I’m Always Home. I’m Uncool.

I agree with this blog post. I was, and still am, confused by Jennie’s existence. I know that she is not a ghost, because Nathan was upset by that part of the film, but is she really? This is where I feel like Portrait of Jennie goes Sci-Fi on us. Now, not Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) Sci-Fi, but Octavia Butler (Kindred) Sci-Fi. Is Jennie time traveling? Is she aware of the fact that she is in the future when she is talk to Eben? That also brings us to different theories in regards to time travel. Is this time type of time model where the past and present and happening simultaneously, or is it the sort of past and present that are separated linearly, and are there two Jennies when she time travels, or is there just the one?

Frankly, I’m not sure if all of those things even matter. Our unit is all about “Love and its Discontents.” So where does love play into all of this? So Eben and Jennie are in love, presumably. However, they cannot be together. Why can’t they be together? I thought that the idea of love was supposed to surpass time and space and all that jazz. Apparently not in this unit. Maybe what Nathan is saying is that it can exist, because it did before Jennie died, but that it is fleeting, and no one person can understand it. Maybe. I really don’t know. What are your guys’ thoughts on love?

Portrait of Jennie is easily one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. It really had me hooked. I never got to care much for Jennie, but I really liked Eben. Out of the two characters Jennie is the most interesting, and Eben the more simplistic. Right?

Wrong! While Jennie may seem more complicated due to the whole is-she-a-ghost/apparition/floating in time and space-thing, Eben is actually the more complex of the two. While his life may not be all that glamorous (not like Jennie jet-setting around through time and space), underneath it all, it is Eben who is dealing with the most in the book. Eben is figuring out what it means to be an artist, what art means, what life means, what death is, what time is, what love is, etc. While Jennie, the seemingly complicated person, does not deal with any of these thoughts, or, if she does, we are not privy to them.