This is a completely obvious observation. But I haven't seen it in discussions yet.

Twords the end of the book, Charlie and Spider completely switch roles. Why do you think Neil did this? Because they used to be one in the same? Why all of a sudden now do they switch idenities? Discuss! I command it!

I saw it slightly differently. Charlie and Spider were two halves of the same guy. Like the starfish, they grow into a complete whole.

Spider was brought into being by trying to remove certain parts of Charlie. The magic/god part, and the mischief. So, at first, Charlie lacks these and Spider is nothing but these.

Later, Charlie realises that he is still his fathers son and kind of grows back what was taken from him. And Spider falls in love with Rosie, and develops emotions and behaviours that he never had before.

That's be my simplified version. Not easy things to describe, I can't imagine why the English language lacks the vocab to deal with this kind of thing. The Starfish metaphor is very useful (Thanks Neil!)

Oh, and the other question, why do they switch? I think at first they are just making up for lost time, and in the end come out as more rounded figures. Fat Charlie in the start didn't seem very balanced (His reactions to his father, both as a child and later remembering. No sense of humour) and while he is changed at the end of the book he is still recognisable.

As for Spider. Hmm. It's a comedy where everyone gets what they need in the end. If spiders trouble making was a bad thing, then getting a job and settling down might be what he needed to get over it. I'm not too sure about this, the Spider at the end seems quite different to the beginning. And it's an Anansi story, and Anansi was a trickster god.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jay,

quote:

Spider was brought into being by trying to remove certain parts of Charlie. The magic/god part, and the mischief. So, at first, Charlie lacks these and Spider is nothing but these.

I don't believe that the magic/god part was removed from Fat Charlie. However, the essential personality traits required by someone to learn godhood from a father like Anansi definitely disappeared. He became bland and embarrassed. Without the imagination to grasp that his father was trying to do anythin other than humiliate him, the ability to appreciate a joke on himself or others, and the capacity to take it easy, is it any wonder that he never was taught until after his father's death that he was the son of a god?

As much as he felt embarassed by Anansi, I'm betting that, while understanding the circumstances, it was very difficult to be Anansi while attempting to be the father of a boy that could not appreciate anything that was his own essential being. If Venus had a child completely incapable of emotion it would be a similar situation. It's hard to relate to something that is so alien to yourself. Being himself, Anansi's behavior was not something he could change, it was not simply who he was, it was what he was.

I agree with you that they didn't switch, they more brought out the aspects within each other that had til they met been erased from them. Like starfish, they became whole beings on their own but, like the mirrored images of each other, while they were away they took their own forms, being brought together again they started to cast reflections of themselves onto the other. They each began growing a little more like they may have ended up had they never been seperated.