The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls Post #2

In this book I find it very interesting how the author and her family talk about ways that they are going to get rich (her dad's gold strategies for example), but when they actually get a sense of remote luxury they don't take advantage of it.


The author's parents keep coming up with ideas to become rich but they never seem to have any luck with these strategies.  Her mom has her long lasting idea that people will begin to buy her art, but no one seems to want to.  Her dad first had the fantasy of finding gold in the desert out west.  He planned to do this by making a special machine that would find the gold for him, but the machine was never built and it never became reality.  Then when they moved to West Virginia he had the idea of becoming rich by inventing a machine that would make it possible to use the low quality coal that is in great quantities but can't be used.  I haven't read up to the part when this idea fails or not, but at the moment he is too busy getting drunk and doing "odd jobs" to really work on it.  


I think that since her dad is so smart, he would be able to actually build one of his many inventions and his dream of making the family rich would come true if he could stop drinking.  He gets drunk all of the time and this takes away from the time he could spend being out making money.  


Secondly when they do get some form of luxury they never really take advantage of it and stay in the place where it exists.  When the author's Grandma dies they are left with a large house in Phoenix.  While they are there they are having a really good time and they are experiencing the largest luxury they had faced in their entire lives.  But like always they get into trouble, this time due to her dad's drinking habits preventing him from finding work, and move in with her dad's parents in West Virginia.  I don't understand this one bit.  It seems like they don't want to be poor, but no matter what happens they end up being poor.  


As I mentioned earlier I think that the author's dad's drinking habits are what put the family in poverty because he not only uses a lot of money burn the alcohol, he spends his time at bars instead of finding work to make money.