home address number “1413,” which is a reversal of the first few digits of the circle related mathematic constant pi. Obviously pie is a homophone for pi. Which raises the notion of circles in Skippy's chapters. Etc.
Now, on to Ode to Peggy Jean. Describes his reaction to cancer. Previously he described the illness as exacting “tolls on [his] spirit and body” and that “he was disappearing into the black abyss” before his wife lead his “team” that “saved [his] life.” In the poem, we are presented with an image of him looking towards the sky in each of the poem’s four stanzas. In each stanza he sees something different. Over the first three stanzas these images become increasingly sinister: first we have a joyful sparrow, next we have an ominous raven, and then we have Forrest’s shadow. After each image, his response to these images also becomes more despairing. In the last stanza, he remarks that despite his distress, he “saw that he shall never die” because Peggy Jean takes care of him. His team. His partner, union, human connection.
With this in mind, a corruption of the poem’s title “Ode to Peggy Jean” is “owed to Peggy Jean” (i.e. owed his survival to her) and, recalling the circle and partnership motifs discussed above, “‘O’ed,” or encircled “to Peggy Jean.” And thus parallel to circle imagery in his other near death experience in TTOTC: shot down in the Laotian jungle with pepper circle and circle rich rescue team. This type of word play would not be uncharacteristic of Forrest, and even more the rule than the exception. Certain, no. Plausible, I happen to think so.
What do you think? Flawed? Nothing? Missing the point? Either from an artistry or treasure hunt perspective?
If you buy it as something and more or less on point, consider how it might tie in to Forrest’s ball of string. Does that imbue the circle and partnership motifs with more treasure hunt significance above and beyond simply memoir artistry?