it is fascinating that so little time from 9/11, he already uses the theme to run the story. i get the whole jet lag from shock of 9/11. why is her father's disappearance her motive to find the source of the clip?

I think that the reason Cayce uses her father's dissapearance as motivation to find the origin of the clips is because bringing the circumstances of her father's dissapearance/death to light is basically an impossibility. Something that she has had to live with for a year. But tracking down the origin of the footage is something she can at least exert some sort of control over. It's an ad hominem quest, but that doesn't make it any less cathartic or significant. If she can't find out about her father, at least she can try to find out about the footage.

Also, you have to remember that Cayce loses her father in an unexpected, squalid, violent event shortly before setting off on her quest. Having lost my own father in an unexpected, volent, squalid fashion, I know that for quite some time there, everything of significance (career goals, health, family life) and even much that was of no significance (eating yogurt, washing the cars) was somehow connected to my father.

What would Dad have thought of this job?
What would Dad have told me about maintaining a happy marriage?

How would Dad have eaten this bowl of yogurt?

Until I came to grips with it, pretty much everything was connected to his life and death. Whatever other, higher, more symbolic connection there might be (the search for a seemingly unattainable truth), you have to consider that Cayce was also just a person in mourning.

that reminds me of a poem I read recently.

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

W.S. Merwin

quote:

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Originally posted by Splitcoil:
...you have to consider that Cayce was also just a person in mourning.

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My thoughts exactly.

Excellent poem! A nice way of phrasing it.

And Sentinel: I completely identify with your linked post there. Losing someone that's close does tend to scramble much of your hardwired behavior and lead you to do weird stuff. Sometimes to good effect, sometimes to bad. I can plead guilty to that as well.

Have you perhaps seen the movie, LOVE LIZA? Great flick. Protagonist's wife kills herself and he wigs out--not in a going-postal, stupid, over the top fashion, but in just a kind of embarrassing, painful-to-watch, though sometimes funny fashion that seems entirely realistic. Not a fun movie to watch, but it's worth the pain.