Reaction to You Shall Know Our Velocity – Will and Hand (I don’t like ‘em)

I liked this book and would recommend it, though the characters themselves did get on my nerves sometimes. The way that both Will and Hand acted at different points in the book bothered me. Reading about what goes on in Will’s mind makes me feel that he is very troubled and strange. Of course I talk to myself in my head every once in a while, but to hear him carry out arguments with people as much as he does, I just didn’t like it. Also, I would like to point out that certain words, and even just syllables in words were italicized throughout the book. I could not really find any connection with these italicized sections except that they were probably emphasized by the speaker. I think that these italics are the result of Will’s “strange” mind. When I read those parts in the book it made me think of Will speaking to me, telling the story, and that he was overanalyzing the quotes he remembered in a way by emphasizing things he thought were strange, mean, curious, or otherwise different. They made me think of a confused and still surprised Will telling me the story. Will is also overanalyzing the situation when he argues with people in his head, by carrying out full conversations. And don’t even get me started on the way that red eyed, pig people bring him books of things he doesn’t want to remember. I know that it can be hard to keep things out of your mind, especially horrible things, but the way that will has created a metaphor in his mind for the remembering of the past is very strange. The metaphor being that these disobedient, scary people are his minds tendency to remember what happened to Jack.

Hand also bothered me. He has a sort of passive way of asserting dominance, and there are not too many things that bother me more. Will had picked up on this, and pointed it out throughout the book. One thing that Hand will do is start to explain something that is very bizarre (something that he is almost sure that you would not know), but he acts like you do know it, or asks “you know what I’m talking about right?” This makes him seem superior when it turns out that you do not know what he is talking about, and good old Hand will fill you in on his amazing knowledge (you owe him now, but no matter because no one expected you to know more than him). One part in the book that made me really think of Hand as having a problem with dominance was when they were playing basketball with the local boys (page 113). Will says that he was trying to keep the game casual, and Hand knocked the ball out of the hands of the much younger boy and scored… “It was not cool” Will said. Hand seems to take any opportunity to show his power, and always wants to seem “manly” and “greater.” I think that in this situation, and many other situations like this one, it is a much better person who realizes that there is no reason to assert yourself as the biggest or the “alpha male,” and that the moment is about something more than that. There are times when it isn’t possible to assert you dominance and power, while at the same time being a good person.