The Various Quirks of Benji's Narration
The narration of Sag Harbor isn't like any of the books we've read this year. The events aren't simply narrated in an as-they-happen, linear progression, and most of the book is comprised of Benji making anecdotes. What's important to realize is that he isn't narrating in real time, but looking back at these events years later. Most of his comments are reflections he makes on the kind of person he used to be, and how he spent this one transformative summer. He's had time to analyze these events, and he shares his analysis in his narration. Whether by taking the perspective of an academic who is eagerly studying adolescent behavior or simply looking back on the past and reflecting on how he's changed since the events in question, the way this story is laid out creates a reading experience that's half memoir, half textbook.
Benji often feels like a form of anthropologist among his friends, with the ways he examines others' behavior and draws conclusions. We see this almost constantly in each scene of the book, though a prime example is in the second chapter, where Benji and his friends won't stop insulting each other as if it were a game, and he comes up with the chart explaining how they make their insults. Amidst the chaos, he calmly notes that, "The trend that summer, insult-wise, was toward grammatical acrobatics, the unlikely collage. One smashed a colorful and evocative noun or proper noun into a pejorative, gluing them together with the -in' verb... Lookin' was a common -in' verb" (51-52). What immediately jumps out is that Benji definitely does not narrate in the typical voice of a teenager, and is a standout character among his friend group. What his friends see as a mindless, dilly-dally game, Benji sees as the subject for intense study. To the reader, these events that would seem ordinary and even insignificant at first are emphasized as Benji's narration casts a new and captivating lens on one of the defining behaviors of adolescents that anybody can relate to.
When describing the incident where Randy hits him in the face with a BB, Benji often refers to himself in that scene as "the other boy," the version that he was before the incident. He shares his thoughts in great depth when reflecting on the bad idea to play with BB guns and his frustration with Randy. In concluding the chapter, he reveals that, "I'd like to say, all these years later, now that some of us are dead and another paralyzed from the waist down from actual bullets -- drug related, as the papers put it -- that the game wasn't so innocent after all" (191). While many of Benji's comments throughout the book are quite playful, his tone is quite serious as he recalls the misery of this event and the transition it marked in their lives. He actually reveals that he's narrating from the future, and takes on a somber tone, all of which have the effect of immersing the reader in his experience more deeply. Each oddity and modification of his narrating style is intentional and gives the story it's character as a highly unique coming-of-age novel.
Rico Duursma
Hey Rico, you are right. Ben is the most quirky narrator we've had yet. It almost seems like he makes fun of Benji and his friends behavior in retrospect. He also does deeply analyze each action taken by him and his friends, and can come across as a bit judgmental. Great Post!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that Sag Harbor's narration style is pretty different from the books we've read. If I had to compare, the only similar books I could think of would be Catcher in the Rye or Fun Home, but even those narrations aren't the same as Benji/Ben's style. I like your point that Benji functions almost as an examiner towards his friends and family, and that's probably due to Ben's layer over Benji. I really like the addition of Ben's voice; it definitely makes all the idolized points of Benji's summer upon Ben's reflection seem much sadder and complex.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really thought much about this until I read your blog post, but you're absolutely right about Benji's narration. It's interesting how he will analyze slang, or other speech constructs that seem commonplace as if they were literature. It's definitely a trend across the books we read this semester of the protagonists being especially observant and analytical, but I think Benji is an extreme of this. I really liked your use of his insult flow chart as an example.
ReplyDeleteHey Rico, I also noticed how Benji's narration style was unique amongst all of the other narration styles from the other protagonists of the novels we have read this semester. I do think there are some similarities to other books, such as Catcher in the Rye and Fun Home. In the case of Fun Home, Alison is also looking back from a more mature perspective and is also reflecting on her past self. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteThe narration of this book is pretty unique and I like the feeling of reading it. It's not as present as Esther's or Jason's, farther than Holden's, but not as far as Alison's. I think having this "happy medium" narrative at the end of the year is also a very interesting choice in terms of the class chronology.
ReplyDeleteHi Ricky, the reflective attitude of Ben toward Benji is definitely interesting. Ben is definitely the most critical narrator we've seen in this class toward himself: Alison doesn't really depict her past self with the "other boy" attitude. And this makes sense: we can see from the quote that some of his friends suffered tragic fates, and the BB in his eye only serves as a daily reminder of that fact. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of Benji the kid AND Ben the narrator as both serving an "anthropological" role, making observations and analyzing aspects of the dynamics among these kids. The "rules" for the insult-generator is a great example--Ben as linguist breaking down the local conventions in this language community, and the same is true with his comments on the prevalence of "fag" and "dag" in their lexicon. Another good example of this tendency is when Ben the narrator depicts young Benji making field observations about these white boys at his school and their hacky-sack games. Or the detailed multi-page account of the various "types" of tourists that come wandering in to the Jonni Waffle. Or at the end of the novel, when Ben catalogs the behaviors and traditions of the different generations of Sag Harbor denizens during the Labor Day cookout. And this perspective does relate to the unique dynamic of framing Benji as "that other boy"--he looks at his own childhood as an interesting but somewhat far removed object of study and inquiry, but it sometimes seems like these things don't obviously affect him in a serious way. He doesn't depict himself as deeply traumatized by the BB incident--it's a funny and shocking story he likes to bring up at parties.
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