Consideration of Works Past: Crazy Weather

(Picture from here.)

Before I get going on Crazy Weather, I learned this morning two items of interest. J. G. Ballard died over the weekend and Stephen Hawking is in the hospital. J. G. Ballard was a fantastic writer and Stephen Hawking has proven himself to be one of the greatest physicists of the last 100 years.

I'll do a bit on J. G. Ballard's work (notably the world books: The Drowned World, The Burning World and The Crystal World.) But for now, here are a number of links about Ballard: Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

Stephen Hawking is amazing for his brilliance, his handling of his handicap and his ability to present information to the public. I'm hoping he will live for as long as he wishes.

Now, on to Crazy Weather.

Charles L. McNichols and Crazy Weather are both finally getting a little recognition. (See Here. Here. Here.) I've never been able to find out much about McNichols-- he was an aviator in World War I. He worked as a stuntman in Hollywood. He grew up in Arizona, the location for the book.

My mother had a rule in the house. I could read any book I could reach. Mom kept books she didn't think were appropriate out of my reach. She didn't take into account that I could climb and this led to reading James Jones' From Here to Eternity when I was ten-- which my wife tells me explains a lot. But that's another story.

I found Crazy Weather when I couldn't have been more than seven. I have no idea where she got the book or why she purchased it. Later, when I was older and smarter, I asked but she said she didn't remember.

Crazy Weather did two things for me. It first defined to me the "coming of age" novel for all time. More on that in a moment.

The second was to start a love for American fiction between the years 1920 or so until the first real waves of European immigration of the late thirties. Not that there weren't waves of immigration before that. But the period from just after to World War I until about 1938 or so is uniquely American. The voice of that period is different from American fiction before or since.

I remarked on the Clifford D. Simak post that he had a gentleness and tenderness that was rare in science fiction. It's not so unique in this period. Along with the excoriating works of Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis, we also have in this period Harold Saroyan, John Dos Passos and early John Steinbeck. As fiction since 9/11 is different from fiction before, so fiction prior to World War II is different from fiction after.

Crazy Weather is the story of a young man named South Boy. South Boy is the white son of a rancher in Mojave country-- an area once controlled by the Mojave Indians but now shared between the reservation Indians, the ranchers and the US government. South Boy has been raised as much by the Mojave as by his white parents. His mother is a devout Christian woman and wants South Boy to become a preacher. His father would like South Boy to become a rancher. The Mojaves believe South Boy would be a good Mojave.

The story covers four days in his life beginning when he encounters his good friend, the Mojave boy Havek. South Boy wanders through the Mojave world being beset by temptations and inclinations to proceed into either the white or Mojave world, until he passes through a true dark night of the soul to emerge with enough self-knowledge to make his own decision.

South Boy makes his decisions in full knowledge of the advantages and short comings of both worlds and it's not clear what his decision will be until quite late in the novel-- it's not even clear which is best for him or that he has made his choice for the right reasons. Crazy Weather is strongly influenced by Huckleberry Finn in this regard. There are a number of points where Huck's character grows in response to decision he makes. It's possible McNichols was interested in this particular process and derived an entire novel from it. Like Huck, South Boy bounces back and forth between these worlds and makes choices that he then must renounce-- recall that Huck was going to turn Jim in more than once but then decided against it. Both characters vacillated until reaching their final decision. In Huckleberry Finn, the vacillation and ultimate choice is an important part of the work but not the center. In Crazy Weather it is the centerpiece of the book.

Modern "coming of age" stories are typically told as Young Adult stories. This puts them in the same category of stories as morality plays: stories we tell our children to make sure they make the right decision. Such stories weight the choices so the right choice (or at least the authorial choice) is obvious. Then, the chacter in the morality tale either chooses the right one (everything turns out well) or the wrong one (everything turns out badly).

Such tales aren't really "coming of age" stories at all. They're not even good fiction. "Coming of age" means taking on the mantle of adulthood, which means making your own choices and standing by the consequences. Most adult choices are not cut and dried or black or white. They are choices that are morally gray or where the consequences are finely sliced. Do I save for my retirement or my son's education? It's my duty to educate my son but I don't want to live on cat food. Or, as I saw in the south, do I help that black man (a morally correct thing to do) or do I protect my family from the Klan (a morally correct thing to do). Many modern "coming of age" stories so stack the moral choices that there's no real choice at all.

Crazy Weather is not such a story. South Boy has the freedom to make his own choices, which means he has the opportunity to make mistakes and fail. He also has the clarity of vision to realize that neither choice is going to be perfect or even comfortable. There's going to be conflict and disappointment regardless of what he chooses. The choices he wrestles with are significant: leave his family and become a Mojave or forsake the Mojaves and follow his family.

This is a story a seven year old kid could sink his teeth into.

Heck, I've reread it as an adult and it's still terrific.
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