Underlying Understanding
There's one thing that has been grabbing at my attention since the beginning of Sag Harbor, and I think I should write about it here. It has to do with an aspect of Benji's personality/writing style that kind of shows who he is as a person and his opinions about life.
I'm talking about his extremely complex understanding of society and societal problems. Throughout the book, he makes constant references to small behaviors in people/differences between his culture and others that show this really big analysis that is going on in his head. When he talks about race, for example, he seems like an expert, and can see between the lines when certain things happen. I think it's important to contrast this with Jason Taylor, since they're both pretty close in age but also completely different. Jason doesn't really understand what's going on in life. It takes a big event to teach him about the gravity of the Falkland wars, and he doesn't really know about racism until he talks to the gypsies. However, Benji almost seems like an expert. He picks up on all these small, almost unnoticeable things that show more about who the person is, etc.
Benji also uses this analytical nature in his writing style. There are all these culture components that he experiences when he goes to Sag Harbor (handshakes, insults, etc.), and he analyzes these in detail and explains them to us. Sometimes he even includes a graphic to help us understand (like in the case of the insults). He just loves looking behind the curtain and seeing how everything functions. Instead of just going with the flow, he looks at the flow.
I think this is an awesome part of his personality, and makes for a very interesting and unique experience as a reader. I don't think I've ever read a book with this much precise, almost scientific analysis.
I think this is really interesting but also important to note that Jason was writing his story as a child while Benji is reflecting upon his childhood and writing as an adult. Jason has not had the time to develop and learn from these events while Benji has. Both their narration styles I found very interesting but for different reasons. All of Jason's story is being told through the eyes of a child. We are much more immersed in his story and his emotions as they are happening. Benji is reflecting on his past and therefore has much more insight and a different perspective on the events. Because of that, he's able to make connections and describe events with different detail, giving us a different view than if Benji were telling us events as they happen. Both narration styles make for extremely interesting reads.
ReplyDeleteI think your observations are really interesting. I agree with Ella that Benji is looking back with more maturity and understanding of the world. He's had a lot of time to look back and figure out what was going on. Jason's narration is so in the moment and he doesn't really have the tools to understand the undertones of the situations he's in yet. I think it would be really interesting to read the book from Benji's perspective as a kid because I think it would be quite a different book.
ReplyDeleteGreat points. I think a lot of his analytical nature has to do with the fact that he's an adult looking back on his experiences as a child/teenager, though I do agree that Benji in the moment is very observant and has mature opinions and thoughts on complex issues. It struck me also that he seems to see and think thoughts of a different nature than his friends or even his brother, for example, his whole approach to the BB gun situation. It makes you wonder how different his thoughts in the moment were from the memories his adult self is recanting. Nice analysis!
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point. Benji and Jason certainly have very different writing styles, but I think it's important to note what Ella said about them writing their respective stories at different stages of their lives. On the other hand, I'm quite sure that Benji would have been able to pick up on these small cues even when he was 15 because I don't think he could have remembered every small incident years later if he hadn't pick up on them originally. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI've remarked a few times in class that this novel doesn't give us a lot of information about "Ben" the adult narrator, apart from a few passing references to some bad stuff that happened to some of his friends from Sag over the years (never specified, never named) and the fact that he can't eat dessert without getting nauseous and he has a BB in his eye. But it is implied that Benji becomes a writer of some kind--he's writing this book, for example, and he refers to "research" he's done, returning to Sag and retracing his steps, pointing out where new developments have been built where he used to find short-cuts, etc. You make a good point about the analytical aspect of Ben's narration--it's not clear most of the time that *Benji* is having these profound insights into the social and racial dynamics that these boys "talking shit" reflects--the way that Jason Taylor is remarkably good at perceiving such dynamics in his school. But it's implied that Benji grows up and goes to college (where among other things he reads Du Bois's work on "double consciousness") and that he NOW has a deep analysis of everything he'd experienced as the "idiot" kid he describes himself as once having been. In other words, Ben's coming-of-age development is rarely specified in the novel, but we can see how Benji grew into analytical/reflective Ben, who also has more of a sense of humor about his younger self than Benji had at the time.
ReplyDeleteI never realized that Benji really analyzes his surroundings. I think it also has to do with the fact that the things he is really interested about surround him all the time. For example, the acknowledgment of racism is a big part of his neighborhood and community, especially his father. In fact, Sag Harbor is split from the white and black neighborhood. It makes sense that Benji is so informed about racism. Meanwhile, Jason lives in a rich white community, not often surrounded by poorer and disadvantaged communities so he is never really exposed to what actually happens in the world.
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