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Wringer -- Fiction? Fable? Magical Realism?
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From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:41:27 -0600
Susan-- Thanks for your thought-provoking questions about "Wringer." I hope others will feel inspired to respond because I think it's a key question when we approach the novels of Jerry Spinelli. What kind of books is he writing? Where do they fit in? I confess that some of Spinelli's books make me feel uncomfortable, simply because they're hard to pigeonhole (pardon the pun! ) . But this sense of discomfort has kept me thinking about "Wringer" for a long time, so it must be a good thing!
It seems to me that both "Wringer" and "Maniac Magee" are hard to define using standard literary terms because they're unlike what we're used to seeing in contemporary American children's literature. In both books, I think Spinelli is playing around with Very Big Adult Ideas in modern society, while remaining true to a child's perspective. Instead of watering the ideas down and feeding them to children in bite-size morsels, he approaches them from the child's point of view, and we see the child trying to make sense of the adult?fined world. In this regard, I think the two books are most akin to "Alice in Wonderland."
There are also elements of classic heroic epics in both books, in the way that Spinelli develops character. I am reminded of something my Classical Greek Literature professor once said when we were discussing the character of Achilles: "He acts like a nine-year-old, doesn't he? But if the Greek heroes seem childish to us, it's only because children are heroic." I think Spinelli's characters would feel at home on the battlefields of Troy, at least the literary ones!
Spinelli's definitions of fantasy and reality seem to be rooted in the conventions of childhood, rather than screened through adult experience.
"Wringer" sounds almost like the kind of running narratives that play inside children's heads. Of course, the pigeon would show up outside our hero's bedroom window because that's what would happen in a child's dreamworld. Yet Spinelli hits his characters (and thus his child readers) with tough, real-world problems that they must work out using childlike logic and the only real power children have in our society -their imaginations.
Kathleen Horning (khorning at facstaff.iwsc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education University of Wisconsin-Madison
I very much liked all of the Newbery choices with the exception of Wringer (although I will confess that when I first realized I had been
"stuck" with reviewing a book written entirely in poetry I banged my head on the table before continuing and falling in love with it!). I did think Lily's Crossing's was somewhat spoiled by the absurdly happy ending, as we discussed before, but that it overall was a terrific depiction of time, place and character. Ella is a pure delight, and practically booktalks itself.
The main problem I have with Wringer is that it's set so solidly in a time and place, with elements that are wholly implausible. One reviewer whose opinion I highly respect felt that it was a fable, so the implausible elements should be appreciated as such. I just couldn't swallow it, which is funny because normally I like magical realism and she despises it. What do you think? Is it meant to be read as a fable?
--Susan Dove Lempke
(Booklist reviewer)
Received on Tue 10 Feb 1998 10:41:27 AM CST
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:41:27 -0600
Susan-- Thanks for your thought-provoking questions about "Wringer." I hope others will feel inspired to respond because I think it's a key question when we approach the novels of Jerry Spinelli. What kind of books is he writing? Where do they fit in? I confess that some of Spinelli's books make me feel uncomfortable, simply because they're hard to pigeonhole (pardon the pun! ) . But this sense of discomfort has kept me thinking about "Wringer" for a long time, so it must be a good thing!
It seems to me that both "Wringer" and "Maniac Magee" are hard to define using standard literary terms because they're unlike what we're used to seeing in contemporary American children's literature. In both books, I think Spinelli is playing around with Very Big Adult Ideas in modern society, while remaining true to a child's perspective. Instead of watering the ideas down and feeding them to children in bite-size morsels, he approaches them from the child's point of view, and we see the child trying to make sense of the adult?fined world. In this regard, I think the two books are most akin to "Alice in Wonderland."
There are also elements of classic heroic epics in both books, in the way that Spinelli develops character. I am reminded of something my Classical Greek Literature professor once said when we were discussing the character of Achilles: "He acts like a nine-year-old, doesn't he? But if the Greek heroes seem childish to us, it's only because children are heroic." I think Spinelli's characters would feel at home on the battlefields of Troy, at least the literary ones!
Spinelli's definitions of fantasy and reality seem to be rooted in the conventions of childhood, rather than screened through adult experience.
"Wringer" sounds almost like the kind of running narratives that play inside children's heads. Of course, the pigeon would show up outside our hero's bedroom window because that's what would happen in a child's dreamworld. Yet Spinelli hits his characters (and thus his child readers) with tough, real-world problems that they must work out using childlike logic and the only real power children have in our society -their imaginations.
Kathleen Horning (khorning at facstaff.iwsc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education University of Wisconsin-Madison
I very much liked all of the Newbery choices with the exception of Wringer (although I will confess that when I first realized I had been
"stuck" with reviewing a book written entirely in poetry I banged my head on the table before continuing and falling in love with it!). I did think Lily's Crossing's was somewhat spoiled by the absurdly happy ending, as we discussed before, but that it overall was a terrific depiction of time, place and character. Ella is a pure delight, and practically booktalks itself.
The main problem I have with Wringer is that it's set so solidly in a time and place, with elements that are wholly implausible. One reviewer whose opinion I highly respect felt that it was a fable, so the implausible elements should be appreciated as such. I just couldn't swallow it, which is funny because normally I like magical realism and she despises it. What do you think? Is it meant to be read as a fable?
--Susan Dove Lempke
(Booklist reviewer)
Received on Tue 10 Feb 1998 10:41:27 AM CST
