Bridges Between Books

As always I started this summer with a reasonable pile of “new” books. What I call “new” does not necessarily mean that the books had just been released. In general, I call them “new” because they finally came out in paperback; I eventually acquired them for pennies in a yard sale and at last found the time to read them. This is what happened this summer when I decided to dive into a few of these already ancient novelties, such as “The Secret Life of Bees”, by Sue Monk Kidd, The Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, “The Question of Bruno”, by Aleksandar Hemon and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, by Mark Haddon, to quote but just a few.
Many will probably have read the books I am about to review and will probably deem extraordinary that I can find connections between Lily, the adolescent girl living in the US Bible Belt in 1964 (The Secret Life of Bees), and Christopher, the adolescent autistic boy living in England in our current times (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time). Indeed, all seem to indicate that they have nothing in common: geography, times, their perception of the world, the way they interact with people, and so on. Somehow, I felt that there were similarities between these two characters. Lily is not autistic but still suffers from psychological trauma, what one would call post traumatic disorder: not only did she lose her mother when she was 4, she is in fact responsible for her accidental death. Her memory is scarred by the event, as much as her body bears the mark of the tortures she endures at her father’s hands, while kneeling on grits. Her life is motherless and loveless, but for Rosaleen her proud African-American nanny. Christopher is autistic, on the highest part of the autism spectrum: he has Asperger Syndrome. Christopher shares the experience of psychological and physiological pain with Lily although in a different way. Christopher also lives with his dad, and thinks that his mother is “dead” and seems to only communicate best with Siobhan, one of his teachers at the special school he attends. Both characters are in fact prey and victim to the adults’ decision to hide the truth, or transform it, or lie about it.
Coping with the loss (real or not) of their respective mother is the main literary connection between the two characters. But beyond the obvious, one cannot help but make another literary bridge: 1964 is the year of the Civil Rights Act; fighting discrimination becomes Lily’s way of freeing herself from her father’s violence. Christopher is also suffering from discrimination, even more insidiously as he appears normal to the common people. Set in the UK, the book can’t help but indirectly reveal that Europeans still need to improve their records on discrimination against the physically and psychologically challenged.
Of course, each book could be read separately for its own merits: the beautiful descriptions, the intricately analyzed feelings and lives of May, June and August, the obvious literary knowledge and connotations cleverly used by the author (the bees themselves could be the subject of an entire critical chapter), make The Secret Life of Bees an entertaining read. On the other hand, seeing the world through Christopher’s eyes and autistic mind is at the same time challenging because we have to train our mind to think like him, and very humbling, especially if like me, you have such a child at home while all the time you thought it was just another bout of teenage rebellion. It is never too late to realize that one’s way of thinking is not the ultimate reference but it sure is hard to know what is the best way to show such a child that you truly love him.

© August 2006, Sarah Diligenti-Pickup