Before I started reading this book, I took a quick look at the back of it for a preview. With this being said, I felt as if the book were kind of a joke when I first started reading it just because I already knew that he was describing himself as a pizza delivery guy the whole time. I thought it was funny how he was over glorifying his job in the first two pages by giving himself name the “Deliverator.” He also mentions how he carries weapons and that how awesome his car supposedly is. If I weren’t to have looked at the back of the book and found out he was a pizza delivery guy ahead of time, I probably would have taken the Hiro more seriously. As I kept reading, I started to take him more seriously even though he mentions that he is nothing but a pizza delivery guy because how he keeps making his job seem extremely important. He does this by mentioning how he’s never delivered a pizza in more than 21 minutes and how he must take care of every little detail like the cleaning the pizza box slots in his car.
When Hiro ends up driving into an empty pool while making a delivery, Stephenson had managed to give me a gut wrenching feeling similar to when I had lost one of my own earlier jobs. I think Stephenson does a really good job of creating these feelings through all the events leading up to it that begin on page 11 when he receives the 20 minute old pizza to deliver. The instant he ends up in the pool is when I felt that all the efforts of planning the short cut on the spot and trying to shake the kourier off his car were lost along with his current job.
I agree with you about Hiro being a glorified pizza delivery man. I didn't read the back of the book, so when i started reading about the "Deliverator," I thought it was something futuristic and exciting. But when I discovered he was just a pizza delivery guy, I thought it was pretty funny that he was taking it so seriously. It seems kind of like a joke to me, too. All the high tech aspects of the business (the electronic boxes, the fancy car, the Mafia running it all) was pretty cool even though it seems a little excessive.
ReplyDeleteI also can relate to the feeling of nervousness when Hiro loses his job, because it has happened to me also. It is a terrible feeling, and I agree that Stephenson does a good job making us empathize with Hiro. The idea that if he delivers a pizza in over 30 minutes Uncle Enzo has to stop what he is doing (like taking a bath) and apologize is nerve-racking. It's nerve-racking because it reminds me how hard I work to please my boss and the bad feeling I get if I fail to do so.