Book Review: So Long, See You Tomorrow

Book Review on William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow. Published by Vintage.

This 135-page novel is unique in many ways. The structure, the voice, and the POV all have very distinctive qualities. John Updike’s quote on the back cover reads, “What a lovely book, utterly unlike any other in shape I have ever read.” And he is not stretching the truth.

Summary

This first-person-POV novel is told from the eyes of an old man looking back on an event from his childhood that left a lasting impression. The narrator, who was not a very popular boy, found comfort in his quiet, neighborhood friend until the day he wasn’t there anymore. The boy’s father was suspected of killing his friend who was having an affair with his wife, but before anything could be proven, he took his own life. After this dramatic small-town event, the boy’s mother moved their family to an unknown city.

A year goes by and the boys have no contact. Until, the narrator moves to Chicago and happens to see the boy in the hallway of his new school. This moment, more than any other, is the moment that haunts our narrator and pushes him to write down the story.

Voice

It’s not so unusual to read a story narrated by an adult looking back on their childhood. It’s so common in fact that I recently posted a book review on such a novel titled Rainy Lake by Mary Rockcastle. Check it out! The unusual part about this character’s voice is his doubtful and anxious tone. His descriptions are straight forward and emotionally flat, as if he is simply trying to tell us the facts of the story.

A good example of that emotionless writing is the opening chapter, which tells the reader about the murder from a physically distant place. The first characters we meet—who never show up again—appear nameless in the second paragraph and “heard what sounded like a pistol shot. Or, they agreed, it could have been a car backfiring.” After a few casual sentences of description, Maxwell writes, “The sound was not a car backfiring; a tenant farmer named Lloyd Wilson had just been shot and killed, and what they heard was the gun that killed him.”

The doubtful narrator lets us know that his memory of the time is vague and sometimes missing important pieces of information. He collects all the information he can on the event through old newspapers but they provide only a generic picture.

Later on in the book, he narrates entire chapters from a third person point of view that he admits has little to no factual claim behind it. These chapters delve deep into the friendship of the murderer and his victim leading up to the event, as well as the affair. I cannot recall ever having read a first person narrative that jumps into a section where the narrator is neither present nor has any solid basis of what happened at the time. It was a very interesting choice.

Besides this part, the novel read very much like a non-fiction book. The fictional character even says at one point, “This memoir—if that’s the right name for it—is a roundabout, futile way of making amends.” And that sentence describes the book more than any I could possible compose.

Point of View

The most memorable part of the POV came late in the story where the POV would slip into a dog’s perspective. After the murder, the victim’s fatherless family leaves the farm but leaves their dog behind. Again, this plays into the narrator’s emotionless, distant voice. Because we are in the dog’s POV, we don’t get a clear view of the family’s sure-to-be-emotional move. We get the facts. They pack up the car, throw a lot of possessions away, lock the dog in the barn and drive away. The dog waits for them to come back and howls and howls when they don’t. The change we see in the once obedient dog when the new owners arrive was the most emotional part of the book for me. It’s worth noting that I felt more emotionally connected to that dog that we only saw for a couple chapters than to the narrator of the story (an effect of the tone used).

Also important to note, is how Maxwell transitioned into this switch from the narrator’s perspective to the dog’s perspective. When he jumps into the fictionalized story of the murder and his victim, he simply tells us what he is going to do and informs us that he has no knowledge to back it up, breaks for a new chapter, and off he goes. Before we jump into the dog’s head full time, Maxwell casually slips in single sentences in the dog’s POV amongst the normal story. These slips in perspective take the jolt out of the complete switch.  

Structure

Because I feel like I’m always talking about structure in my book reviews lately, I’ll keep this brief. So Long, See You Tomorrow’s structure takes a page from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by giving away the dramatic event of the story at the very beginning. We are told about the murder of Lloyd Wilson on the first page and know that he was discovered with a bullet in his head by his youngest son who went to fetch him after he was late for breakfast.

Chapter two throws the reader way back in time to the very beginning of the string of events that led to that moment. Like Romeo and Juliet, it is not about the deaths themselves but about the events leading up to it and the emotional impact it has on the survivors.

Recommendation

I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read a novel unlike any you’ve read before. The uniqueness certainly has its devoted fans (this book has received high praise by many) but the style didn’t strike a chord with me. The writing itself would earn 5 stars, but overall, I have to award it 3 stars.

How I found this book: One of my college professors recommended it.

The Maze Runner: A Deep Look into the Weak First Person POV

Book review on The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Published by Delacorte Press.

