The Ogre Day I

2. Why is part one written as a diary? Why does he call these his "sinister writings"? What might this imply?
Abel says that he writes in his diary because he is "at a crossroads". "To a certain extent I'm counting on this diary to help me escape from the garage and the paltry preoccupations that keep me here. And, in a sense, from myself." A diary is a way to get one's thoughts out, espcially those thoughts which we fear may not be accepted by others/society. He calls them his "sinister writings" because, as he believes himself to be monsterous, perhaps he believes his writings to be equally monsterous. Though he defines a monster as "...something that is shown, pointed at, exhibited at fairs, and so on..."and in theory a diary should be the opposite of that, something that no one sees. But then we the readers are seeing his diary and pointing at it and disecting it so maybe it is a monster.

3. On page 5 Abel writes "All is sign." What do you think he means by this based on what you have thus read?

Abel seems to be very supersticious. He feels that all things have meaning, even if we don't necessarily notice them. The quote at the beginning of the novel by Flaubert describes this well: "To find something interesting, you merely have to look at it long enough." Abel makes a very interesting comment about how people worry about death or rather what happens after death but not what happens before birth. Most people would say that there is nothing that effects you before you are born but as Abel puts it, "The heretofore is just as important as the hereafter, especially as it probably holds the key to it."
I think the fact that he writes well and differently with his left hand indicates two things; on a more literal level that he may have been left handed and when he went to St. Christopher's they forced him to learn with his left and on a more figurative level that maybe the person he is on the outside does not reflect who he truly is on the inside. He works in a garage and is called a monster, but is he really? Just my speculations...