Book Notes: The People of Sparks

A week or so ago I finished reading The People of Sparks, which is the Second Book of Ember, a series that began with The City of Ember, which I mention here, here, and here. Obviously, the first book was interesting enough to merit reading the second, and once again, I was fairly pleasantly surprised. It was not as good as the first, but avoided the didacticism I feared in a book about rebuilding civilization after an apocalypse, particularly one written post-9/11. However, a couple of features of the book merit a brief mention.

Towards the end of The People of Sparks, I had a revelation, as I did at the end of The City of Ember. However, while The City of Ember evoked Plato, The People of Sparks evoked no less illustrious an author than Dr. Seuss. Now, I love Dr. Seuss, but was surprised when, likely by no conscious design of the author, I considered the moment when the people from two competing cities were, to their own eyes and to each other, indistinguishable, and thought, "The Star-Bellied Sneetches"! This moment in the book, the moment of resolution, was rather simplistic. We are building to a crisis that could result in war. One or two individuals are trying to provoke the war (or at least failing to see a solution other than violence) while one or two are trying to prevent the war. In the tense moment before the violence--or perhaps in the tense moment after the onset of violence--a disaster occurs that threatens to destroy the livelihood of one group. This presents the perfect opportunity for a "joining together," spurred by the bravery of one individual.

Now, the actions involved were noble, but it does beg the question, which, ideally, should be considered by the reader--what would have happened had the disaster not occurred? Likely violence. So does this mean that it requires a disaster for the proactive individual to take the step--doing good instead of evil, or at least avoiding doing evil--that is necessary for the prevention of violence? This strikes me as a bit of the Deus Ex Machina. I would have liked to see the people work things out without near-divine intervention (or pure chance, which frequently substitutes for the divine).

Another rather surprising element of the book, in retrospect, is the almost complete lack of heterosexual pairings--there are no traditional families! Well, O.K., there's one. But we do not feel this to be the norm. Admittedly, there are displaced persons (better not to call them refugees) who have to create alternate living arrangements for the sake of space, but among these, there are many young people who are mentioned independent of any parental figures (not wholly unknown in children's fiction). The "families" are generally single-parent. The main characters have a father on the one hand (an entirely male family of two), and a foster-mother and a sister on the other hand (an entirely female family of three). These alternative families existed in the first book, but events at the end of the second book throw them into sharp relief.

One alternative family arrangement consists of a single doctor and her neglected orphan nephew. Our heroine, her sister, and their guardian move in with the doctor and her nephew. There is another nephew, a "roamer," who is the apple of his little brother's eye. When he arrives with a female "partner" (in roaming), things begin to go awry. However, the "partner" considers him unfit for companionship, which, indeed, he is--but he didn't have to be. This was a creative choice on the part of the author. So this non-traditional female escaping from her home city, a failing city, joins forces with our own heroine, and befriends her. So far, so good. Eventually, this large, soft-spoken female joins with the other large, soft-spoken female--the former greenhouse keeper--to become her apprentice and learn about growing plants.

At nearly every turn, heterosexual unions--or close heterosexual friendships--are avoided. There is even a teeny-bopper who falls in love with the most charming male present, usually a sweet-talking con-man or rabble-rouser, who clearly signals the dangers of charismatic men and unchecked heterosexual attraction (not a bad message, and one that can also be found in Louisa May Alcott). The notable example is the hero and heroine, who remain (wonderfully, in my opinion) good friends with no hint of a pre-adolescent romance.

In contrast to the other books intended for this age range, which are largely over-sexual, this can be seen as a significant improvement. However, the lack of viable heterosexual couples remains troubling, particularly for a civilization that is trying to rebuild itself. In the declining City of Ember, where dysfunction would have been understandable, there is nevertheless more of a "feeling" of family unity. I suppose we are to surmise that the hope of the future rests with the pre-adolescent generation, which is fitting for a pre-adolescent book with post-adolescent appeal.

Better than Expected!

I finished The City of Ember a little while ago, and I was very pleased with the book as a whole. Even my disappointment with the cult of the "Believers" was redeemed. Though their actions suggested a certain flavor of Evangelical Christianity, their faith was misdirected. In quite a nice passage, a "something better" was suggested:

Doon watched until the moth disappeared. He knew he had seen something marvelous. What was the power that turned the worm into a moth? It was greater than any power the Builders had had, he was sure of that. The power that ran the city of Ember was feeble by comparison--and about to run out.

The wonderful surprise (that I hope will not be a spoiler), is that the book is heavily influenced by Plato. That it was a surprise is a testimony to the talent of the author. Now to find out if the sequel is as oddly engrossing and fascinating. Best read in a while!

What do we want from children's literature?