The Maze Runner immediately jumps into action as the narrator, 16-year-old Thomas, awakens in a strange new place with all new people and no memories. He cannot remember his parents, friends, where he lived, nothing! He can’t even remember his last name. This is an interesting perspective to write a book from because the reader is learning everything at the exact same time as Thomas. There is no need for flashbacks because no memories exist to flashback to, creating a perfectly linear plot. We follow Thomas around for about a week’s time of constant action. As soon as the reader (and Thomas) begin to understand their surroundings, something happens that changes the pace and direction of the story.

Pacing

As in all novels, there is a period of time where the “typical” day-to-day activities of the world are established. In The Maze Runner, that period of time is very short. In a novel where the characters are living in a similar world to our own, you don’t need much time but because The Maze Runner is set in a unfamiliar setting, a lot of information has to be packed into that time period.

Positives of Point of View

Learning along with the main character is an excellent way to familiarize the reader with the unique surroundings. Stories often have an “ignorant character.” This allows the writer to explain pertinent information through a conversation between characters which is typically much more entertaining than reading a long description from a third person narrator.  Thomas is completely unfamiliar with this world he has been thrust into. He asks a lot of questions, allowing the reader to learn everything at the same time he does. This creates a connection between Thomas and the reader.  (Example: Think Harry Potter. The readers learn about the wizarding world at the same time as Harry.)

Although that is an excellent writing technique used by Dashner, the short time span he gave himself to work with causes a bit of information overload. At times, it seems the only thing

Thomas can do is asking questions. It establishes Thomas as a curious, action-oriented character but it stresses the same point over and over and over. I think Dashner should have incorporated more internal dialogue from Thomas as well as having him learn things along the way.

Negatives of Point of View

Another problem I have with the novel is that Thomas adjusts to this scary, unfamiliar world he is thrown into much too quickly. Dashner specifically points out this oddity—which is a technique often used by writers to dull down the strangeness of something—but in this case it wasn’t enough for me. At the end of the novel, we also find out that there is a reason Thomas feels so comfortable in the new place but that still doesn’t explain why the other characters adapt to him so easily and quickly. In an environment of nearly 40 teenage boys, a structure of leadership has been set up. We understand that the leaders have been there for a long time and have earned their leadership positions. When Thomas enters the story, he is often side-by-side with the leaders and given exceptions allowing him access to information that boys who have been there for years don’t even know.

Dashner trapped himself with the first person POV. For the reader to know what was going on, Thomas had to know what was going on. The things Thomas was told and the privileges he was given as a new-comer didn’t seem realistic to me.

Another moment when the first person POV fails is when Thomas seems to miraculously make the discovery of what the Maze that surrounds his new world means. The idea seems to sprout out of nowhere, not triggered by anything specific, and is never clearly explained to the reader. After multiple people have been trying to discover what the Maze means for years, Thomas is hit with this unexplained inspiration that solves the puzzle just as time is running out. (Sound almost too convenient?) With a first person POV, the reader should be one with the narrator, understanding all their motives and being able to clearly see where inspirations come from. A third person POV allows the writer to be somewhat mysterious with the characters internal thoughts but when you choose to write in the first person, the reader should be able to understand everything the narrator understands and Dashner failed in that aspect.

Recommendation

Although I believe this is a suspenseful, entertaining Young Adult novel, I do not think it crosses over to adult readers. I would certainly recommend it to young teenage boys but not to any adult.

***Tomorrow’s blog will contain an extension of this book review, looking at the prose itself. I will edit a chapter of the book, cutting what I believe was wasted, unnecessary words.***

Interesting Tidbit from The Maze Runner:

**This may be a small SPOILER for people who plan to read the book!**  We learn at the end of the book that all the characters are named after famous men in history that showed signs of genius (see below). Although I don’t think the naming of characters requires a lot of attention during writing, this was a unique way to go about it and fit the novel very well. It also allowed Dashner to create some unique names which I think is important when creating a series.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 U.S. patents in his name.

Thomas=Thomas Edison

Alby= Albert Einstein

Chuck= Charles Darwin

Gally= Galileo Galilei

Newt=Issac Newton

How I found this book: While stranded in Michigan because of several delayed flights back home, this book caught my eye in the airport bookstore. The book I brought with me (a collection of short stories) wasn’t cutting it for the long hours spent in the airport. I enjoy the fast-paced reading of Young Adult Fiction so I bought this book to pass the time on the extended vacation.