SURPRISE ME! Thoughts on the Unexpected in Children's Literature
Poster Books for the Unexpected
When we read something that really surprises us, it can shake us out of the three-dimensional, "vegetable universe" (as Blake called it- see below) and transform us, sometimes profoundly. A brilliantly constructed plot-twist can lead to such transcendence. When I first read A WRINKLE IN TIME at about age 10 or 11, I was blown away, and walked around for days adjusting to my altered reality. Madeline L’Engle presented time, space and the Great Mysteries (those ladies were stars!) in a way that caused me to see the world differently. It is still a pivotal book in my bibliography.
Which is why I immediately bonded with Miranda in WHEN YOU REACH ME, by Rebecca Stead. She carries a battered copy of AWIT around everywhere, and even got a first edition copy for Christmas. I bonded with Miranda for other reasons, and when I finished the story, felt about the same way as I did when I finished AWIT, and I’m more jaded than when I was 11, so that’s saying something.
I was so glad no one had spoiled the ending for me. I had even gone to hear Rebecca Stead at Books, Inc. here in San Francisco, before I had a chance to read her book. She did NOT spoil her own story, by the way, but sometimes kids asked questions that revealed a lot. I was the lady pacing in the back quietly singing “la la la la la,” with my fingers in my ears, when they did. It was worth it. The author manages with one of the most unexpected and painstakingly crafted plot-twists to hurl the reader far behind the veil.
So even though I’m contrary about jumping on band wagons, I must in the case of WHEN YOU REACH ME. It is an extraordinary book and deserves all the attention and accolades it has received.
I am often at least a little disappointed when I read books that have been hyped and buzzed, since I approach them with high expectations. Another book I read that has been widely touted and prized is GOING BOVINE. I was so not disappointed. It’s a large (metaphysically) and ambitious book that delighted me. OK, I would have trimmed a little, but the way Libba Bray creates her protagonist’s spot-on, sixteen year-old male reality and then expands and contracts it as she leads the reader deep into the irreal and absurd is funny, poignant, mind-bending and a journey definitely worth taking. The unexpected is working on all levels in Bray's book: language, character(s), humor--did I mention the absurd?--premise, and plot. Brava!
Ann Jacobus
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Behind the Veil
Good writers use the unexpected whether they realize it or not, on a micro-level in language, on a broader level in character, humor and irrealism (absurdity, magical realism) and on a macro level in plot. Readers love to be surprised on all these levels.
There have been a couple of kid lit books lately that use both the unexpected and especially the irreal in important and very successful ways.
Irrealism is the term John Gardner uses in THE ART OF FICTION: NOTES ON CRAFT FOR YOUNG WRITERS (p. 136) to describe work by such writers as Kafka, and Borges, where they imitate a reality like that “of our dreams” – or where a character’s external reality in some ways mirrors his “inner landscape” so that it is difficult to tell the two apart.
The irreal, when it works, pulls us “behind the veil.” A well crafted plot twist can do the same thing, only more profoundly-- shake loose our assumptions and open up the world in an almost mystical way to deeper meaning.
One of the many reasons I liked WHEN YOU REACH ME, by Rebecca Stead is because Miranda explains her mom’s definition of the “veil.”
“Mom says each of us have a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world… when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds… all the beauty and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to.” (p.71)
Writers and artists of all kinds may be more willing than most, pulled even, to take brief glimpses beyond the veil. After all, the answers to the Great Mysteries must be there. Very sensitive and psychic people can’t help seeing behind it. But it’s there for a reason. Beyond the veil, I think the human mind can easily blow a circuit. Sidling up next to it, dancing around it, taking brief glimpses, pondering it from the other side, this is the artist’s job.
Tomorrow, I’ll discuss two already-well-discussed books that surprise us in original and well-crafted ways.
Learning to write from fruit
I’ve tried to write picture books. Novels are easier.
Even if I can’t write them, I have learned a lot about structure and plot from good picture books. BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL, one of my all time favorites, is an excellent case in point.
We all know plot is what happens in a story.
The overused but effective example is:
The Queen died, then the King died, are two events.
The Queen died, then the King died of a broken heart, is a plot.
The reason BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL by the wonderful Robert McCloskey is worth a close look is that he braids two simple plots together, and the symmetry and synergy of the two story lines results in a much stronger, more emotionally satisfying story. A classic, in fact.
Strand one: We’ve got Sal and her mother, kind of a character unit. They want blueberries. On a deeper level, naturally they want safety and freedom from being eaten by bears. They also want to stay together as a unit.
So Mother and Sal are happily picking blueberries to can for the winter. There is humor as Sal eats all she picks.
