A gun is for ???

At the time of Beatrix's birth, I was reading 1Q84 (although I have a very hard time referring to it as anything but IQ84) by Haruki Murakami.  I enjoy Murakami, a lot.  I have probably read all of his stuff, but I have lost track somehow.  I like how he weaves his tales together, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this story.  But then it kept going and going and going in a directionless kind of a way.  But, one of the things that came up again and again was Chekhov's notion that if a gun is introduced into a story, it must be fired.  I think Chekhov may have put that in a somewhat more sophisticated fashion like "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." (Chekhov).  You will have to read the story the whole way through for yourself to find out whether the gun in IQ84 is fired or Murakami wrote an entire novel just to spite or defy Chekhov.

Currently I am reading David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  I think the fact that I am able to follow this narrative is a positive sign that I am recovering from my mommy brain.  Mitchell's characters also have a few thoughts about guns.  This novel takes place at the turn of the century (the 18th century that is) in Japan.  At one point, one of he characters, Grote, says:  "The idea bein' he'll go home to his jungle an' show the cannibals the light o' the Lord an' so render 'em more pacific, eh?  Bibles bein' cheaper 'n rifles an' all."  "Oh, but rifles make f' better sport," remarks Gerritszoon.  "Bang bang bang."  (p. 103)

Alasdair has a somewhat similar idea about guns.  One day he said to me "lets play guns, mommy."  I said, "why do we have to play guns?  What's so great about guns?"  "They make a better story, mommy."  And perhaps he's right.  But, he doesn't really know what guns are.  One day as he was playing with an old pump shampoo bottle in the tub he yelled over to Beatrix something to the effect that she couldn't play with guns because she didn't know what they were for.  At first I was just going to let this drift right by me, but then I got to wondering whether he knew what guns were for, so I asked.  His reply was "For squirting water, mommy.  Not like swords, those are just for swording each other out."  Got it.