New Boy by Tracy Chevalier: A review

Okay. I tried. I really did. I tried to like Tracy Chevalier's new book but I just couldn't get into it. I admit part of the problem may have been the constant distractions of the holiday season during which I was reading it.

This is another in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, in which modern writers reimagine Shakespeare's works in their own settings and plots. Chevalier took Othello as her source and pattern. That would be a daunting task for anyone.

She chose to retell the story of the Moor of Venice as essentially a YA novel featuring the characters as 11-year-old schoolchildren. All the action takes place in one day at an elementary school in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s, with only a few weeks left in the school term. On this eventful day a new boy is enrolled in the school. His name is Osei Kokote. He is the son of a diplomat from Ghana. Apparently, he is the only black child entered in the school, and so he is a figure of great curiosity for the other children and for the teachers, some of whom seem particularly vexed by the idea of having to teach him.

A teacher assigns Dee, the most popular girl in school and the teacher's pet, to show Osei around the campus. The two hit it off almost instantly, much to the consternation of Ian, the school bully who harbors his own interest in Dee, although he is the boyfriend of her friend Mimi (who is his very reluctant girlfriend). Ian sets out to disrupt and destroy the budding relationship between Dee and Osei at any cost. The consequences of his single-minded campaign will have far-reaching effects on the lives of all the main characters.

In telling this story, Chevalier manages to hit all the major themes of the Shakespeare original. Racism, check; love, check; jealousy, check; betrayal, check; revenge, check; repentance, check. It's all here but reduced to the puerile level of children just beginning to discover the wide world and their own sexuality. I suppose that Chevalier's point is that all of these various human emotional reactions and needs have their roots in childhood. It's where the personality is formed and where one develops one's view of the world as either a benevolent and welcoming place or an unkind, zero-sum place where everyone is either winner or loser and you don't want to get caught on the wrong side of the line. The child is truly the father/mother to the man/woman. Seeing Othello, Desdemona, Iago, etc., as children might give us some insight into the adult characters.

In theory, it's an interesting concept and a unique way of presenting Othello, and this book has been highly praised by many, but, in practice, eleven-year-olds falling in and out of love in an afternoon on the playground and plotting to destroy their perceived enemies using an errant pencil box as a tool...I just couldn't love it.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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