Eugene and Glasses
In about a week I'll be getting my first pair of glasses. I keep telling people that I'll become Clark Kent, but really, that's just because I can't say "I'll become Eugene" and have them understand. I'm the only one in my life that understands what a true master Robert Cormier was. And Frenchtown Summer, his book written in verse, was one of his best. He doesn't take one particular point and build on that (like the main character being able to turn invisible in Fade, terrorists kidnapping a school bus full of children in After the First Death, the main character refusing to sell chocolates for the school long after he's told to sell them in The Chocolate War). He takes the main character Eugene, a young boy not sure yet who he is, and writes, in verse, about one of his summers growing up in the Frenchtown section of Monument, Massachusetts (the city that most of his books are set in). Being written in verse is what allows the book to work. There isn't one particular plot point. It's many different things that happen during that summer. But as you progress, with Eugene, toward the end, things become a little more clear, you see things tie together, even if Eugene, at the time, does not.
I like Eugene. Never mind the fact that I enjoy most of Cormier's books, that I consider him a writer that few could touch, Eugene is one of the characters I enjoy the most. While I like a lot of his other characters, Frenchtown Summer really allows Eugene to come into focus, to see all aspects of him, from many different angles.
But it is this, that brings Eugene to mind:
I emerged from Dr. Sampson's office
("The Eyes Have It")
blinking in the sunlight,
and suddenly everything
had sharp edges,
the corners of buildings,
the curbstones,
a leaf tumbling
from the maple in Monument Park.
The glasses,
with steel frames,
were a strange weight on my nose.
A world suddenly vivid,
people's faces across the street
no longer blurs.
...
The glasses were a miracle,
bringing the sweet
gift of sight
until
in front of Laurier's Drug Store,
Ernie Forcier
placed his hands on his hips
and yelled to me
across the street:
"Hey, Four-Eyes."
I went Saturday to get an eye exam, and the doctor said the same thing I've heard at every other exam. "You don't need glasses. You're getting there, but you don't need them yet." I told her everybody else says I need them, so I convinced her to go ahead as if I did. So she gave me a prescription for bifocals. So in about a week, give or take a day or two, from last Saturday, I should have some transition bifocals. I haven't even got them yet and already someone called me four-eyes, just like Ernie Forcier with Eugene. But as I've been giving people the Clark Kent line instead of the Eugene one, I reminded her that Clark Kent had a another identity and quoted the Jim Croce song about not tugging on Superman's cape. Heh heh heh.
I like Eugene. Never mind the fact that I enjoy most of Cormier's books, that I consider him a writer that few could touch, Eugene is one of the characters I enjoy the most. While I like a lot of his other characters, Frenchtown Summer really allows Eugene to come into focus, to see all aspects of him, from many different angles.
But it is this, that brings Eugene to mind:
I emerged from Dr. Sampson's office
("The Eyes Have It")
blinking in the sunlight,
and suddenly everything
had sharp edges,
the corners of buildings,
the curbstones,
a leaf tumbling
from the maple in Monument Park.
The glasses,
with steel frames,
were a strange weight on my nose.
A world suddenly vivid,
people's faces across the street
no longer blurs.
...
The glasses were a miracle,
bringing the sweet
gift of sight
until
in front of Laurier's Drug Store,
Ernie Forcier
placed his hands on his hips
and yelled to me
across the street:
"Hey, Four-Eyes."
I went Saturday to get an eye exam, and the doctor said the same thing I've heard at every other exam. "You don't need glasses. You're getting there, but you don't need them yet." I told her everybody else says I need them, so I convinced her to go ahead as if I did. So she gave me a prescription for bifocals. So in about a week, give or take a day or two, from last Saturday, I should have some transition bifocals. I haven't even got them yet and already someone called me four-eyes, just like Ernie Forcier with Eugene. But as I've been giving people the Clark Kent line instead of the Eugene one, I reminded her that Clark Kent had a another identity and quoted the Jim Croce song about not tugging on Superman's cape. Heh heh heh.