While reading The
Collected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen, I just enjoyed the book and
the illustrations. After our discussion and upon retrospect, I see the book as
one of those that cross over from adolescent to adult; appropriate and
interesting for everyone from a fairly young age through an advanced one! The
feat of creating such a book is admirable. It's not sophomoric, the way a lot
of movies about young adult relationships seem to me at my age, and yet I
wouldn't hesitate to recommend it and might even give my copy to my 13-year-old
great nephew, who reads and reads and reads over again.
A wonderful coincidence was that Kathleen joined our group
recently and had experienced a small city celebrating The Collected Works with 28 days of events focused on the book! The
town of Trumbull, Connecticut, chose this book in 2010, soon after it was
published. The whole town was involved, with parties, fundraisers, discussions
about the book, and analysis of the themes in the book, culminating in a day
the author spent as a guest of the town. Kathleen showed us some brochures and
schedules. Seems Trumbull went all out and had a lot of fun with T.S. Spivet!
Two themes that were addressed in Trumbull as well as at our
meeting were the incidence of triads in the book and the question as to whether
the book was autobiographical. Kathleen was the one who noticed the triads. She
listed them. The list was a lot longer than what I was able to quickly note as
she read them: the Trident Youth, 3 laws of motion, 3 books in the library
about quantum mechanics, a 3-part series on a child prodigy, 3 suits for 3
press conferences, the 3-fingered Megatherium salute, and T.S. packing 3 of his
notebooks for his trip to Washington, DC. Apparently the author, Reif Larsen,
was surprised by the list of triads and could not take credit for spreading
them throughout the book. His reaction to the plethora of triads was to remark that
he might need to discuss this with a psychotherapist!
Larsen didn't tell the citizens of Trumbull much about his
personal background, although it was clear that he was a young author and had
been an intellectually gifted child. But he didn't have any personal anecdotes
about hoboes or trains. Among the clever small print parts of the book are a
list on the copyright page, as if part of the cataloging, of 27 subjects in the book, each of which is noted
to be "fiction;" and on the very last page of the book, in the middle
of a full-page abstract design, is a short sentence in similar tiny print that
says, "Everything is fiction."
All who read the book, which seemed to be most or all of us
present, enjoyed it. Some liked the sidebars and illustrations more than others
did. Jay said they were like footnotes, and Cindy said they showed how the
author's or T.S. Spivet's thought patterns. Carla nominated and presented the
book and gave us 2 themes to think about: The book as a hero's quest in the
spirit of Joseph Campbell, and the book as a parallel of The Wizard of Oz. Lots
to enjoy and think about with this book. I still don't quite understand the
Wormhole. Maybe I'm just too old for that!
A movie based on this story was released all over the world
except in the United States and is called "The Young and Prodigious T.S.
Spivet."
No comments:
Post a Comment