Thursday, July 25, 2013

Ranting About Young Adult Lit and Allende's CITY OF THE BEASTS


This morning it's me, Katherine.

Before reading this, remember that I'm a girl who believes in heart and intuition and magic and soul and all those things.  I'm beginning to wonder, however, if all the wizards and vampires and zombies and beasts and the other-worlds inside books that sweep young adults off to these different worlds are a good idea.  I believe that heart and intuition and magic and soul bring light to reality.  I'm just not sure adolescent worlds that lose reality altogether are such a good idea when fantasy seems to be all that's offered.  Things just feel a tad out of balance.

I've been saving this rant up since I finished Isabel Allende's "young adult" novel while we were in the Tetons.  I bought CITY OF BEASTS because I wanted to compare what a published writer did with the genre next to the two books Jim has written.  I picked Allende because I love and respect her and because I wasn't going to deal with all the already existing noise that goes with Harry Potter or the vampire books.

I need to begin by saying my sense of adolescent novels is snobbish.  When I wanted to arm an adolescent to think and to read about the real world, I marched into class with CATCHER IN THE RYE.  When it was time to escape and play pretend, I taught the entire 1500 pages of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  Both had merits, but I'd bet a lot I helped more kids understand the real world through the eyes of Salinger than I did through the eyes of Tolkien.

That's my problem with Allende's CITY OF THE BEASTS and what I know of the Potter and Twilight series.  These stories don't move kids to maturity, but make them yearn for worlds that do not exist and will never exist.  These stories suggest that somehow we all have special abilities or powers and that there are magical worlds to go to.  Tolkien's world was allegorical and the unity of the Fellowship made sense in post World-War II zeitgeist.  I just don't see any allegorical similarity between the fantasies that kids (and romantic adults) are zipping through these days.  Neither the sentences (especially my brief dive into the Twilight stuff) or the stories seem like the kind of stuff I can appreciate.

Here are my problems with current adolescent lit and they match how I felt about the sex-is-the-only-goal movies I saw everywhere when Chris and Nate hit middle school (PORKY'S, RISKY BUSINESS, THE SURE THING, etc.).   The sex movies and the escape lit aimed at adolescents don't say what is true about living in the real world.  I think adolescents need that.  The whole movement that suggests kids should pick their own books gets woven into this as well.  I knew a lot of adolescents in my 33 years in a classroom and most of those kids were good kids, but I wouldn't put a one in charge of curriculum.

CITY OF THE BEASTS began to tick me off when I realized the uber-uniqueness of the two adolescent protagonists of the book.  The book follows a 15 year old boy whose artist Mom is dying of cancer and so his grandmother (a writer for a fictionalized version of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC who loves living in jungles and drinking vodka and coffee) takes him off into Amazonian jungles to try to prove the existence of a warm weather Yeti-style beast.  Fortunately, Jaguar is the boy's vision name and I can't remember his given name and it's not worth looking up and for what it's worth, whether you love or hate him, nobody forgets Holden Caulfield's given name.  Jaguar has been trained by his amazing doctor father to be an expert climber and Jaguar conquered El Capitan in Yosemite when he was 13 or so.  The doctor also shot up each of his pimples with cortisone so he never faced the anguish of acne (an acknowledgement of acne seemed kind of real).  Jaguar also plays the flute at a level that seems to stop and soothe boatloads or forests full of people.  He plays with his famous, flautist grandfather's instrument which he keeps hooked to his belt for emergency chaotic situations that need soothing flute music to resolve the tenseness in the air.  There's a point where there's only so much tenseness in the air anybody can take, you know.

Jaguar meets the ethnic and exotic 12 year old Nadia (I remember her name!!!) in the Amazon where her father guides a group of awful stereotypical folks through the jungles to find the Beast.  Nadia speaks the many languages of the native peoples and animals.  She negotiates for the group a they meet tribal folks along the way and she summons the witch doctor who guides she and Jaguar, eventually, to the Invisible Tribe (you just have to focus really hard to become invisible) and the City of the Beasts.  She loves animals and talks to them, especially her monkey and I need to add that lassie was nothing next to this monkey.  There are two other books and it's pretty clear that these two kids will age and grow into a more-than-friends relationship.  Isn't that how these adolescent books work?

The characters are just too unreal for me.  I've known gifted young climbers and linguists and musicians and all sorts of gifted teenagers.  I haven't known many who had enough hours in their lives to become such masters in the multiple ways Jaguar and Nadia.  Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)  says it takes about 10,000 hours to master anything--these kids are not wasting any time.

The whole world of the book is unreal.  Even by Amazonian standards.  The two kids find the real El Dorado and Jaguar finds the Fountain of Youth and brings home the healing water for his mother (we'll find out if it works in the next book perhaps) and brings home the three largest diamonds in the world which will be used to save the Invisible Tribe.  Beasts who live for centuries and talk very slowly do exist, but, of course, will be kept secret because they promise to stop killing people and they will stay hidden in their city.  The group of characters on the expedition come out of a Tarzan book.  The book takes place in 2001 and yet they snap photos and destroy film as though a digital world does not exist.  The leader wears a pith helmet and makes soldiers take photos of him with his boot planted on dead animals hunters killed.  There is also a kindly doctor and a greedy jerk wanting to kill native peoples to find the gems of El Dorado and there is the Tonto-ish guide and adult good guy who happens to be Nadia's father.

Kids seem just too smart to believe in this stuff.

The book has many messages.  I like the part that seems to say that practice pays off even though the book never discusses the practice.  All the climbing practice and the flute practice and the talking to animals and native peoples has paid off.  Without those skills, everybody is screwed.  This part isn't announced like some of the other messages.  Maybe that's why I like it better.  I still believe kids can read between the lines.

The other messages really don't apply.  One message is that we must always give before we take.  sounds good.  Sometimes you just have to give and give and give and nobody hears that you need help too--how many people can't hear Holden's hurt?  Give and take don't really balance out in life.  Ask anybody.

The book is all about shutting down your head and working from the heart alone.  Though I believe it is important to follow your heart and have done so as a wife and mother and teacher, I think this book offered magic and talismans and dreams rather than knowing that there is a reality that is often boring and repetitious.  The Myth of Sisyphus and his smiling reaction to punishment was my best advice to teens about this.  Kids needed to know that a lot of life wasn't peachy keen and a bummer to deal with and that you need to "keep passing the open windows" as John Irving would say (The Hotel New Hampshire).  I'm not sure such unreal worlds with unreal solutions help as much as watching Holden learn he has to go home and get some help.

That's it.  Jim wrote two books where the girl is a gifted musician.  We've known girls like her.  The guy likes to cook and has cool parents.  Also possible.  The parents (except for their much cooler jobs) are a lot like us and I think we're real.  Well, kind of.  I just feel angry that Allende's decidedly average book (I couldn't find a sentence to underline anywhere) is published and Jim's is not.  I know I'm prejudiced.  I love the guy.