Fractals and THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling

SPOILER ALERT

My previous two posts focus on the adult characters in THE CASUAL VACANCY by  J. K. Rowling and on the various purposes for which they use language. This final post on THE CASUAL VACANCY will focus on the concept of fractals as explained by the philosopher Jean Houston and on the application of this concept to the character of Terri Weedon in THE CASUAL VACANCY.

THE CASUAL VACANCY, a novel for adults, is J. K. Rowling's first novel since her Harry Potter series. It is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. Rowling takes us through the political process of filling the newly vacant council seat and through the many directly-related and tangentially-related inter-personal interactions that unfold. Through all this, we learn that the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford is far less idyllic than it appears at first sight; tensions that have simmered for years begin bubbling and even bursting to the surface.

TERRI WEEDON. One very interesting character in THE CASUAL VACANCY is Terri Weedon. My preious post focused on Terri's use of language as a way of defending herself against others and of keeping herself in others' good graces. This post will focus on additional aspects of Terri's life. 

Terri Weedon is one of the "undeserving" poor of the Fields, an impoverished area to the north of Pagford over which Pagford has jurisdiction. Many in Pagford regard residents of the Fields as the "undeserving" poor, who do not work but drain society of resources - in contrast to the "deseriving" poor within Pagford itself, who work and contribute to society. The poor of the Fields are seen as lazy free-loaders and their children as undisciplined trouble-makers.

Terri Weedon, in fact, is considered to be a particularly "undeserving" resident of the Fields. Terri is a heroin addict who has cycled through the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic more than once, only to return to her drug habit. She is a prostitute. She is the mother of four children. Her eldest two were removed from her home and raised by others. She lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Krystal, and her four-year-old son, Robbie, and her fitness to care for them is highly questionable. Krystal often escapes the chaos of her own home life by spending the night at the home of her friend, Nikki. Robbie, at four, is still wearing diapers and is frequently absent from the nursery school where he is enrolled.

FRACTALS. The concept of fractals comes from mathematics and especially from the work of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010). As I understand it, fractals are irregularly-shaped repetitive patterns, such as those seen in a head of broccoli, in trees, in the arteries of the human body, in the bronchi and alveolar sacs of our respiratory system, in our heartbeat, in clouds, in ocean waves, in coastlines. A fractal pattern repeats itself in larger and smaller scales: the pattern of a whole head of broccoli is repeated in smaller and smaller form down to the smallest broccoli floret; a fractal pattern can be traced through the distribution of trees in a forest, an individual tree, a branch of that tree, a twig of that tree, and an individual leaf. Traditional geometry with its circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles applies to human-made shapes; the shapes found in nature tend to be fractal patterns instead.

The concept of fractals has been applied to human life patterns by the philosopher Jean Houston. In her online course "Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," Jean Houston says that "if we look at the events in a human life in the same way as we look at nature or a coastline, we might discover another order of fractals present in the themes recurrent in the larger and smaller eddies of the happenings, the events, moods, tragedies, comedies of your life," and that "each life is made up of multiple interpenetrating waves, fractal themes which build up a standing wave of extraordinary complexity and beauty."

I believe that we can see an important but unfortunate fractal pattern in Terri Weedon's life: a fractal pattern of abandonment.

ABANDONMENT PATTERN IN TERRI WEEDON'S LIFE. In Terri Weedon's life, we see the pattern of abandonment repeated again and again, like a fractal.

• ABANDONED BY HER MOTHER. Terri's mother left when Terri was eleven years old and disappeared forever from Terri's life. This is a crucial and excruciatingly painful abandonment.
• ABANDONED TO AND BY HER FATHER. When Terri's mother left, she not only deprived Terri of her motherly presence, but she also left Terri alone in the care of an abusive father, Michael Weedon, who beat and raped eleven-year-old Terri. It wasn't long before Michael Weedon put Terri in the hospital by hurling a pan of hot fat at her, burning her seriously. It is a witness to the horror of Terri's life with her father that she remembers her hospital stay as a glorious time during which, in spite of the physical pain, she was in clean surroundings where people were kind and attentive to her. We might also say that Terri's father abandoned her in the sense that he deprived Terri of proper fatherly care.
• ABANDONED BY NANA CATH - FIRST TIME. Nana Cath, Catherine Weedon, is Terri's grandmother. During Terri's hospital stay, Nana Cath was Terri's only visitor. Nana Cath sat with Terri in the hospital and then brought Terri to her own home when Terri was well enough to be released. Terri felt that she was in heaven in Nana Cath's clean and loving home. But after several days, Michael Weedon came for his daughter, and Nana Cath simply couldn't stand up to her brutal son. Terri was forced to return to her father's abuse until she finally ran away at thirteen and was caught and put into state care.
• ABANDONED BY RITCHIE ADAMS. Ritchie Adams is the father of Terri's two eldest children. He left Terri.
• ABANDONED BY HER ELDEST CHILDREN. Actually, this was not the doing of the two children themselves, but of the social workers, who removed each child from Terri shortly after the child's birth and placed the child into an adoptive home - which actually makes sense, given Terri's unfitness as a parent. Terri never saw either child again.
• ABANDONED BY BANGER. Banger is perhaps the father of Krystal and maybe of Robbie. Banger, too, left Terri.
• ABANDONED BY NANA CATH - SECOND TIME. Shortly after Robbie's birth, it seems that Nana Cath became fed up with Terri's drug addiction and prostitution. Apparently, there had been an ugly scene that Rowling describes on page 266: 

      You don't even know who the father is, do yeh, yer whore/ I'm washin' my 'ands of yeh, Terri, I've 'ad enough.

     That had been the last time they had ever spoken, and Nana Cath had called her what everyone else called her, and Terri had responded in kind.

     Fuck you, then, you miserable old cow, fuck you.
 

• ABANDONED BY SOCIAL WORKERS. Social workers came and went. Terri would have one social worker for a while, then that social worker would leave and be replaced by another one. Terri liked the social worker Kay Bawden, who truly tried to help Terri, but Kay was actually just filling in during the absence of Mattie, Terri's assigned social worker, so when Mattie returned to work, Kay, too, left Terri. This must be quite difficult for poor people who are assigned to social workers. Social workers have a great deal of say-so in important aspects of one's life, yet one has no control over which social worker is assigned to one's case, and the social worker assigned to one's case can change at the drop of a hat.
• ABANDONED BY NANA CATH - THIRD TIME. When Nana Cath dies, Terri again feels abandoned. Now there will never be an opportunity to reconcile with Nana Cath. Nana Cath is gone from Terri's life forever.
• POTENTIALLY ABANDONED BY THE BELLCHAPEL ADDICTION CLINIC. Terri has been making some headway in battling her heroin addiction at the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic in the Fields, but now the Pagford Parish Council is threatening to close Bellchapel. If this happens, Terri will have to go to Dr. Parminder Jawanda, her physician in Pagford, to receive her methadone treatments. Terri abhors the idea of going so frequently into Pagford, where people treat her even more disparagingly than she is treated in the Fields.

THE ONE WHO DIDN'T ABANDON TERRI: Unfortunately, Terri sees the drug dealer and pimp Obbo as the one person who has stuck by her. Terri met Obbo when she was fifteen. They had gone to the same school and had smoked their first marijuana together. Obbo had once hidden Terri from Ritchie, the father of her first two children, when Ritchie turned abusive, and Obbo occasionally gave Terri free heroin. In Terri's eyes, