Initial thoughts

I don't have any strong inclination towards the novel so far, but that can most likely be attributed to only  having read so little of the entire novel. I can say for certain however that I don't dislike it. Thus far, my favorite part was the fact that the character mentioned a principle that holds very true in life: "...they prove to you that in reality one drop of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow-creatures...you just have to accept it...for twice to is a law of mathematics". I don't necessarily agree with the fact that you are always more important that everyone else (going back to the lecture that altruism is not an existing thing) as anyone in the class can attest to. What I do agree with is the more general notion of the statement. I think there is a great deal of things in life that are told to us as if they are absolutes. More often than not, I think we want to question this and fight it but we have no choice but to accept said things. To use the example for the novel, it is a math rule that two by two is four and is we wanted to prove otherwise we couldn't, for a mathematician would tell us we were wrong. We are told that thinking is one of the best things we can do (ignorance is not actually bliss) but we are also told not to argue certain principles. We live in a world that, in all honesty, has a set of rules that seems to be made up as they go and changed to benefit some but not others.
-Talia Akerman