An Inclusive Reality: My Most Excellent Year

My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger is a refreshing read, a feel good story narrated in an engaging manner, guaranteed to elicit some laughs. Told through a series of journal entries, e-mails, and letters, the novel follows the lives of three high school students: the avid and obsessive Red Sox fan T.C., his "brother" Augie who has a flare for live theatre, and new student and daughter of the Mexican ambassador Alejandra. Each member of this eclectic trio relates the events of his/her freshman year as they deal with first loves, following dreams, and expanding the notion of family.

This novel is truly a breath of fresh air after reading so many novels dealing with the dark side of humanity and the screwed up lives of teens. The novel presents an alternate picture of high school reality, one in which students basically get along and teens have good relationships with their parents. It also presents a picture of what an inclusive society might look like. The novel blurs boundaries. T.C. and Augie are recognized by all as brothers as the two merged their families. However, the two are not biologically brothers. T.C. is white and the son of Pop while Augie is Asian and the son of Mom and Dad. Yet, the two families are for all purposes one. They do holidays together and vacations, and each boy has a bed and wardrobe at each house. Later in the novel, T.C. befriends a 6-year-old deaf child who gradually melts into the family also. Furthermore, Augie is gay and no one cares. His father at one point states, "Has this generation finally made [the I'm gay conversation] superfluous?" In our society, not yet. But in My Most Excellent Year, Augie is gay without the stereotyping or the angst often caused by other people's negative reactions. Everyone already knew anyway and he is able to be himself. He can still excel at soccer, swimming, and lacross and run the school musical. He is not ostracized from the jock world simply because of his sexual preference.

Kluger presents a picture of what an inclusive reality that accepts people and that is not defined over and against the other but rather alongside the diversity could look like with out falling into mere idealism. The novel is not naive. It merely suggests that superficial differences that often create pain and difficulty for those who are often seen as outcasts or odd need not be an unchangeable reality. A little open-mindedness and willingness to accept people as they are, to revel in the diversity, has enormous consequences on inter-personal relationships and, hopefully, on society as a whole.

If you want of taste of Steve Kluger as an author, check out his website at http://www.stevekluger.com/index.html. It will give you a taste of what this book is like.

Running from the Law: We Were Here

We had a pretty heated discussion in class last week over the novel We Were Here by Matt de la Pena. The novel follows the story of sixteen-year-old Miguel after he gets sent to Juvi and then a group home for committing a crime. His counselor tells him to keep a journal, and so he does, even after he escapes the group home with fellow "delinquents" Mong and Rondell. The three begin a journey to Mexico with little money, only the clothes on their backs, and just the stars to sleep under. In the midst of adventures, Miguel begins to realize that fleeing from the past doesn't change it, doesn't erase it. Instead, he must figure out how to deal with it if he ever wants to really live.

The debate raging in class centered on the relatability of the novel. Can your average high school student relate to this novel about a half-Mexican, lower-class criminal who ends up in the system? It seems to be a very narrowing demographic, many people stated. Well, I am not Mexican, I am not male, I've never been to Juvi, and I've attended private schools my entire life and I had no difficulty relating to this novel. Granted, most of the time, my perspective in the story was not from Miguel's position so much as from his counselor. Not because I am a counselor but because the counselor was outside of the story. He never experienced Miguel's situation and yet he empathizes with him and desires only to help. However, because I had access to Miguel's journal, I had insight into his life that the counselor never had. I could understand Miguel more deeply. There were also times when I understood Miguel perfectly. There's a famous author named Salman Rushdie and after he wrote his novel Midnight's Children he said people came up to him on the streets of India and told him, "I could have written that." This, he said, is the greatest compliment because it shows you've touched on something real. There were parts of this novel I could have written, even if I could never have told the story. It is not my story, but Matt de la Pena touches on something real, a reality that may not be entirely my own but reality nevertheless.

One of the most poignant and striking aspects of this novel is that it critiques, or at least raises important questions about, the justice system in the U.S. It is no secret that our justice system is flawed and that minorities take the hit. In fact, while African Americans account for only 12% of the population, they account for a staggering 44% of all prisoners. A ridiculous 1 in 9 black men is in prison. (If you don't believe me, here's a link to the human rights watch http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/ or the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html) Clearly the Justice system has a problem. Minorities are prosecuted and sent to prison at a much higher rate than the white population. In We Were Here, at Miguel's group home there are three African Americans, two Mexican Americans, one Asian American, and one lone European American. Why, one is forced to ask, are the number so skewed? Miguel is just your average teenager, how does he wind up in Juvi? The theme of race runs through the entire book, exposing both the subtle and explicit racism of our culture and the destructive consequences it has on our youth, ourselves, and our society. And it does so from an under-represented but much needed voice.

