Review of Claudine in School, by Colette

I read Claudine in School, written at the turn of the century, as another period piece for the (probably dead now) Diplomacy game. (My tenth-rate Colette micro-pastiche can be found here.) I'd like to tell you a better story of how it fit into the spirit of the times, but I'm unfortunately history-impaired. I can say that it's a breath of fresh and libidinous air compared to all those turgid and repressed Victorian novels that it followed. It's not just that the times moved on, Colette is also irrepressibly French, and unlike the Russians publishing about this time, I'd never be tempted to mistake her writing for anything American, not from 1900. Popular from the start, the French came to regard the Claudine novels as national treasures.

The most obvious thing to mention about Claudine in School is that it's sensual. I don't mean to tell you that it's some kind of depraved sinful boudoir romp, quite the opposite. We meet Claudine the truant, coming in scratched and refreshed from the woods, revivified from a natural existence. She doesn't spend the first five paragraphs observing the forest, but living it, immersing herself in the scents and the textures and tastes of leaves and moss, scarfed berries, birdsong. Her time in the school, which is (of course) most of the novel, is much the same. At one point, the girls bring a snowball into the class, and take turns joyously chomping on it. Everywhere there is a loving taste of something, a feel, a scent, or a sound. Claudine's attracted to the petty dramas circling the classroom, and even though they range from the trivial to the criminal, she revels in them without shame. She loves exerting herself on the playground, and manipulating the romantic attention of her peers and superiors (male and female). Claudine languors through her classes, gifted at writing and extemporization, succeeds effortlessly, and sticks around for the amusement. She's liberated, she disrespects the system, she thinks, and it's nearly impossible for the reader not to be fascinated by her too.

Claudine's sensuality is pre-sexual, but only just barely. If this story were told from another point of view, the young girl would be a temptress, a seductress, and totally corrupt. Indeed, people fall into ruin all around her. (I could imagine Dickens telling this story actually--he'd have a field day with the lecherous administrator Dutrerte, and, if they weren't women, with the uncomfortable triangle of the teacher, assistant, and gifted student. He'd play up the dirty foibles of the power figures with many thousands more words. The kid's innocence would perhaps be less true.) Claudine is certainly indiscriminate in her attractions, and it would be incorrect to call her nice. She's got a protege that she treats abominably, teasing her with alternate rejection and affection.

I try to imagine what separates Claudine in School from the innumerable examples of scandalous teen crap that's published in modern America (you know, other than the quality of the writing), and I think the Victorians have left there mark in too many places even today, and the Sweet Valley High (or whatever) version of this would usually offer a Lesson, and some sense of consequences, awareness, and growth. You could describe Claudine as benevolently amoral, and she succeeds at life (at school anyway) being what she is, without having to be taught the fact. It's an innocence that's shown in every chapter, every sentence of the book.

Like the other books in this pairing (Chekhov and Bacon), Claudine moves about with little in the way of plot. The stagings are a series of evocative vignettes, with a notable absence of character growth or philosophical asides. Claudine gets through a year of school, her affections come and go, and power and romance shifts above and around her. She takes her exam with little tolerance or attention for the formality of it, and looks forward to the next phase of her life. The conflicts don't involve her own self much, but provide instead a vehicle for her light, mocking opinion, and enjoynment of the human experience. It's infectious.

Review of Sandbag Shuffle by Kevin Marc Fournier

If I were picking a book to review for Mr. Fournier (who can be found here), it would surely be some garishly-bound long-forgotten penny dreadful that I scrounged from some used book purgatory. I'd find merits to enjoy, and I'd bear the faults with the loving bemusement I'd normally reserve for an eccentric uncle. That's what I would do, but Kevin had to go and write a novel of his own. The bastard.

Sandbag Shuffle is deep and thoughtful examination of health care of two neighboring countries. The voyage of Andrew and Owen from the Dickensian horrors of an orphanage on the south side of the US/Canada border into the civilized northern landscapes, whose progressive institutions give handicapped Owen the real mobility and the figurative inner strength he needs to save Winnipeg from the Red River flood of 1997. It's a deep, brilliant metaphor for...

Ah, I can't do that. The absence of that sort of highblown pretense is exactly what makes this book a keeper. I remember the young adult books of my day, of the S. E. Hinton or M. E. Kerr vintage (initials-only must have been the key to authenticity in those days), that tried to get it real by introducing some heavy urban grit and some over-the-top drama that'd take a young person to forgive for its ham-handedness. Even though Owen and Andrew are escapees from a group home, even though one of them is legless and both are quite capable of being devilish little pricks, Fournier avoids all of that high drama, and the two boys would no doubt flip a heartfelt finger at your sympathy, or take advantage of it. The characters don't suffer deep lessons, they don't hit bottom (although they skim it awhile), they don't find true love or any of that. Instead, we follow them around as they bicker and scheme and survive. This is the same guy that recommended Chekhov (below) and Colette (to come), and I can see some of that in there. It's not a voyage of self-discovery, but a presentation of characters that are fully realized from the start. Plotwise, you can say a bunch of stuff happens, but the point isn't unfolding a masterpiece of structure, it's taking a good ride with a couple of likable people.

The two of them are a lot like the boys I knew growing up: little ur-bastards, the good-parts combination of those little shits who were great friends (to the small degree you could break into the circle) and horrible influences. Owen and Andrew have no respect for authority, nor for charity, but they have each other, and if they're not trained for society, they're teeming with streetwise instincts and a feral charm that--and this is important--comes across in the writing. Their faults of knowledge are profound, and when they bicker over them, Fournier elevates it to comic art. He's got a good trick with breaking the fourth wall too, adressing the reader at times ("now you and I know..."), and shifting to the present where-are-they-now tense when it fits to do so.

Young Adult, I've been told, is hard to do well, and I imagine that it's got to be hard to avoid the condescension. I can offer my own opinion on that, but the ultimate of arbiter of something like this, of course, is my daughter, who I read it to. Must have been a trip for her. She got a whole lot of embarrassed cursing when I couldn't think of an on-the-fly edit (PG-13 gets you exactly one "fuck" and unlimited shits and damns so long as they stay appropriate). It's the sort of thing I'd have rather left for her own discovery because, hey, if there's a lesson here, it's how to be a good person while still giving authority the (dis)respect it deserves, and, like, I'm the alleged authority here. A recommended read, if you don't mind subjecting Junior to that level of suversion.