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osprey_archerAt first Marietta [Martin’s sister], Martin, and Mr. Hastings pretended to be pleased. Their manners were pretty good and they were sorry for the old man. He had been married for forty-six years, which was a long time to be with somebody that now you were never going to see again. Without being asked, they counterfeited a welcome, behaved as if it was a real treat, having one more permanent person in a house with three bedrooms and a porch that would presently be made into a fourth.
It took them a couple of weeks to realize that they did like having him.
Mary Stolz is a master of evading expectations, not by throwing in big dramatic twists but simply by sidestepping the expectation that she’s set up. The paragraph above is a perfect example: it sounds like we’re about to get an account of what happens when the politeness drops and the claws come out, but instead Marietta and Martin realize that they enjoy having a calm, kindly adult around, so unlike their harried parents.
(I was also impressed by Stolz’s commitment to Martin’s unsatisfying relationship with his father. He’s so self-centered that he doesn’t even realize that Martin is upset when they visit Martin’s old dog only to discover the dog has forgotten Martin! The expected storyline here would be either “Martin’s dad wakes up and tries to do better” or perhaps some sort of dramatic break between them, but instead Martin realizes that he’ll have to look elsewhere for an emotionally responsive father figure… and still feels kind of bummed that his dad can’t be the dad Martin wants.)
The Explorer of Barkham Street abounds in these moments. Another occurs during a big snowstorm, when Martin, home from school, builds a snowman with Edward Frost, his nemesis from the previous books in the trilogy. “Ah,” I thought, “we’re going to cap off the bullying storyline with the two of them becoming friends.”
But they don’t. They’ve already achieved a peaceful coexistence when the snowman incident occurs, and afterward they go right back to peacefully coexisting. It’s the kind of one-off interaction that happens all the time in real life but rarely in books, where one incident generally points to further developments.
In any case, Martin’s focus is on befriending the boys his own age. His crowning achievement of the book is an offhand invitation to spend a weekend with the guys in the country. He’s still not at the center of the group, but he is a part of it.
If you’d been outside things just about all your life, did that mean you’d never really feel sure of your place inside?
It’s just very well-observed - a series of small moments, the undulations of life from firm resolution, to disappointment, back to hope and a new resolve.
It took them a couple of weeks to realize that they did like having him.
Mary Stolz is a master of evading expectations, not by throwing in big dramatic twists but simply by sidestepping the expectation that she’s set up. The paragraph above is a perfect example: it sounds like we’re about to get an account of what happens when the politeness drops and the claws come out, but instead Marietta and Martin realize that they enjoy having a calm, kindly adult around, so unlike their harried parents.
(I was also impressed by Stolz’s commitment to Martin’s unsatisfying relationship with his father. He’s so self-centered that he doesn’t even realize that Martin is upset when they visit Martin’s old dog only to discover the dog has forgotten Martin! The expected storyline here would be either “Martin’s dad wakes up and tries to do better” or perhaps some sort of dramatic break between them, but instead Martin realizes that he’ll have to look elsewhere for an emotionally responsive father figure… and still feels kind of bummed that his dad can’t be the dad Martin wants.)
The Explorer of Barkham Street abounds in these moments. Another occurs during a big snowstorm, when Martin, home from school, builds a snowman with Edward Frost, his nemesis from the previous books in the trilogy. “Ah,” I thought, “we’re going to cap off the bullying storyline with the two of them becoming friends.”
But they don’t. They’ve already achieved a peaceful coexistence when the snowman incident occurs, and afterward they go right back to peacefully coexisting. It’s the kind of one-off interaction that happens all the time in real life but rarely in books, where one incident generally points to further developments.
In any case, Martin’s focus is on befriending the boys his own age. His crowning achievement of the book is an offhand invitation to spend a weekend with the guys in the country. He’s still not at the center of the group, but he is a part of it.
If you’d been outside things just about all your life, did that mean you’d never really feel sure of your place inside?
It’s just very well-observed - a series of small moments, the undulations of life from firm resolution, to disappointment, back to hope and a new resolve.
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Date: 2023-02-24 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-24 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-24 03:52 pm (UTC).... I don't even mind stories that have agendas! (I mean, all stories are told for a reason, so in that sense all stories have an agenda, but I mean more overt ones, like "I will show how, over time, two people become friends.") But in life as we experience it, not everything is a teachable moment or a step along the path--sometimes it just *is*, that's all. And those moments are valuable just as they are, and it sounds like she was able to capture that.
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Date: 2023-02-24 04:00 pm (UTC)And I get why in fiction most things *are* a step along the path, you want to move the story forward - and actually it does move the story forward, here, it's just that the story is about Martin learning how to be a human being whom other people actually enjoy spending time with... But it's still not the way that most books choose to portray this sort of milestone moment.