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From: Marc Aronson <75664.3110>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 17:48:05 -0400
Here's one interesting comment on Whirligig that may explain some differences in reactions to it: A couple of very good readers who are also knowledgable about YA books recently told me that they see it as a guy book. That is, it is a book in which redemption comes from a character's solitary actions: his growing mastery of the world and understanding of himself. It does not come through another person, a relationship, or any form of love. To me that passage from alienation to community was very believable, plausible, familiar, thus very human. But if one tends to experience growth through relationships, it may seem forced, implausible, thus unhuman.
Now assigning gender to these two modes may be false and simplistic. But I do think some of us tend to grow more through internal processes centered within our own selves, and some through interpersonal contacts. And what we see as "realistic" in fiction may have a lot to do with the degree to which a book mirrors our own experience -- which gets back to the issue about realism and nontraditional narrative I raised about a week ago.
Marc Aronson
Received on Tue 13 Oct 1998 04:48:05 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 17:48:05 -0400
Here's one interesting comment on Whirligig that may explain some differences in reactions to it: A couple of very good readers who are also knowledgable about YA books recently told me that they see it as a guy book. That is, it is a book in which redemption comes from a character's solitary actions: his growing mastery of the world and understanding of himself. It does not come through another person, a relationship, or any form of love. To me that passage from alienation to community was very believable, plausible, familiar, thus very human. But if one tends to experience growth through relationships, it may seem forced, implausible, thus unhuman.
Now assigning gender to these two modes may be false and simplistic. But I do think some of us tend to grow more through internal processes centered within our own selves, and some through interpersonal contacts. And what we see as "realistic" in fiction may have a lot to do with the degree to which a book mirrors our own experience -- which gets back to the issue about realism and nontraditional narrative I raised about a week ago.
Marc Aronson
Received on Tue 13 Oct 1998 04:48:05 PM CDT
