Another one

So . . . another character that doesn’t quite have his life together.

Grady Tripp is a character all right. He is a faithful marijuana smoker, an unfaithful husband with a mistress and three failed marriages, and he is very nonchalant about his faults. In the section when he talks about how he and Crabtree plagiarized their stories for class, he doesn’t have any regrets about plagiarizing really and doesn’t seem to register that it’s a serious offense. He didn’t get caught so he doesn’t give it a second thought. The only thing he really says about it is that he doesn’t care that the class didn’t receive the story well because he didn’t write it.

He admits that he falls into love super easily and says he has probably fallen in love 17 times, which is reminiscent of Amory Blaine and his tendency to fall madly, deeply, and quickly. He is a writer, which is also reminiscent of Amory Blaine’s character. Unlike Amory though, Grady doesn’t seem to have a moral conscience. Amory was haunted by the devil when he went astray, but Grady just lands on his feet and keeps on running. His faults are almost charming on him, and I’m guessing my classmates will greatly prefer Grady to Amory and Portia.

Speaking of Portia, Grady shares some similarities with her also. Like Portia, Grady was in a relationship with a woman(well, Portia was in a relationship with a man but you catch my drift!) he sort of or half-heartedly loved, and he didn’t really feel bad about cheating on her. Portia only cheated on Mark with John once, but Grady had been sleeping with Sara for five years before his wife, Emily, left him. Portia freaked out when she thought Mark somehow knew that she had slept with John, but the thought that Emily had found out that he was sleeping with Sara didn’t really seem to bother Grady. Also, the whole Grady getting Sara pregnant thing is reminiscent of the Mark and Helen relationship in Admission.

I find myself unable to separate the characters of the three novels we have read so far. I keep finding connections involuntarily. However, Grady is different from Amory and Portia in a very stand out way. Grady seems to be satisfied with himself. He doesn’t blame his faults on other people, and he doesn’t really dwell on his problems and his past. He casually mentions that he knows he’s the reason all three of his marriages failed. Again, he's very nonchalant. It's like "Hey, she left me, " "Hey, I'm stoned," "Hey, I ran away from my grandmother and only left her a note and she died when I was gone," "Hey, I'm cheating on my wife," and so on.

And I guess this makes him more likable (well I don’t really like him but I’m guessing others will). He has so many faults and issues but he isn’t blaming anybody for them. His mom died in his infancy and his father committed suicide, but he isn’t blaming his issues on his parents or lack of parents. If this was Portia, she would have blamed this stuff on her mother faster than we could sing “Oh Susannah, oh don’t you cry for me . . .” : )