The Graveyard Book

As I shared in class, I was somewhat frustrated with what this book did not do. Although I enjoyed it while I was reading it, I kept on waiting for questions to be answered and various characters and plot points to be more fully developed. Now this description makes me think of the television show Lost, which I love and which infamously refuses to answer questions, but Lost continues to develop even more fascinating characters and concepts, whereas by the end, I thought Graveyard fell rather flat. I am going to chronicle some of the things that are left unexplored in a hopes that together these questions may provide greater cohesiveness.

1. The Honor Guard: We know that the Honor Guard is made up of various creatures (or types of people, as Miss Lupescu has taught Bod) and that they pursue the Jacks of All Trades, but we know very little else. Were they created solely to pursue the Jacks? What else do they do? What are their ultimate ends versus those of the Jacks? All we know of the Jacks is that they wish to kill Bod before Bod can destroy them and that they get magic from death. Do they have any greater goals? World domination? Clearly we should root for Bod and the Honor Guard, but why? Shouldn't we need proof of goodness or evilness before we root for one group to kill the other?

2. Silas: So it seems that he must be a vampire, but why is that not ever more bluntly stated? What is the purpose of this secret? We meet a witch, ghouls, and a Hound of God, but for some reason Silas' supernatural nature remains unstated and somewhat mysterious. Is it his vampire-ness that necessitates secrecy? Or his role as a mentor?

3. Bod's future: Bod fits perfectly into the high fantasy hero role. His fate is predestined, he's orphaned, and he has an unusual training or schooling experience. All that is known of his fate, however, is that he will destroy the Jacks, and he has already done that before he is 15. What about the rest of his life? It seems that he is gifted, and not just because of his destiny with the Jacks. He also has lived among the dead and learned their ways. I think this sets him up to have a grand story, but Gaiman just sets him forth from the graveyard with an uncertain future. Is his adventure really over at 15? Or will it simply be a life of travel and experiences as he looks forward to at the end of the novel? I would expect that a supernatural past would lead to a supernatural future, but the ending leaves this ambiguous.

I am pretty sure I could go on from here (what happened in San Francisco?) but I think that these questions encompass many others one could ask. I am still unconvinced that this is a great piece of literature. I do not think that these ambiguities are a part of the craft or serve Gaiman's "point." At this point, I am more inclined to think that they are aesthetic problems. What do you think? Do these questions bother you? Are they perhaps just a part of the difficulty that we, as readers, need to grapple with?

Holes

This semester I have thought a lot about storytelling and the power of storytelling. Mostly I have been thinking about storytelling in relation to children's literature because the two are more intertwined than general fiction and storytelling are. Children's literature has partly evolved from folk tales, fables, and fairy tales which were originally told and kept orally rather than on paper. They were the stories that were passed from generation to generation. I have been thinking about how powerful stories must be if centuries of people have bothered to memorize them and pass them down. Also, the fact that we tell stories to children, and often explain things to children through stories, testifies to the importance of stories. We protect and shield children from so many things, but we drench them in fiction. I don't think we very often think about why we surround children with so much imaginative literature and media, but because we do we must believe that fiction is somehow nurturing and useful to the growth and enrichment of the child.

Holes is an extremely well-crafted story. Its very story-ness is one of the first things that strikes me as good and pleasing. Louis Sachar develops his characters and his plot carefully, even meticulously. He reveals to us the history of Green Lake and Kate throughout his account of Stanley and Zero in such a way that we feel the impact of the two stories more powerfully than if we just knew the older story of the lake as background knowledge. Instead, Kate's experience and the emotion we feel from hearing it is tied to the story of the camp. Sachar is also incorporating the stories of the Yelnats family. All of the connections between these stories has a revelatory impact, which I think then inspires us to seek more revelations and insights into these stories. When we are emotionally struck through powerful storytelling we are more encouraged to dig deeper into the text and the story to see what else is there that hasn't been as directly revealed. Sachar's storytelling reminded me of the book A Prayer for Owen Meany, which also tells several stories that seem unrelated but the ending powerfully ties them all together. I think Sachar also uses this interweaving technique to great effect.

We also see the power of stories in this novel because much of Stanley's beliefs about himself and his family is built upon the stories of his ancestors. He thinks he is unlucky because of a family story, and this belief discourages his confidence but also connects him to his family. Zero is reluctant to tell his story and his knowledge of his family is limited. His lack of story profoundly affects his life and how others view him.

Did you have an emotional response to Sachar's storytelling? Why are stories so powerful? Or perhaps you disagree, are stories powerful/important?

M.C. Higgins the Great

I must admit, I am having a hard time figuring out what to write about for this post. This book was much more dense than most of the other books we have read in this course, and it is a struggle to decide what to discuss. I was hoping to get some direction from some criticism, but the MLA bibliography is sadly lacking in Virginia Hamilton scholarship. That in itself is fairly interesting to me. We have been reading Newbery Medal winners lately, and we have briefly discussed the impact these awards can have (or I think we discussed this, maybe this is just a conversation I had with myself). Winning a Newbery award often promotes the books because it literally puts a nationally recognized stamp of approval on the book, and often these books are taught in schools more after they receive the award. From my searches in the MLA bibliography, however, it does not seem that this award necessarily promotes scholarship for these books in the academy. Children's literature is still a relatively new, and growing, area in the academy, and hopefully these books will eventually be getting the academic attention they deserve.

So, why does M.C. Higgins deserve such attention? Not that "adultness" necessarily makes something good, but I think it should be acknowledged that this is a fairly "adult" children's book. Not only is it fairly difficult, but it also deals with adult themes and issues. We have read other children's books that have "adult" themes, but still, this book struck me as particularly mature. I think this is partly because of the violent images that repeatedly come to M.C.'s mind. As he is hiking or stalking through the hills, the narrator reveals that he is often haunted with disturbing images related to his rugged mountain life. For example, on page 94, it is not enough for M.C. to tell Ben that he would prefer to skin the rabbit himself. Instead, he tells Ben that he likes to skin the rabbits and "He pictured the act of slitting the back fur; with both hands, tearing it down and pulling the skin over the hind legs." Skinning a rabbit is practical, and when hungry, necessary. M.C., however, also has images that are less natural or necessary. For years he has been terrified that the pile of waste that is slowly sliding down the mountain will topple down on his house and crush his entire family. Up until the very end of this novel, M.C. does not have a solution to this problem, so the image and the worry is constant. Possible death is literally hanging over his head for almost he whole book, which makes the overall tone dark and somewhat disturbing. I think Hamilton has done an excellent job of introducing a different kind of community and setting to her readers, and she also sustains complex and sophisticated themes through an effective use of images. This book creates several powerful images that deserve further exploration such as: M.C.'s pole, the journey through the tunnel, the misty ravine, the children playing on the mound, and the mountain itself.

What images especially struck you in this novel? Do you think they are insightful/important/profound? Does this novel warrant serious study and scholarship?