I think I speak for everyone when I say 'what in the world is going on?!' The Past Ahead is one of the most confusing things I have ever read. Time doesn’t really make sense, it is hard to tell the difference between imagination and reality, there are so many questions without answers, etc.. All of this makes it a very difficult book to read. But I think that’s the point. As it says, “[Niko’s] life makes no sense, doesn’t need to make any sense” (28). In the wake of such a horrific event as genocide, Gatore looked at the world and realized it didn’t make sense to him. In order to cope with this realization, Gatore wrote a book that also doesn’t really make sense. But that’s only if you look at it through traditional views. One of the main questions of the book, as evidenced by the title is this: “isn’t what is ahead of you the past rather than the future?” (28). Gatore takes the normal view of the world that everyone assumes is correct and twists it around until it's hardly recognizable. While I am nowhere near an expert on this book and Gatore’s intentions, from what I’ve read I think that Gatore is trying to reconcile the horrific events he witnessed that don’t make sense to him by changing his perspective. Perhaps he is thinking, ‘this doesn’t make sense and yet it happened so maybe my definition of what makes sense is what needs to change.’ And perhaps that is what we need to be thinking as well.
P.S. I commented on Caroline’s and Hailey’s posts.
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