5:10 AM
Vance Holmes
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
-- Plato
Forced Perspective
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s recent attention-getting Wall St. Journal piece which complains of a "darkness too visible" in today’s YAL and bemoans that teen shelves have become saturated with books centered on "pathologies" is a near duplicate of Sara Mosle's New York Times article about "bleak books." Both articles are suspect.
Often times, when those in the intractably mono-cultural worlds of education, publishing and literary criticism speak of "children" – they are speaking only about White, middle class children. That’s not terribly surprising considering the lack of diversity in the publishing industry, and that nearly 90% of America’s teachers are White.
The literary world’s definition of dark may have as much to do with ethnicity and culture as literary tone and subject matter. The digital revolution has produced a substantial increase in the number of multicultural books.
Reading in the Dark
New ways to self-publish and a new crop of small publishers have made it possible for non-traditional YAL to emerge from out of the shadows into the light of the mainstream.
These are books about the young people in America that have been seen, but rarely heard from. The books only feel dark to some publishers, parents and pedagogues because they are about youth with differences -- not only differences of ethnic or so-called "racial" identity, but also differences of cultural background, social status, experiences and world-view. Along with the new century came new literature focusing on teenagers of color, gay teens, teens with disabilities and exceptionalities, teens who have suffered abuse and trauma and terrorism -- teens that, along with asking "Who Am I?" are forced to ask, "Who have you already decided I am?"
Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, offered this robust response to the "bleak book" assessments:
When some cultural critics fret about the "ever-more-appalling" YA books, they aren’t trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren’t trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.
No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.
No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.
Reality Check
Of course, growing up gay isn’t dark or edgy if you’re gay -- or if you have gay parents. Patrick Jones speaks of what is "formal and normal." Well, when you’re the person who is sixteen and pregnant, or drug-addicted, or Black and in prison -- then that’s normal for you. It isn’t good or bad, light or dark. It is reality -- and according to recent statistics, that reality is becoming increasingly normal.
Stranger Than Fiction
- 1 in 5 teens in a serious relationship reports having been hit, slapped, or pushed by a partner
- Over the past year, one in five females and one in seven males have engaged in some form of self-injury type behavior
- The divorce rate is now over 50%
- A Black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime
- More than half of Black U.S. children with a low-education parent will experience having a parent behind bars by age 14
- 45% of teens ages 13-17 said they were more stressed in 2009 (only 28% of their parents reported teen stress increased)
- Thirty-four percent of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20. Eight in ten of these teen pregnancies are unintended and 79 percent are to unmarried teens
- 5 out of every 8 teens who attempt suicide are LGBTQ youth
- Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBTQ students said they've been harassed in the past year
"Teenagers read millions of books every year.
They read for entertainment and for education.
They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.
And there are millions of teens who read because they are sad
and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in an
often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite
the callow protestations of certain adults, that books,
especially the dark and dangerous ones, will save them."
-- Sherman Alexie
Light Reading
Anybody claiming that Meg Rosoff’s brilliant masterpiece, How I Live Now, is dark – cannot have actually read the book. They likely read a book review or saw an article that mentioned anorexia, incest, violence and cigarette smoking, then they automatically assumed it was dark and ugly. The reverse is true.
How I Live Now is as magical, moving, bright and beautiful as a Brahms symphony. Yes, there are some low notes, loud moments and minor chords -- Rosoff has, after all, composed a symphony, not a harmonica solo – but that’s surely no reason to deny young people such beauty.
The novel’s beauty is due to its story, as well as the way the story is told. Rosoff’s teenaged protagonist, Daisy, and the other characters that appear, are not so much developed, as experienced through a unique narrative structure that surprises Daisy even more than us.
The story is in control, not Daisy. Her snappy "What I Did on my Summer Vacation" report is quickly turned into a romance novel, then a war story, then a tale of survival -- then it becomes something else entirely and events force Daisy to begin again at a second Chapter One.
How I Live Now is as magical, moving, bright and beautiful as a Brahms symphony. Yes, there are some low notes, loud moments and minor chords -- Rosoff has, after all, composed a symphony, not a harmonica solo – but that’s surely no reason to deny young people such beauty.
The novel’s beauty is due to its story, as well as the way the story is told. Rosoff’s teenaged protagonist, Daisy, and the other characters that appear, are not so much developed, as experienced through a unique narrative structure that surprises Daisy even more than us.
The story is in control, not Daisy. Her snappy "What I Did on my Summer Vacation" report is quickly turned into a romance novel, then a war story, then a tale of survival -- then it becomes something else entirely and events force Daisy to begin again at a second Chapter One.
This coming-of-age novel is finally a stunning blend of several literary styles and genres, including magic realism and dystopian fiction. How I Live Now is wholly original. Not dark -- different -- and enlightening.
Daisy’s experience is physically realized on Rosoff’s pages through a distinctive, punctuation-less poetry that continually underscores (and undermines) her ability to communicate her story in a world without rules. Rosoff’s writing style is a solution to a problem we know nothing about until the end – the second Chapter One. It’s a distinct and unforgettable writing style that manages to both clarify and mystify – like a waltz by Strauss.
Perhaps what ultimately makes How I Live Now so beautiful, is that it is so useful.
Young Daisy is as confused by the terror and taboo romance as we are. But confronted with war, sudden violence, soul-stirring love and inexplicable loss -- Daisy digs in her heels. She is determined to survive. Daisy's resourcefulness, resilience and wit reaches us, even as it teaches us to make sense of our lives in a world that is truly stranger than fiction.
Posted in: REFLECTIONS