Strand two is introduced: We’ve got Little Bear and his mother. They also want blueberries. They also hope to avoid conflict with humans, and stick together. Tension is raised slightly by the mere introduction of the bears, even though they seem perfectly nice and anthropomorphic, and are happily stuffing themselves with blueberries to get fat for the winter. They are bears, after all, and will eat ANYTHING. Check out Margo Lanagan’s TENDER MORSELS if you like bear stories. It’s the YA version of the Grimm Brothers' Fairy tale, Snow White and Rose Red.
Back to blueberries.
Tension is raised, again when we switch back to Strand one--
Little Sal can’t find Mom! She sets off to look for her and finds some crows. Finally she finds…Little Bear’s mom. Ack!
Leaving Strand one at a cliffhanging spot, we switch to Strand two of the BFS plot braid:
Little Bear also realizes he can’t find Mom. He sets off to find her, sees some partridges, and then finds… Little Sal’s mom!
This is the climax!
This point of highest tension is wonderfully illustrated by McCloskey with a bird’s eye shot of Blueberry Hill, and Little Sal and Little Bear on either side of the hill, trailing along behind the WRONG MOM.
Everyone’s world is out of balance. The plot strands have crossed—and tangled.
Back to Strand One: Little Bear’s mother realizes Little Sal is not her child (sic), and “walked off very fast to hunt for Little Bear.”
Strand Two: It takes Little Sal’s mother a couple of pages, and having some of the berries stolen out of the pail in her hand by Little Bear, before she realizes Little Bear is not her child. She also walks away quickly to look for Little Sal.
This IS a picture book so there’s no harm done. Their worlds collide in a gentle, humorous, and only slightly scary way (ah, but I can't shake the thought of Margo Lanagan getting a hold of this plot…). It’s worth noting that it’s the parents who are alarmed. Both Little Sal and Little Bear seem pretty nonplussed with the switch.
For the resolution, each parent finds their proper offspring. Then in another bird’s eye view of Blueberry Hill, everyone goes home with their own family, and all the blueberries they’ve obtained, happy, and perhaps a little wiser about not wandering off from each other.
Simple, right? Fine, you try it and see how simple it is. Lovable characters in balanced, twin plots intertwined to produce, humor, tension, climax and satisfying resolution.
BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL is simple, like DNA is simple. It’s an elegant double helix of story, brilliant and classic, that has much to teach any story creator.
William Blake: "Art is the tree of life"
Engravings and watercolors by William Blake (1757 – 1827) were on exhibit at the Petit Palais in Paris this past spring through June. I think it’s back in the UK now, and perhaps headed elsewhere. Catch it if you can. As a chance to get to know better this extraordinary, visionary poet, it was a treat.
The following was printed in English on one of the walls of the exhibit when I walked in:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand
And Eternity in an Hour.
From Auguries of Innocence (Songs of Innocence)
This is what they mean by “visionary” -- to see a world in a grain of sand. He renders into simple, beautiful imagery the otherwise inexpressible, mystical, we-are-all-one, everything-is-connected, time-is-illusory, universe of the mystic.
Blake concerned himself with BIG questions: Eternity, God, the Word of God, Creation, Heaven, Hell and Morality (although he apparently had some unconventional, free-love ideas about what was moral and what wasn’t). He was a Philosopher, but an Artist first. Blake was intuitive—I daresay, right-brained, seeing everything in abstract, interconnected ways. He took on Newton and the scientists of the age, those linear-thinking, left-brained folks obsessed with reason at the expense of all else, proclaiming, “Art is the tree of life, science is the tree of death.” Goodness.
[From that same poem comes the sensible observation:
“A truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent.”]
Most of us know, “Tyger, tyger, burning bright/in the forests of the night/what immortal hand or eye/could frame thy fearful symmetry.” [From Songs of Experience] I read it in 9th grade English. While there was something about it that made my pulse beat faster, I didn’t really get it.
I wasn't the only one. In late 18th-century/early 19th century England of his time, Blake was misunderstood at best, mostly considered mad as a hatter and ignored. I’m not sure we’ve caught up with his ideas even yet. Only a few recognized his poetry at the end of his life. As an engraver he enjoyed some admiration; it was said during his time that he “might do tolerably well if he were not mad.” The relationship between madness and genius is fascinating. Everyone thought he was bonkers. He was simply brilliant.
Another one of his most famous quotes: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
This is allegedly from whence Jim Morrison took the name of his band, The Doors. [By the way, "Light My Fire," is one of NPR's 100 greatest songs of the 20th century http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18955124 ] Jim cottoned to Blake’s line, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” As we all know, Morrison died in Paris of an overdose of excess.
One of the first engravings Blake did with his painstaking, carved copper, backward relief-etching is:
“All Religions Are One.”
This was also printed on one of the exhibit walls. Blake had issues with organized religion, although he was a deeply spiritual man. This was very radical thinking at the time. I suppose it is still.
Blake finally put on an exhibit of his art work above his brother’s hosiery shop, in the early 1820’s, accompanied by a 66-page catalogue that laid out his unconventional philosophy. Only six people showed up for the opening, including one critic whose review ridiculed Blake as “an unfortunate lunatic.” Tragically, he never tried to exhibit again and secluded himself, embittered.
