Inspirational Book: Harriet the Spy
One of my favourite books when I was younger was Louise Fitzhugh's novel Harriet the Spy. Harriet M. Welsch is an eleven year old girl who wants to be a writer. To this end, she writes down her observations of the world around her in a notebook - her nanny Ole Golly encouraged her to do this daily exercise and keep it up. Harriet also uses her notebook to play a game called Town, in which she creates fictional characters in a fictional town and comes up with situations for them to deal with.
Some of Harriet's observations are quite astute, while others are the somewhat clueless assumptions of a privileged little girl (such as her notes on her friend Sport - who is quite poor relative to the other kids at their school).
Harriet's life takes an unpleasant turn when Ole Golly is fired. Shortly afterwards, her notebook falls into her classmates' hands. As outraged as they are when they read her observations about them, her classmates nonetheless are quite intrigued by her writing; they skip over her notes about her neighbours and their teacher Miss Elson (Harriet once saw Miss Elson picking her nose) so that they can read about themselves. Harriet is shunned at school; even her friends Sport and Janie will have nothing to do with her. So Harriet turns to her notebook.
At one point, Harriet's parents send her to a child psychiatrist. He's writing about her in a notebook while they're playing a game of Monopoly (he has books and toys in his office) - and she makes a comment to him that if he can write about her, why can't she write about him, too? So he gives her a notebook - and she muses about whether or not the doctor plays with all the toys himself when no one is around.
There's a great part where Harriet goes into a cafe, pops into a booth with her drink of choice (chocolate egg cream), and listens in on a conversation in an adjacent booth. She then tries to guess what the speakers look like (she's almost right).
When I first read the book, I thought that Harriet's notes were all about bashing people; later, I realized that they were her attempts to "sketch" the people she comes into contact with so that she can write about them later. She is brutally honest in recording her impressions - although, as mentioned earlier, they are filtered through her own privileged life experience. (For example, she is sometimes critical of Sport, but doesn't fully realize that he carries a heavy burden for an 11-year-old boy - Sport is responsible for taking care of his household and, sometimes, his writer father.)
Harriet is not always a nice person. That's probably why I liked her; while the kids in most children's books were nice little kids, if not total goody-goodies (so as to please the adults around them), Harriet didn't. She finds most of the adults around her to be foolish and condescending, and records their behaviour accordingly. She occasionally gets irritated - if not downright angry - with her friends, and sometimes reacts in a cruel, vindictive manner. I was told - as a kid - that I should always wear the happyface and never, ever think bad thoughts about my friends, otherwise I was a Very Bad Person. Louise Fitzhugh - through Harriet - made it clear that it is okay to find the people around you aggravating; however, it might be a good idea to keep your opinions to yourself. Or, as Ole Golly tells Harriet: Writing is to help put love into the world, not to use against your friends.
Ole Golly also notes the importance of taking notes and using them to write a story - it reminded me of how J.R.R. Tolkien loved planning out Middle Earth but wasn't so keen about writing about it; it took a swift kick in the butt from C.S. Lewis for him to start doing so.
I think I will go and make myself a tomato sandwich now. And wash it down with a chocolate egg cream.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.
Some of Harriet's observations are quite astute, while others are the somewhat clueless assumptions of a privileged little girl (such as her notes on her friend Sport - who is quite poor relative to the other kids at their school).
Harriet's life takes an unpleasant turn when Ole Golly is fired. Shortly afterwards, her notebook falls into her classmates' hands. As outraged as they are when they read her observations about them, her classmates nonetheless are quite intrigued by her writing; they skip over her notes about her neighbours and their teacher Miss Elson (Harriet once saw Miss Elson picking her nose) so that they can read about themselves. Harriet is shunned at school; even her friends Sport and Janie will have nothing to do with her. So Harriet turns to her notebook.
At one point, Harriet's parents send her to a child psychiatrist. He's writing about her in a notebook while they're playing a game of Monopoly (he has books and toys in his office) - and she makes a comment to him that if he can write about her, why can't she write about him, too? So he gives her a notebook - and she muses about whether or not the doctor plays with all the toys himself when no one is around.
There's a great part where Harriet goes into a cafe, pops into a booth with her drink of choice (chocolate egg cream), and listens in on a conversation in an adjacent booth. She then tries to guess what the speakers look like (she's almost right).
When I first read the book, I thought that Harriet's notes were all about bashing people; later, I realized that they were her attempts to "sketch" the people she comes into contact with so that she can write about them later. She is brutally honest in recording her impressions - although, as mentioned earlier, they are filtered through her own privileged life experience. (For example, she is sometimes critical of Sport, but doesn't fully realize that he carries a heavy burden for an 11-year-old boy - Sport is responsible for taking care of his household and, sometimes, his writer father.)
Harriet is not always a nice person. That's probably why I liked her; while the kids in most children's books were nice little kids, if not total goody-goodies (so as to please the adults around them), Harriet didn't. She finds most of the adults around her to be foolish and condescending, and records their behaviour accordingly. She occasionally gets irritated - if not downright angry - with her friends, and sometimes reacts in a cruel, vindictive manner. I was told - as a kid - that I should always wear the happyface and never, ever think bad thoughts about my friends, otherwise I was a Very Bad Person. Louise Fitzhugh - through Harriet - made it clear that it is okay to find the people around you aggravating; however, it might be a good idea to keep your opinions to yourself. Or, as Ole Golly tells Harriet: Writing is to help put love into the world, not to use against your friends.
Ole Golly also notes the importance of taking notes and using them to write a story - it reminded me of how J.R.R. Tolkien loved planning out Middle Earth but wasn't so keen about writing about it; it took a swift kick in the butt from C.S. Lewis for him to start doing so.
I think I will go and make myself a tomato sandwich now. And wash it down with a chocolate egg cream.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.