Richard James Mehdi

The Food in the Manger, Volume 2 Richard James Mehdi

Part 3 of The Food in the Manger is a long journal and attempt to work out an idealistic-unto-nihilism philosophy of suicide which Lauria writes after he has become a recluse from inner frustration and an external trauma. He is trying to let go of his life after he has proved by logic that life is not worth living. He is trying to find a reason to do anything at all; late-capitalist artificiality and the difficulty of humility and selfless love move in synchronicity to paralyze him. The focal point of the fourth and last section is a heretofore minor character Sonny Merger, who thinks his father is secretly so rich that he rules the world. He is terrified of his father. Sonny Merger has no acquisitive spirit; he is completely defeated. He wants to be controlled, mindless, preferably for the common good, but he is too emotionally regressive to distinguish good from need, or being social from being murdered.