Novel Reflection - Fade By: Robert Cormier

Fade is an interesting novel, and can be quite confusing at times. The book starts off with the main character, Paul Moreaux living in his hometown "Frenchtown" he always called it, in Massachusetts. The book takes place somewhere in the 1920's. Paul lives a normal but poor life, when he finds out that he has the ability to "fade", which is the ability to disappear or become invisible. The ability is passed on from an uncle in the family to a nephew, and Paul's uncle Abelard teaches it to him. Once he starts to use this new ability, bad things start to happen. He catches people doing bad stuff and does bad things himself, and he tries to cope with it. He vows never to use the fade again when his brother Bernard dies partially because of him. Unexpectantly I find that the book is divided up into different sections, the next one called "Susan". This part takes place in the future, when Paul is dead. Susan is a writer, and Paul was a famous writer when he lived, and Susan is inspired by him. She comes across a manuscript, which in fact was the story that was the first part of the book. Susan reads it and tries to decipher whether it is truth or fiction, and if it can be published, as an autobiography of Paul. She suspects it is fake because of the fact of the fade. The next part is the next section of the book that Susan later finds, and it is about Paul when he is in his forties. It is just a continuation of his life, and he feels that the next fader is ready, so he goes out to find him. The next fader is named Ozzie, and he discovers the fade on his own, without Paul, and does bad things with it. He came from a bad family; he had a father that abused him. When he discovered the fade he used it to his advantage, killing his father, and hurting and scaring people that had teased him over the years. Paul comes looking for him, and Ozzie encounters him. Ozzie had bad voices in his head, telling him to do the bad things he did, the fade brought it on to him. Ozzie tries to attack Paul because the voices told him to, and he did it while he was in the fade so he couldn't see him. Paul is bewildered, and almost dies from the sharp knife Ozzie has. Paul fights for his life against the next fader and ends up killing him, diminishing the generation of the fade.

Even though my life is very different from that of Paul Moreaux, I can relate to some aspects of the story. First of all in the first section of the novel it talks about how Paul is determined to become a writer and he loves writing and reading. My sister can relate to him because she loves to read and can often finish a book in less than a day. She loves to write, and has won a few competitions, and wants