Friday, April 29, 2011
The soldier
I had such a bad feeling about F. Jasmine's "date" with the soldier. It was such a creepy build-up, but so well done. I thought it perfectly captured that divide between the child's world and the adult's world, where a naive, trusting, romantic kid has no idea of what dangers are lurking for her. Were you surprised that the encounter ended like it did?
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You're right, it was well done. I was afraid it would turn out differently, so the ending came as a relief.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I admired about Carson McCullers is her ability to get back into a child's viewpoint again. It reminded me of Harper Lee and "How to Kill a Mockingbird."
Yes, good point. It's definitely in the Southern Gothic tradition of "Mockingbird." And the tomboyish heroines have a lot in common — precocious, yet naive, kids whose questions/observations about the world unwittingly shed a lot of light on human experience.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if McCullers and Harper Lee were friends, but McCullers was friends with Truman Capote, who was a childhood friend of Lee's. I love their Southern artistic sensibilities and that deep goodness and romance they tap into in their characters.
I love a good tomboyish heroine!
ReplyDeleteI also had a bad feeling about that soldier, and I was glad something awful didn't happen to Frankie. Again, I can totally imagine this kind of thing happening to me at that age. So eager to be considered a grown-up, to do grown-up things, too naive to see the dangers.