Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (April 2017)
Several years ago, I started a tradition of reading this book every year on Marathon Monday (1). As it worked out this year, I happened to be on the last train out of New York. So, as the clock struck midnight, somewhere just past New Haven (typical Amtrak delay), I pulled the book out of my bag and started my annual read.
I know the opening chapter more or less by heart ('They say...'). Spinelli opens Maniac Magee through the framework of a legend told long after the title character passed through Two Mills, the fictional town where the novel takes place. But this year, the edition I checked out of the library contained a pleasant surprise- a foreword from Katherine Applegate, the author of my beloved Animorphs series. Apparently, she considers Jerry Spinelli's Newbury Award winner one of her favorite books as well.
The book ended with an additional bonus feature- a short interview with the author. In this section, Applegate played the role of interviewer and asked Spinelli some thoughtful questions about his book.
I hoped these new sections might illuminate my appreciation of the book. But it did not work out that way. Applegate said she liked the writing- in her foreword, she highlights specific lines of her favorite prose. Spinelli spoke to that point in the Q&A, adding that he usually read rough drafts aloud as part of his revision process. This way, he knew the words 'sounded' right. There was not much I could do with those comments, though- I always thought the writing was fine but it was never something I got excited about in the buildup to my annual read (2).
I noticed something new about Maniac this year that I am struggling to phrase. The broad idea is that he seems to prefer hurting others over letting them down. Or, it might be that in his desire to avoid letting others down, he inevitably hurts them. It's an evolution of last year's idea that he is 'running to stand still' but I think this angle hits a little closer to his motivations. Having been constantly let down by the approximations of home since the accident that killed his parents, it's possible Maniac has simply chosen not to inflict the pain of letdown on others.
One up: Maniac Magee encounters the great power of the narrative throughout and he deals with this in various ways. He harnesses the narrative power at times for benevolent purposes, like when he performs feats on-demand as a bribe to keep two little kids from running away from home. In order to build up these 'accomplishments', he relies on local legends- like that of Finsterwald, a mysterious tenant in a dark house whose steps no kid would ever dare sit on, lest those kids get sucked into the darkness within (or something like that). When Finsterwald's mysterious evil is sufficiently puffed up, Maniac knocks on the front door.
At other times, he is swept up helplessly in the wake of the larger stories that govern life in his segregated town. In Two Mills, race division is the only constant. Maniac wakes up one morning to see the home of his black foster family vandalized by a neighbor who objects to his sleeping in the 'wrong' neighborhood. Traumatized- and in another example of preferring to hurt rather than let down- Maniac soon leaves the house and resumes his homeless existence.
I realized I liked how Maniac handled the narrative power when he made- wrote- his Christmas gift for Grayson. The scene describing how the old man receives this gift, The Man Who Struck Out Willie Mays, is among the kindest I've ever read. This is a gift that goes beyond just a thoughtful book for the holidays- it validates another's existence by arranging the hurt, regret, and disappointment of a difficult lifetime into a story about that person's best times (3).
One down: Longtime readers of the blog will recall that in April 2016 I wrote a post about this book. I do not advise re-reading it but here is a link anyway if interested (4).
My thought last year was to write about why I liked this book so much. It made sense- given that I read it once per year, it seemed like the type of thing a blogger would try to explain. But I think I wrote about what I liked from it instead of why I liked it.
In hindsight, I realize that why I like something and what I like about it are very different. A year on and I'm no closer to an explanation. But this realization- the what or the why, if you will- has made my lack of understanding acceptable to me. When I'm ready to understand why I like it, I'm sure it will come to me.
Until then, expect a new post each year about some new 'what' I liked from this read (5).
Just saying: A short Q&A with Spinelli was included at the end of the book. He raised an interesting point: the stories people tell about their childhoods often resemble legends. From this one basic premise, he reconsidered much of his own experience to craft Maniac Magee- one part truth, two parts fiction, three parts snowball.
