So I'm still reading Between a Rock and a Hard Place (I got a little off when I got the new Alex Rider book and some other books). In it, the author, who is also the main character, gives little stories about his past and what he did before.
So basically, what the author himself did in those short stories was talk about the different National Parks he went to and planned to go to, and how he climbed all these mountains called "fourteeners", and what else he did. There are a few themes I see there that I can cover. The one I think I'll cover is the idea of the National Parks. I don't know if one could even consider that a theme, but I do, which should be good enough for you. If I can explain it, you should be able to understand that. Should. That doesn't mean you will certainly be able to understand it, but I guarantee I'll do my best here to prove that the idea of National Parks is a theme. So. In the story, some National Parks the author mentions are Grand Teton, Capitol Reef, Bryce, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and the National Park, or at least the canyon in the park, he gets trapped in, Blue John Canyon.
From all this, you can easily infer the author likes to go to National Parks, and kind of likes to make life a challenge for himself. You might find it interesting that he retired from his job at age 26; what he did isn't that relevant. If you must know, it said he was retired from being an engineer. See? Nothing to do with the story. Anyway, you might also be able to infer that the author likes to travel. I mean, even though some of them are, not all of these National Parks are right next to each other, so there's at least some traveling involved. Another thing you might be able to tell is that the author likes to camp; there are many flashbacks where the author is camping. Finally, the author doesn't seem to want help. For example, when he goes to some of these parks and fourteeners by himself, he only pretty much tells his friends the state. Like when he went to the park he got stuck in, the only detail he gave was that he was going to Utah. Another example was in one of his flashbacks. The author was drowning, and his friends were right there and asked him if he needed help, and he said no. Would you have said no? I think you probably wouldn't have. I think that if you were drowning, you'd ask for help even if no one was around. I think I probably would have asked for help, and I'm the kind of person who likes to get through tough situations I'm already in by myself on my own, so that's saying something.
Interpretations. So, I would say this all means that the author is trying to say he's a pretty independent person, even when his friends are around; the near-drowning situation, for instance. Also, I can see that the author is almost telling us he was asking for what happened to him to happen. Not asking for help when offered, even in desperate times, going solo on many trips, going to all these places that provided challenges—it all adds up to say he was asking for what he got. He was challenging himself, he got into an extremely tough situation he could barely get out of, and so that was his challenge. Get out of a tougher situation that he had ever dealt with before—and he's already dealt with some extremely tough situations—and do it alone. He's miles from his truck, almost no one knows he's there, and he has incredibly low water and food supply. He's in a situation that's unrealistically (but you'd better believe it, 'cause it happened) tough, and he needs to find his way out, out of the challenge he gave himself. He needs to find his way out of the maze he built himself.
Anyway, I can't really connect his accident with much, but I can certainly connect my experience with National Parks, and I can connect my idea of independence and that kind of thing with the author's. Anyway, my only shared experience in one of those National Parks mentioned is really Grand Canyon National Park. In it, I looked at all the activities, and wanted to do all the hardest ones, all the challenging ones, like hiking all the way to the bottom of the canyon, which of course I didn't do because I had my parents with me, and I was a few years younger, and it was only our first year camping in a National Park. We did go some of the way towards the bottom, but not even halfway. But, again, it was our first time camping. Another thing I mentioned I can connect with is the idea of independence. I like to have friends, but I like to be independent in the way that I want to choose what I get to do. I don't like being told what I have to do; no one really does. So why? Why let yourself be told what to do? Choose your own path. Choose where you want to go, what you want to do, and I know this all sounds corny as hell but if you think about it: would you rather do what you want, or be told what to do? Of course, that's another choice. You can be a servant, if you'd like, and have it be your job to be told what to do. All in all, it doesn't come to making the right choice. There is no right or wrong; there's just what you want, and what you don't want.
So that's it. Oh yeah—I'm going camping again this year-Acadia National Park, in Maine. By the way, I think you should go to a National Park if you haven't already. They're pretty cool, and you can really do what you want to do there, so long as you're alone.
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