I really loved this story. I initially thought that it was going to be like Stephen King's Christine and that the car was going to get angry at Ben for hating it so much and just kill him, then causing the mother to have an Old Yeller moment where she kills the car. As generally cathartic as that would have been, I really loved how it turned out.
I feel like in our society, which have this dichotomy with technology on one side and personality on the other. Look at the use of machines in the workforce. By replacing workers with machines, we have this understanding of the cold and impersonal replacing the lively and human. While the millennials have grown up around technology and are supposed to be more comfortable with it, that's still a real issue that some people feel.
I like this story so much because it takes that apprehension and places it in the future. Those sentiments are still very much there with the characters' judgements of the new vehicles, but because Old Paint is older, retro-hideous and half-obsolete, it's somehow superior for all of that. Did anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else half-long for the days when people used typewriters and record players and rotary dial phones, if only because they seemed to have more personality than their modern-day equivalents?
I really liked this story also, in fact I think it was my favorite. It reminded me of the Disney movie Cars, and I loved how Old Paint had such a distinct personality. Ironically, the other day I was reading a story about how technology is almost advanced enough to where these cars that drive themselves are no longer an obsolete idea. I agree with the statement about typewriters and dial phones. I think these vintage style items are becoming more and more valuable to our society, and its clear to me why people pay so much for vintage items. The same argument goes for phone calls vs. texting. Many people (including myself) are worried that all phone calls will soon be replaced by texting, thus destroying, or at least altering, a valuable form of communication. What's everyone's take on this?
ReplyDeleteI've definitely had that longing for the "good-old-days" before as well. I think it's really interesting how the author was able to create such a specific sense of nostalgia in a story whose events AND remembered events (the mother's younger days) take place so far in the future. Old Paint actually reminded me a lot of the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter. Even though the car went a little crazy there too (mostly from being tortured by the Whomping Willow), it still did its best to protect Harry and Ron in the Forbidden Forest, just like Old Paint saved the narrator.
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