Mar 14 2008
Aloft
Jerry Battle, the main character of the book, who was around sixty years old, retired from his own company, Battle Brothers Brick & Mortar, which was established by his grandfather, and developed to a landscaping company by his father and uncles. Jerry was a kind of rich guy. He had got plenty of money, his own house, and even his own plane. It looks like this book all talked about an old guy’s retired life. So this book is kind of tasteless, isn’t it?
How about let us imagine the life when people retire? People may still get up early in the morning, watch TV for an hour or two, then, water their plants outside the front door. They probably would take a walk in a warm afternoon, or have a cup of tea in the backyard. But after reading through the book a little bit I have found out this book was not just talking about an ordinary story about an old people’s life. From one point, I felt the author tried to express some unique ideas through Jerry’s emotionally change to display some phenomenon of the society.
Although Jerry’s wife, Daisy Han, died very early, he still should have had reasons to satisfy with his old age. His overeducated daughter Theresa was engagement to her boyfriend Paul, and his son, Jack, had plans for expanding his original business. He accumulated himself more than enough wealth for retirement. Also, it looked like he always had female friends around him, no matter his ex-girlfriend, Rita, his coworker, Kelly, or even Terri, the woman he dated in a summer, no matter how close to him they were. But he was still lonely.
When he sold his shares in his company he had not realized there was no place left for him to go. That was why the first paragraph in the first Chapter was mentioned “From up here, a half mile above the Earth, everything looks perfect to me.” While I was reading through the book, I was feeling Jerry hinted us from the first sentence that he perhaps wanted to escape from something. He liked to travel with his plane a lot, used to with Rita, but most time himself. When he flew aloft he thought he had left everything on the ground. He tried using his plane as the tool to release himself, but he did not realize that when the plane landed, he still needed to pick up whatever he had to bear, and whatever he had to face.
It is helpless and contradictory, not only to Jerry, but also to most of the people in the world. People always tried to hide themselves and escape from reality. And to some of them, when they find out they have to face their situation, they can not even afford it.
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i think jerry using the plane as a tool to “get away” from reality is a good thing. everybody needs to escape every now and then just because life can become so overwhelming. we see this when people use drugs and drink heavily. these things alter their moods so they can deal with their problems easier. instead of jerry using something that can possibly make him violent and angry, he found a peaceful release for himself- the sky. eventually, everybody has to deal with thier problems and i know there’s that saying “don’t put off till tomorrow what you can get done today,” (something like that) but sometimes you need to put things off till tomorrow. people need time to think and evaluate life. that’s how they make the best decisions they possibly can.