Honestly, the book Juice did not make much sense to me. I'm not entirely sure if all the stories are supposed to be connected or if they are all separate. I tried finding common links between the four of them but I had trouble. The only link I could come up with was one of the main themes. Loneliness.
The fourth story "First Sleep" was really confusing for me! I don't have a clue what that story was about. I read it a couple times but I couldn't figure out who Mrs. Gladsman was or what that character symbolized. I couldn't understand what the author meant by numbering sleeps. At first I thought it was very literal. I thought the first sleep or the fourteenth sleep waas the actual number of sleeps that the main character was counting but I was confused as to where or when the character started counting sleeps. I wondered if the character was counting sleeps that had dreams and if the dreams all had something to do with this Mrs. Gladsman character but I didn't think that was right either because of the way the main character said he had to rescue his lover in sixth sleep almost like it was a routine.
The story was very choppy and I couldn't stay in one place for a very long time. It was hard to keep up with the main character. The whole story seemed like one big dream to me. I kept changing and jumping around the way dreams do. The main character was suddenly on the street outside of the grocery store with his head bent, waiting next to an old man when he was laying in bed with his lover just one page before. The story felt like a dream because of the way it jumped around and.. well because of the way it didn't make much sense to me. It's like when someone dreams and the dream kind of goes all over the place yet it is still centered on the dreamer and still somehow it all makes sense to the dreamer. Then if that dreamer were to try and write down the dream the way he or she had experienced it and incorporated his or her own feelings but didn't actually try and explain it... The story is like that. I didn't really like it.
The first three stories definitely had a lonely feeling to it. The first one was sad. I thought at first all the townspeople died due to some sickness or something especially because the main character talks about spirits and the way spirits are associated with death. But on the last page the word exodus is there. I had to look it up but that told me that everybody just left. Then, I was confused as to why the main character wanted to be there and why the main character is living in the mountains and picking fruit like a chipmunk. I understood the main character wanted home again and the idea of bringing it all back with those artifacts, or just old stuff people brought, is full of hope but everybody had moved on and found a different home. They didn't die out. However, there is one line that I really relate to that says, "I only had to think of other people to get physical pleasure." At first, that line was really weird but after I stared at it for a minute, I liked it. It reminded me of when I walked my dog on a warm, cloudless day. I took a deep breath and it felt like the oxygen just carried peace with it and I physically felt the sensations in my stomach. It was nice. I feel like the main character might have felt something like that being in those mountains. I am confused as to why the main character ever left though if that place was home and why the main character is so sure the everybody is coming back. It just reminded me of being in denial.
The third story reminded me of the the first one a lot. I had a lot of the same feelings. I actually had to detach myself from the story when I got to the part about the main character living on a train because it was really lonely and I could relate, but I didn't want to. I had the same questions though. Why did you ever leave if that was your home? Why did it take so long for you so go back if you missed it so much? Did you really expect that everything would still be the same after fourteen years? If you left, why was it so saddening that everybody and everything that made it home for you is gone too? If you left, it makes sense that others would too. Now, it is home for someone else.
Other than loneliness, I definitely got a "time goes by" feeling. Things change. People change. Places change. That's life. People just have to adapt. I feel bad for the characters that don't have that sense of home anymore because everything changed and they didn't even know it. Time doesn't stop. Nothing stops changing. As the main characters changed, their roots changed. The places they came from changed.
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