This is a great read. It is engaging, fast, and sucks you in, leaving you wondering just what Miguel has done and if you're going to see him differently when you find out. It also allows an insight into a perspective that is often neglected, the "juvenile delinquent." It's definitely worth the time.

Embracing the Reality of Fantasy

I recently read what is now one of my favorite books of the semester, Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Katsa lives with her uncle Randa, the king of Middluns, one of the seven kingdoms governed by seven capricious and often warring kings. Randa usually remains neutral because he has a very dangerous tool which inspires fear in his own people as well as neighboring nations, a tool that can cause instant death and cannot be stopped. The tool is Katsa. Katsa is graced. Her one blue eye and one green eye reveal to the world that she has a special talent. Some gracelings excel in cooking or mindreading but Katsa's grace is different. Her grace is killing, as she discovers as a child when she accidentally kills a man. Her uncle exploits her grace, and rumors of her deeds, done at her uncle's bidding, assure that most people fear and avoid her. However, Katsa begins to realize that she can use her powers for her own motives, and that perhaps she need not be the king's dog. And so, Katsa creates the Council, a gathering of people who devote themselves to rescuing people from the destructive whims of the kings. When Katsa rescues the kidnapped grandfather of the prince of Lienid her life begins to change. She meets the prince himself, Po ,who's grace for fighting gives her the first competition she's known. The two quickly become friends as they work to uncover who's behind the kidnapping and why. But soon it becomes obvious that things are far worse than imagined and that even Katsa, the most powerful, may not be able to protect herself from the one behind it all.

I love fantasy. Love it and I am not ashamed to admit it. A lot of people hate the genre, take for example my roommate Micha who has been sitting next to me for the last five minutes bashing magic and dragons as she waits for Gossip Girl to come on. She claims that fantasy is not real, as if reality consists solely of what we experience ourselves. I happen to disagree. Fantasy is not about the unreal or the nonrelevant. It touches to the depths of human life and experience just as realism does, only in a way that stretches our imaginations. In a way, it requires no more imagination than reading any other novel requires. All novels require the reader to put him- or herself in the place of individuals from different cultures, different time periods, and different social/economic worlds. Fantasy does the same thing. Fantasy offers us different worlds from our own but the problems and struggles of the characters are similar. Katsa's world is one with many different cultures, each with its own customs and each ruled by a leaders who are often quarrelling. Katsa herself must deal with being different, and being ostracized for something that she never asked for and cannot change. More importantly, she must learn what power is and to whom it belongs. At the beginning of the novel, Katsa is controlled by her uncle, being sent to commit heinous deeds that she does not want to do. He owns her by bending her will to his. Gradually, she realizes that she cannot be owned by anyone but herself. It is an awakening of sorts, a realization as she begins to question just who she is and what her grace actually does. She finds her own power within, her ability to exercise it independently of another, and even in the face of betrayal can control her grace and make her own decisions. Her own grace is first feared but then embraced as she realizes that that which haunts her is the very thing that will lead her to finding herself, finding others, and ultimately living the life she desires, not one dictated to her. None of these themes are "fantasy," they are all reflected in real life, they are a fundamental part of human experience. By putting them in fantasy, however, our minds are opened beyond our own narrow assumptions and preconceptions of the real as we realize that reality has a flexible quality. It is far bigger than we ever imagined. Reality is not merely my world at SLU, its the collective experiences of the world, often revealed in literature, in all its multifaceted cultures and beliefs. So sometimes the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred, if you can just get over the apparent differences that people seem to focus so singlemindedly on and embrace the similarity.

Graceling is not the complex fantasy world of Lord of the Rings. Its actually quite normal except for graces and the fact that its set in a different world, an almost medieval world. So don't let the fact that it's fantasy turn you off immediately because its really an easy transition. And there is a companion book, not a sequel but set in the same world, Fire that I haven't read but intend to.

Here's her blog, if you are interested. http://kristincashore.blogspot.com/