"It Feels So Good When I Stop"

Simply put, I've been slacking off.

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I've decided to include more than just my own creative writing on the blog. By that I mean I will possibly do reviews or essays instead of just creative writing. Sometimes I have a lot to say about something that I never get to let out. Here it goes.

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"It Feels So Good When I Stop" is a novel by Joe Pernice. Personally, I found that it was actually quite good. It's written very realistically to the character and can be quite vulgar because of that. It also tends to jump from time frame to time frame. I'll admit that this could get a little confusing, but it creates three separate stories that meet up by the end of the book. I find that it really shows the flow of consciousness that a person has, as certain memories will trigger other memories that seem almost unrelated. Anyways, enough with the general introduction of the novel. I will be speaking about the concept of intentional pain in order to feel relief from it. 

      This concept is introduced first by the title "It Feels So Good When I Stop," which refers to a joke told on page 240. The joke is about a "guy who keeps whacking himself over the head with a hammer."(240) A friend of his comes along and he replies "because it feels so good when I stop."(240) Once he stops, he feels good because he is relieved from the pain. This is much like the nameless character, who is seen repeating many things. One such thing would be his constant break ups with Jocelyn. Break ups equal pain; therefore, when the nameless character is on good terms with Jocelyn, when he stops, he feels the relief which he was searching for. This search, this addiction, for relief causes the nameless narrator to trap himself in painful cycles. An example of this is shown in the last paragraph of the novel, where the narrator says that he made it about a mile and a half "back toward East Falmouth, when a cop car coming in the opposite direction flashed me."(273) Not only is the nameless narrator heading back toward East Falmouth, which he had just left, but he was also stopped by a police officer for biking on the highway. This is the second time that he was stopped. It happens for the first time on page 108. Now, I may just be ranting, but it does seem very possible that he may just go through another cycle of pain so that he can stop. As a side note, this is also the only story line that does not end, but rather restarts. Back to the theme, Marie is another character in the story who wants that relief. She compares herself to the guy in the joke when she says, "it's sort of like that. I'm not the only one doing the hitting, but I'd take the relief just the same."(240) This shows her own desire for the relief, but also the intentional pain that she causes herself. A good example is the movie that she watches with the narrator that makes her cry, Burden of Dreams. This repetition of pain is shown by how many times she had watched it, "at least fifty times."(236) The movie becomes her hammer and makes it so that when she stops, she will finally get that relief. Anyways, I believe I've gone on long enough.

     The novel is called "It Feels So Good When I Stop" and that's that. Until next time,

-Zero