Today I was the Literary Luminary, and I picked out passages from the book the Phantom Tollbooth, up to around page 113. We have one more meeting to go, and we will read until the end of the book, and I will be discussion director.
Milo caught his breath, picked up the chalk, and explained simply "Its on the tip of my tongue."... pg 162/ paragraph 3
In this paragraph, Milo uses a word that is 'on the tip of his tongue' to restore noise in Silence Valley, where no one can make any noise. He had just come back from the palace at the top of the valley, the only place you can speak. He saved a word that he was about to say. In English, the appropriate idiom would be that the word was on the tip of his tongue. Yet, in this paragraph, it was given a literal meaning, and the word on the tip of his tongue is used to set of a rocket shooting noise into Silence Valley. I found this amusing because it is not possible in the real world and also that it actually makes no sense in the real world (or at least the world that we live in - not Expectations.) It also shows how fictional Expectations is.
"I'm as tall as can be" - and he grew straight up until all that can be seen of him were his shoes and stockings-" and I'm as short as can be"- and he shrunk to the size of a pebble... (it continues in his way) pg 169/paragraph 1
In the paragraph above, a man on the Island of Conclusion that doesn't know who he is, shows that he can be absolutely anything. Milo, Tock and Humbug all made a decisions that were unjustified, and then they are flown to the Island of Conclusions, where you are taken if you make a judgement with no justification. In the paragraph the man is showing them how he doesn't know who he is, because he can be absolutely everything. I found it amusing because of the many different ways that the different attributes he possessed were represented in many different ways, many of which were quite comical. They were all quite stereotypical, and pretty funny.
"DIGITOPOLIS
5 miles
1600 rods
8800 yards
26400 feet
316800 inches
633600 half inches
AND THEN SOME
"Lets travel by miles" advised the Humbug, "its shorter."
"Lets travel by half inches" suggested Milo, "its quicker."
"But which road should be take?" asked Tock. "It must make a difference."" pg 174/ paragraph 2
This paragraph happens as Tock, the Humbug and Milo are trying to make their way to Dictionopolis, and they come across a sign before reaching it, and they are bemused, not knowing what to do. There were quite a lot of mesurments mentioned, and they were pretty interesting. Usually you don't measure distance in rods or inches or many the other types. It is more typical to have kilometres or miles, which are more easy to deal with. This surprised me, and gave me a whole different outlook to distances. Also, when comparing them, it was obvious that none of them had any idea that they were the same distance, and they had some off ways of comparing them. I thought this was quite funny, and also pretty sad, in a sort of depressing way. I wsa bemused out how they thought that 5 miles is shorter, but 633600 half inches is quicker. *sigh* thats depressing!
""By all means," he replied happily. "There's nothing to it. If a small car carrying three people at thirty miles an hour for ten minutes along a road five miles long at 11:35 in the morning starts at the same time as three people who have been traveling in a little automobile at twenty miles an hour for fifteen minutes on another road exactly twice as long as one half the distance of the other, while a dog, a bug, and a boy travel an equal distance in the same time or the same distance in an equal time along a third road in mid-October, then which one arrives first and which is the best way to go?"
"Seventeen!" shouted the Humbug, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper." pg 177/ paragraph 3
In this paragraph, the Dodecatheon is trying to get some point accross.... and I am sure that no one understands. Humbug shows his amazing unintelligence by answering seventeen - an answer which doesn't even answer the question at hand. I probably would have replied the same in this situation! I was SO confused, and I was just sitting there not really thinking when I read the paragraph. I was confused, and I wonder if the words he said had any value at all, and this impossible math problem has an answer.
"Very good," said the Mathemagician. "Now add one to it. Now add one again," he repeated when Milo had added the previous one. "Now add one again. Now add one again. Now add one again. Now add one again. Now add one again. Now add one again. Now add--"
"But when can I stop?" pleaded Milo.
"Never," said the Mathemagician with a little smile, "for the number you want is always at least one more than the number you've got, and it's so large that if you started saying it yesterday you wouldn't finish tomorrow." pg 192/paragraph 5
In this paragraph, Milo tries to guess the biggest number in the world, and the Mathemagician shows that there is no biggest number, and definitely one that you can't say. I found this quite scary, because it shows that something so common, such as numbers, is something with such a big range, and a terrifying infinity. Something being infinite is quite scary to me, as it is not something that you can really imagine. It is quite startling really - there is always be a bigger number - just add one!
long post :P
adios!
gemma
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