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WTM: Time and time again!
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From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 17:03:00 -600
Perry, your comments about time and timelessness raise so many questions in my mind that I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll begin by saying that I disagree with most of what you said!
About this theorist you mentioned (is this a particular theorist, by the way, who can be named? Or are all theorists of a like mind?
-- I'm asking because I'm not a theorist, just a reader), who says that all attempts to render fiction timeless or to suggest that certain aspects of the human condition are timeless, are an effort to
"de-historicize reality" -- so what? Is this a bad thing? If certain aspects of the human condition aren't universal and timeless, why do we still read Sophocles? (We still do read Sophocles, don't we?)
Here's a question for you: do all works of fiction have to strive to do the same thing in the same way? That's what it sounds to me as if your theorist is saying. I thought that the great joy of literature is that there are many different types of books, lots of different styles and structures, a multitude of voices and characters, and, here's the miracle: it's ALL an illusion, all made up inside the head of one person and passed by way of little black squiggles into the head of another person. If that second person manages to recreate the illusion and has been moved or entertained by it as you obviously were by WTM, the fiction has succeeded. Right?
I think you want WTM to be a different sort of book, a starkly realistic novel, or perhaps not a novel at all but a documentary of the human condition and the bleak state of today's world. There are many, many books of this nature published for children today, both fiction and nonfiction. Books like WTM are rare jewels because they offer children a bit of hard reality and hope. As adults I don't think we should ever feel guilty about offering hope to our children.
In my work at an urban public library I see children every day who are living in the most extreme of horrendous circumstances, children from homeless shelters and group homes, children living in dire poverty, children who have come to the U.S. from war zones, and children living in some of the war zones we have right here in the U.S. Believe me, they come into the library craving a bit of hope. They ask for fairy tales and stories of princesses, dragons and Greek gods and of humanized steam shovels and and wild things and girls with super-human strength. They want a break from the bleak reality that surrounds them and they expect to find it in books.
Finally, I want to comment on one more point and then I promise I'll quit. You wrote that you thought WTM is a "utopian wish-fulfillment dream of childhood pleasing to adults" because it presents a world lacking in any sort of instrusion of today's technology and ugly, inhumane politics. All the things you find lacking in WTM seem to be very much adult concerns. I'm not sure children would miss them at all. But there is something else missing in WTM that children will certainly notice: a mother. Two mothers, in fact -- a double-whammy. This idea, I assure you, is much more frightening to today's children than the prospect of nuclear war, natural disasters, plagues, terrorists, or even Jesse Helms. So I strongly doubt that any child would view Sal's world as a utopian ideal. The fact that her mother chose to leave her is one of the harsh realities Sal has to face; the fact that she is never coming back is another. But she survives because she has adults in her life who care about her, who offer her hope through playfulness and story,
and help her to see her own life by walking in someone else's moccasins for a while. In my mind, Sal's grandparents' gift to her is, ultimately, the same gift the author gives to her readers.
--KT Horning
CCBC, UW-Madison
Received on Sat 22 Jul 1995 06:03:00 PM CDT
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 17:03:00 -600
Perry, your comments about time and timelessness raise so many questions in my mind that I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll begin by saying that I disagree with most of what you said!
About this theorist you mentioned (is this a particular theorist, by the way, who can be named? Or are all theorists of a like mind?
-- I'm asking because I'm not a theorist, just a reader), who says that all attempts to render fiction timeless or to suggest that certain aspects of the human condition are timeless, are an effort to
"de-historicize reality" -- so what? Is this a bad thing? If certain aspects of the human condition aren't universal and timeless, why do we still read Sophocles? (We still do read Sophocles, don't we?)
Here's a question for you: do all works of fiction have to strive to do the same thing in the same way? That's what it sounds to me as if your theorist is saying. I thought that the great joy of literature is that there are many different types of books, lots of different styles and structures, a multitude of voices and characters, and, here's the miracle: it's ALL an illusion, all made up inside the head of one person and passed by way of little black squiggles into the head of another person. If that second person manages to recreate the illusion and has been moved or entertained by it as you obviously were by WTM, the fiction has succeeded. Right?
I think you want WTM to be a different sort of book, a starkly realistic novel, or perhaps not a novel at all but a documentary of the human condition and the bleak state of today's world. There are many, many books of this nature published for children today, both fiction and nonfiction. Books like WTM are rare jewels because they offer children a bit of hard reality and hope. As adults I don't think we should ever feel guilty about offering hope to our children.
In my work at an urban public library I see children every day who are living in the most extreme of horrendous circumstances, children from homeless shelters and group homes, children living in dire poverty, children who have come to the U.S. from war zones, and children living in some of the war zones we have right here in the U.S. Believe me, they come into the library craving a bit of hope. They ask for fairy tales and stories of princesses, dragons and Greek gods and of humanized steam shovels and and wild things and girls with super-human strength. They want a break from the bleak reality that surrounds them and they expect to find it in books.
Finally, I want to comment on one more point and then I promise I'll quit. You wrote that you thought WTM is a "utopian wish-fulfillment dream of childhood pleasing to adults" because it presents a world lacking in any sort of instrusion of today's technology and ugly, inhumane politics. All the things you find lacking in WTM seem to be very much adult concerns. I'm not sure children would miss them at all. But there is something else missing in WTM that children will certainly notice: a mother. Two mothers, in fact -- a double-whammy. This idea, I assure you, is much more frightening to today's children than the prospect of nuclear war, natural disasters, plagues, terrorists, or even Jesse Helms. So I strongly doubt that any child would view Sal's world as a utopian ideal. The fact that her mother chose to leave her is one of the harsh realities Sal has to face; the fact that she is never coming back is another. But she survives because she has adults in her life who care about her, who offer her hope through playfulness and story,
and help her to see her own life by walking in someone else's moccasins for a while. In my mind, Sal's grandparents' gift to her is, ultimately, the same gift the author gives to her readers.
--KT Horning
CCBC, UW-Madison
Received on Sat 22 Jul 1995 06:03:00 PM CDT
