Connections to other novels in the course

The goal of this course is to evaluate the connectedness within all of the novels we read. It is important to examine what this novel has in common with the others, and what elements it has that the other novels do not. It is definitely different from all the other novels we have read, the most “conventional novel”, but that does not mean it has no connections to the other novels. 

The technology and the businesses in the novel seem to be most connected to the use of technology in Super Sad True Love Story. In that novel, the society is always looking for the new, best thing out there. When a new apparat comes out, they have to have it, even if only the slightest thing has changed. The society is always striving to be “better” and newer. This is the same for Veritech and ISIS in The Cookbook Collector. During a conversation between Alex and Emily, he states, “We need a new idea every week” (45.) This points out that they need this new idea for the company to keep up with the ever advancing society and their constant need for the “next, best thing.” The difference between these two novels is the way they would deal with Alex’s idea of electronic fingerprinting. In this novel, they shoot it down because of the lack of privacy involved in such an idea. In Super Sad True Love Story, however, I believe that the companies would see no ethical problem with such an idea, and would go through with it.

The other novel The Cookbook Collector is similar to is Freedom. Although The Cookbook Collector is more optimistic and has more believable characters, both novels have a core focus on the development of the characters and why they do what they do. The reader becomes invested in the characters of both novels because both authors portray them as such real people the reader has no choice but to feel as though they are part of the lives of these characters. The difference between the two novels, however, is the tone and overall feeling of the novels. Freedom, when I read it, left the feeling that the world is a place where no one is every truly happy, and that people have to live in a semi-happy mostly sad state of life. The Cookbook Collector, however, left me with the feeling that the world really isn’t all that bad. The endings, in particular, left me with very different feelings. The ending of The Cookbook Collector shows two people who are truly in love with each other, while Freedom, although they end up together, they do no seem to posses the same love as Jess and George. The Cookbook Collector is a novel that could be read in a lighthearted, older women’s book club, where they discuss the themes of love and cooking in the novel. Freedom does not fall into that same category because it would simply frighten the women in the book club too much.