The idea brought to mind the many instances where my memory proved fallible in recalling singular events, faces, or conversations from my own history. It's hard to keep all the facts straight in the process of preserving a memory or recollection. A well-told story is helpful by providing a durable framework around which to fit the fleeting details.
I'm a little curious why Spinelli limited his response to childhood. I see no need to do so- people continue to tell plenty of stories deep into adulthood about their own legend.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Marathon Monday, A History
For
those outside the area, Marathon Monday is the unofficial moniker for
the day of the Boston Marathon. As far as I (and pretty much anyone
living in or around Boston) is concerned, that's the name of the holiday.
It falls on the third Monday of April.
The proper name
is Patriots' Day. It's a state holiday in Massachusetts but one of
those ones that does not lead to everything being closed. I used to work
in Woburn, an over-paved town about twenty minutes north, and I never had (or took)
the day off. Such holidays- where you are required to come in and work- seem absurd (because they are) but in 2013
it may have worked out to my benefit- the friend I would have most
likely hung out with to watch the marathon was at the site of the
bombing just ten minutes before the explosion. Who knows how my
presence could have altered our walking path?
Patriots' Day
is celebrated in Maine. This makes sense because Maine was a part of
Massachusetts before becoming its own state. However, in Maine the
spelling is Patriot's Day. Just one guy, huh? It's a sparsely populated
place. Or maybe the state will always insist on being different, as
perhaps the silent 'e' in 'Maine' suggests.
For
whatever reason, the holiday is also celebrated in Wisconsin (and
spelled 'correctly', assuming that the state is counting the number of
patriots). I like Wisconsin. The holiday is 'encouraged' in Florida, a
policy I chose not to investigate further.
In New
England, the third Monday in April was originally a holiday called 'Fast
Day'. A day of public fasting and prayer mostly observed in New
England, the importance of Fast Day faded slowly. Boston started its
observation of the day in the 17th century before becoming the first to
replace it with Patriots' Day. New Hampshire hung on the longest, last
celebrating it in 1991.
The fall of Fast Day implies
something about religion's diminishing role in the area, I'm sure. But I
suspect it says more about farming. The day traditionally marked the
start of the spring planting season but its relevance probably shrunk
over time as fewer and fewer people farmed for a living.
2. Prose and cons...
All
that said, I did notice in editing this post that I pay some attention
to how the words sound. This came with the challenge of writing about a
book whose title is the name of the protagonist. In writing, its easy to
work this out- italics means the book, no italics means the kid. Maniac
Magee starring Maniac Magee.
But I still occasionally
caught myself working out sentences that clarified the distinction when
spoken. Who knows? Time wasted, lesson learned. Maybe I am
subconsciously anticipating the day this goes up on Audible.
3. Maniac's bullshit detector...
Maniac dismisses
stories when it is appropriate to do so. He doesn't accept the story of
blacks vs. whites, refuses to step back from 'impossible problems' like
untying Cobble's Knot, and goes right up to Finsterwald's front door.
I've always related to the character through his insistence on running
and reading all day- this 'bullshit detector' of his is something I only
noticed in my most recent read.
4. Reading my own work is strange...
At best, it's a
great book report. If you like book reports, go ahead and read it. But
keep in mind- there is a good reason adults don't write book reports.
So...
If I decided to continue last year's gimmick of
comparing the book to a U2 song, what song would it be for 2017? I might
give it a shot with 'One', a song about the obligation of love and the
inevitability of hurting those closest to a person. 'City of Blinding
Lights' might work, too, because of how it gracefully balances the
confusion and clarity brought on by experience.
5. 2018 preview?
I suspect there are hints buried
within the lines I remember- maybe I'll dig into those this time next
year with a 'quote board' type of post. In no particular order, some
(approximated) quotes that I can recite off the top of my head...
'You can't get a library card without an address...'
'Running in the morning and reading in the afternoon gave Maniac just enough stability....'
'How could he (Maniac) be a father to these boys when he longed so much to be somebody's son?'
'He had done everything with one hand. He had to because his other hand was a book.'