Recently, courtesy of my search for suitable and stimulating reading material for my son and a great blog/conversation on Little House on the Prairie by DarwinCatholic, I have been considering and reconsidering the topic of children's literature. I say "reconsidering" because children's lit has long been an interest of mine. It is the one and only subject on which I am published--well, that and ecocriticism, but it's the same article.

It is inevitable that children's literature should try to teach. After all, it is difficult to find work of literature in which the author (who after all, does not exist in poststructuralist literary criticism) does not seem to have something that she or he is communicating to the audience. Even if the work seems to be "just a story" (whatever that means), there is some "exigence" (rhetorical term I taught to my students this past week meaning some reason that the writer wrote that story and not something else).

Having said this, in spite of my lifelong love of the Chronicles of Narnia that began when I was 10 and culminated in my M.A. thesis (and the above-mentioned article), I, like Neil Gaiman, who expressed the sentiment at the Mythcon 35 conference, which I attended in 2004, felt utterly betrayed in high school when I realized the religious subtext. Yes, I am one of the three or so readers who did not catch on to this on the first, second, third or fourth read. I can't say when I caught on, but I think it was the fuzzy white lamb who turns to Aslan at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that did it for me. In my defense, I did not read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the most Christological) as often as the others because I found the story to be less interesting than many of the other books, and did not acquire a copy of The Magician's Nephew, with the Creation story, until after I had read the rest twice, as the (Baptist school!) library where I first encountered the Chronicles had lost their copy. When I did read MN, I was taken by the symmetry of the series--the discovery of who "the Professor" of LWW really was--rather than by the Creationism.

I lost interest in Harry Potter when it became clear that book 3 was, in the first three chapters, more concerned with establishing its anti-capital- and corporal-punishment slant (not to mention the house-elf slavery sub-plot) than its main storyline, at least initially.

Yet, I find myself concerned, while reading The City of Ember, that the author's only mention of religion is mockery--brief mockery, and mockery of a kind of extreme Evangelicalism, but mockery nonetheless. I find myself thinking that there is enough of this kind of mockery to be found in everyday life, and asking whether in need intrude upon the most compelling early adolescent book I have encountered in many a year.

I have not made it a habit of studying new releases in children's literature. I have been busy studying--or avoiding studying--early 20th century Brit Lit (the whole "life's work" thing). But since my son is going to a school with a library this year and a screwy reading program that awards "points" for reading, and since he is in the "tweens" as far as book-level and book-content, I have been paying more attention. I have no interest in the more or less "realistic" pre-teen fiction. I didn't even read it when my friends were busy with The Babysitter's Club series. Since HarryPottermania, the standard formula for children's fantasy goes something like this:

1. Young person has difficult family/school situation.
2. Young person discovers something extroardinary about him or herself, some extroardinary creature, or an otherworldly realm.
3. Young person is faced with a crisis that pertains directly to the ethereal plot device mentioned in #2.
4. Having discovered the fantasy element, young person puts it to good use, growing and learning about him- or herself in the process, resolving the issue satisfactorily, usually heroically.
5. Young person's life returns to normal, and s/he is able to resolve difficult real-life issues due to the intervention of the deus ex machina.

It's amazing how many variations there are on this now. The formula is effective, if done well (though Tolkien thought the fantasy lessened by the entering-the-secondary-world-through-our-world motif). But to do it well in the wake of the acknowledged masters is difficult. And I hate to say it, but dragons are getting old.

School stories are trite. Fantasies are becoming poorly- and overly done. I don't approve of books that preach, unless one knows what is being preached to one. And yet cheap jabs at religion are objectionable, too. The classics are a bit above his reading level, though Treasure Island is on the agenda. I will be working on getting him to read the Little House Books, because they have a rare quality about them--honesty. And perhaps that is what I am seeking, really. Even C. S. Lewis, I came to realize, is not quite genuine in his fiction. He comes close, but he doesn't quite believe in his characters or his world. He does have fun with it, though, and there's something to be said for that! If Little House on the Prairie is teaching anything, it is doing so because the ideas communicated were so well-ingrained in the author as to be second nature--they couldn't not be there. Religion is not self-conscious; it is not intrusive; it is just a way of life. And isn't that how it should be, really?

I haven't yet decided what makes The City of Ember so compelling, but it is. I'm not entirely sure what it's trying to communicate. There is self-reliance, with the realization that one does need help sometimes. The children are mature, but still act like children. The fantasy world is fantastic, but has an air of reality. Society is dark and has dystopic elements, but it is not a dystopia. It's even got that healthy fatalism that is so entirely missing from entertainment media these days. (The same healthy fatalism inherent in Return of the King or the poems of W. H. Auden, though non-Christian existentialist fatalism--a fatalism makes it unsuitable for my son, unfortunately.) It would be perfect (so far) if not for the "Believers."