Questions about YNH

[neilgorman]

All,

I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to to talk about some of the questions that I have in regards to YNH with all of you.

I think that some of you, like me, have not yet finished the book so I will do my best to not ask questions that would spoil any of the story.

Q 1. Does anyone know which characters are based on real life people?

-I know that Helen DeWitt refers to herself in the text, and she is obviously real.

-I know Ilya Gridneff = Alyosha Popovitch Pechorin, Alexander Chatsky,
Dmitri Pesarev, Misha Kropotkin and Kaplan Thornhill (http://www.helendewitt.com/dewitt/yournamehere.html)

-However, beyond that I have little to no idea if the other characters are incarnations of real people.

Q 2: In the book "Lottery Land" (the book w/in the book YNH) there is constant reference to a lottomonitor. I don't know what that is, but I get the feeling that it is something that is made up. Am I correct, or does such a thing exist and/or is it a reference to a real machine in the UK or other parts of Europe?

-This seems lie a stupid question, but I want to be 100% sure that it is not a reference to a real life object.

Q 3: How many different stories are going on in this book?

-I think I can find 4 maybe 5 different stories. How many can you find?

Thats all for now.

Peace.

-N

[Nathaniel Siqueiros]

Aside from Helen and Ilya as themselves, and of course Ilya as Alyosha, the most obvious one of course being Rachel Zozanian loosely based on Helen.

[Ryan Mooney]

I just finished YNH at 1:30 last night, and hope that this forum hasn't died... I'll do some frentic posting in an attempt to revive it.

1. I was working on the assumption that every e-mail recipient and sender has a real-life analogue. Other characters I'm not so sure about, particularly the pop-culture characters such as Noszaly. I think he's just a type.

2. The lottomonitor doesn't seem to be a reference to a real machine, but rather to the way in which people will obsessively weigh up the potential ramifications of their actions, and then not act anyway. I'm not sure if we're supposed to see this as a nod to the constraints put on us by religion and our families (this being a wild guess); but I do have a feeling that Helen has deliberately 'omitted' most of Lotteryland in order to keep this vague, and us guessing.

3. I just thought it was one great sprawling thing!

[Mary Abiyad]

Hi!
1. Same answers already given
2. Nearly certain the lottomonitor is completely made up. I thought it was interesting though that Ephriam's constant checking of the lottomonitor kind of corresponded with Rachael's/Helen's constant checking of emails. (Maybe that's moving off topic?)
3. I'm not sure if you would count the 2nd person parts as story lines, or if the prostituting character was meant to be the same as Racheal/Helen completely. I did like how this part was included, it seemed like it was referencing how so many of the character's had to prostitute themselves in some way just to get by. Like Ilya writing for tabloids, Mcjobs, etc. (Again, maybe moving off topic? Hard to contain one topic from the next.)

If I may, I would also like to ask a question, please.
Q4: Is everyone pursuing learning Arabic now? I've finished the book and I'm trying to find a good quality audio lesson to listen to while gardening. Haven't had much luck yet, I've never used something like that before. I luckily enough know someone who's a native speaker I can bug with questions, ha ha.