A Joy Forever

Back to Leo who we find impatiently awaiting the response from his son about his book.  Only the Leo we find is not the one we left in chapter one (well, maybe at the end).  He is excited, fidgety, and he stops trying to do things for the attention of strangers.  He says, before "I would've had a small mishap at the milk station. Not this time.  I poured the milk like a normal person, a citizen of the world," (Krauss 76).  My favorite part of that line: "a citizen of the world," because I really think that's the change Leo goes through.  From Alien to Citizen, he has finally found a place.  There are so many ways this scene shows this.  Leo is formerly an alien of America from Poland.  Until this point I'm not sure that he has really felt as though he was particularly a part of America, and maybe he still doesn't fully, but going to Starbucks is one step in the right direction.  On a more serious note this act really does seem to help him fit in with what happen to be American people, and more so than that with all people of the human race.  Because when he says' "citizen of the world," the opposite would really be an alien to the world, which would make now the first time he has really started to associate with other people.  His only friend is one he has had since his boyhood when he lived in Poland, and his one love is also from then.  When he moves to America, he becomes the new, washy version of himself that is desperate for any attention he can get.

Then Leo realizes that instead of seeking the attention of random people, he really craves the attention of his son.  That becomes really depressing when he realizes his son has died.  I really felt bad for Leo.  He just needed to know his son, and he never got the chance; that doesn't seem fair.  It was his own son after all.  Then the whole part of him going to the funeral and freaking out.  I mean he's really losing it and almost gets kicked out and starts speaking Yiddish.  Sometimes I find it really hard to relate to him, but he never ceases to interest me.  It's sort of like looking at something disastrous, like you know everything is going to go wrong, but you just can't look away.  Poor guy, it makes me really dislike the girl he loved because she left him and told him he couldn't see his son.  Even if she did die.

Connection: The main characters of this book are Jewish, and our two main characters are Jewish living in America.  Neither of them has much contact, or at least self-association, with the outside world.  They mostly associate with their Jewish friends or relatives.  What does that mean?  I'm not fully sure yet, but I think it may be one of the major messages of the book.  Clearly, it has shown some of the struggles of Jewish refugees of WWII assimilating into American culture after they were forced to leave their home.  Especially through Leo, even if it is not particularly on his mind, we can see the problem's effect.

My only other idea to the meaning of the work as a whole would be that it probably has something to do with love.