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Chapter 4: GOOD, CLEAN, WHOLESOME FUN
- Rudy makes hay before the sun shines, apparently. As an early riser, I’m in solidarity with the pre-dawn escape hour.
- Via Mike, we all get some sensible boat safety advice. Don’t set foot on a boat if you can’t swim! And make sure you don a life jacket.
- Rudy logic: A bag of dirt would seem “cheap.” That kid definitely has style.
- Superior dirt!
- “That’s because you have no soul” (Rudy to Harold, who is unwilling to be impressed by the saleté) might be the greatest insult ever.
- Chip’s increasingly automatic response to Harold—Shut up, Greene!—makes it clear he does not subscribe to the idea that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
- Rudy wins the chess match by moving his bishop after Mike positions his knight. One year after I WANT TO GO HOME, the GRK book OUR MAN WESTON included characters named Bishop and Knight.
- The scene with the de-slatted and unsupported upper bunk mattress would be funny enough if Harold had climbed onto it, or even hopped onto it. But it’s hilarious because he vaulted up to the bunk. You just know the crash was 10 times worse with a vaulting entry. GRK’s scenes are humorous for what happens, but word choices really elevate the level of funny.
- Jump cut from the RUMBLE! in Cabin 13 to the counselors’ meeting, with Chip all worked up about Rudy and his saleté. Why was this book never made into a movie?!?
- Pun alert: Now the feathers will really fly. – Rudy’s observation as the “thundering herd of clones” arrives on the scene of the pillow fight.
Yay! The gang’s mostly here!
@Marlo: That’s right—Mitchell (THE FORT) is the most recent (?) example of the anti-13 superstition. The one that comes to mind for me is Nick in NO COINS, PLEASE! And of course we see the fearsome number in LEVEL 13: A SLACKER NOVEL.
@Asher: Wow, so many good observations. Bruno and Boots are the defining examples of a funny man and the straight man foil. It’s hard not to look for their analogs in other GRK works. But you’re right, Rudy is not Bruno, and Mike is not Boots. I’ve never thought of Rudy and Douglas (THE TWINKIE SQUAD) as having similarities but now I can’t help but see it. Nice!
@Jade: Yes! Somehow, Mike’s inability to contain his laughter makes everything even more hilarious. And I didn’t say it, but “It doesn’t have to be raining to be raining.” would keep a lot of philosophy professors engaged for hours. Deep. Speaking of deep, a bailing bucket allows you to remove water from your boat so it doesn’t get so deep (and weighty) that it sinks you. And now you know why older Kormaniacs were so giddy when Elvis the beaver made his appearance in SLACKER! Trivia: Of the six different cover images that have graced I WANT TO GO HOME over the years, the first three finished the title with an exclamation, and the final three depicted a beaver.