Why doesn't Jake want to address his wound directly?
An interesting pattern through the first part of the book is that Jake generally tries to avoid any direct discussion of his injury and subsequent inability to have sex, especially with Brett. He will not even directly address it in his mind as he narrates the story and the reader never gets a crystal-clear picture of what specifically happened or why his genitalia looks like. Instead, he generally circumvents this topic and hints rather than tell the reader what happened. It took a good deal of thought, and some prodding from the classroom discussion, for me to figure out that he couldn’t have sexual relations at all; it’s easy to think he is just infertile if the reader does not really dig deep and focus on subtleties in Jake’s actions and language. Why is Jake still hesitant to discuss his wound though? His privacy and embarrassment surrounding...