Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You By Peter Cameron

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In Peter Cameron's novel, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, the protagonist James Sveck, is a secluded eighteen year old who has recently graduated from high school, and feels unsettled with the fact that he is attending Brown University once his summer is over. He confides in his grandmother, visits a therapist, and creates a fake online personality to pursue his crush. In this book, Cameron demonstrates that one can always overcome emotional turmoil, and even gain from it. James must ask himself questions regarding his love and sexuality, his relationship with others, and his future. James goes through all of this but still is not suffering completely. He is under his parents microscope and throughout this novel, James is being questioned …show more content…

Despite James claiming this stunt was a joke, it is evident that he wanted something else from it. He thinks highly of John, “ I liked John very much In fact, except for my grandmother, he was really the only person I liked.”(23). James knows John quite well, and he is aware that John takes meaningful relationships very seriously. He knows that it is not a joke, but a shot in the dark, hoping that maybe John will feel the same way about James as James does for him. It is not a surprise that James struggles with conceiving meaningful relationships. His parents are divorced, his mother has been married three times, and his sister is in a relationship with an older professor who already has a wife. Clearly James is not a lustful person, he pursues John because he wants to be closer to someone who understands him other than his grandmother. James, who says he prefers being alone, desperately attempts to chase John, and when his stunt falls flat on its face, he takes a step back to reflect on himself, “There is a correct and proper way to use words and there is a proper way to behave with other people. And I behaved improperly with John and feel bad, so I compensate by obsessing with language, which is easier to control than behaviour.” (179). James has a habit of nitpicking everything that other people say, and for the first time, the author indicates some introspection from James, he knows what he did to John was wrong, and he sees how he is trying to ignore

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