As if that weren’t bad enough, he had visions throughout his life, some beautiful, many strange and terrible. He tried to reproduce a few of them, including the Ghost of a Flea, definitely something out of a bad dream. Another of these in the exhibit was the portrait of the man who gives him his poems in his dreams. Fortunately, he had a devoted wife Catherine (whom he taught to read and write) who believed in his genius and worked with him throughout his life. And a few benefactors along the way who kept him employed.
One last favorite quote from the long and (to me, otherwise) incomprehensible Jerusalem:
“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”
Fan of the Band From Glad
David Byrne played at the Olympia Theater in Paris March 25, 2009. It was the Everything That Happens Will Happen Today Tour.
Disclaimers: I’ve never reviewed any music. I’m not a frequent concertgoer, or even a connoisseur of Byrne, but I am a fan from way back.
I know Brian Eno mainly from his previous collaboration with Byrne some thirty years ago. That they’ve worked together again is excellent news. Byrne and his band performed several numbers from their new CD, same name as the tour, where Eno composed and Byrne lyricized. Overall, they reminded me of fresh, updated Talking Heads compositions with over and undertones of gospel, R&B, mystic pop, and even C&W. For the final encore, we were treated to the title song, Everything That Happens, (will happen today). It rocks. Other new works that I liked were: Wanted for Life – which sounded like Eno and Byrne detoured through Texas, One Fine Day, The River (see below), Life is Long, Home, and I Feel My Stuff.
David Byrne has always been surprising. I’m a fan of surprise. Not like a tax audit, or an unexpected pregnancy, but small, brain-zapping surprise, where we are shaken out of our normal thought patterns. I wrote a thesis on surprise as used in kids’ literature and spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out just what we go through when we read or see something that departs from our expectations. The taste for it is hard-wired into the frontal cortex of the human brain, in the nucleus accumbens, if you really want to know. As a writer, I try to remember to attempt to stimulate this area.
David is a master of the unexpected in his music, lyrics, performances and even his graphic design (he did go to RISD after all). He’s an inspiration to me as an artist for this and many other reasons. The first time, in college, that I paid attention to Byrne’s lyrics, I thought, “How surprising. Yes, he has nailed the feeling of alienation and disenfranchisement from society with random, disjointed references to a weapons’ cache, couple team work, visas, notebooks, and CBGB’s.” I was hooked.
He’s up to his old unpredictable tricks, and more. Even the staging of this tour: simple set and memorable light design behind the performers—back-up singers, dancers, band members, and David himself—dressed in all white. Ah, the Band from Glad, I thought, when they first came on. That’s good! If you grew up watching American TV ads in the early seventies, this will make sense. Plus their costumes all match David’s hair.
They played not only the old surprising Life During Wartime (a family favorite), much to my delight, but I Zimbra, Heaven, Take Me to the River, and Once in a Lifetime (which is one of my all time favorites and, I was happy to see, on the NPR list of 100 of the most influential American musical works of the twentieth century http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18955124
Last but not least, they finally performed Burning Down the House, in the next-to-last encore. When the opening electronic notes reverberated through the crowd, and the lights came back up, the performers were all in… white tutus.
What a surprise!
I’m a fan of tutus, too.
Byrne trips out on time, and water as a metaphor for emotion or the unconscious, like I would like to think I do. Consider almost any of his lyrics from and the name of this tour. Time: still waiting…same as it ever was…even Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. Then the whole water-flowing motif in the old Take Me to the River, new The River, and of course, Once in a Lifetime: let the water hold me down, indeed. Even Burning Down the House, is… all wet (hey you might need a raincoat).
Of course, everything that happens will happen today. I understand that in an ever-seeping way in middle-age, the way time gets dammed up or flows and ebbs and we end up in back waters or under the waves at the bottom of the ocean, or speeding down a raging river, and do wonder, how did I get here? Byrne seems to have had a handle on these metaphysical conundrums since he was a wee bairn.
I grinned through the whole concert. The crowd was mostly French; artsy, intellectual, largely over thirty. In some cases, way. All the men sitting near me had on Italian designer glasses and graying hair flowing from patches on their heads to below their collars. The woman next to me wore a silk scarf and comfy Arche shoes. This is my demographic, I guess. As far as I could tell, they all liked the tutus. By the time we got to Burning Down the House, everyone had flowed into the aisles and down to the front, clapping and dancing like les adolescents. Even though I checked for the nearest fire exits, all night, I, too, er, got down, to my old favorites, and tripped out on the way music, like smells, transport us through our old house and automobiles, up river, into the past. I took great pleasure in the funky and surprising choreography, the lush new music, the percussion, his excellent back-up talent and especially Byrne’s energy, eccentricity, genius I have to say, and ability to ever-surprise thirty years on.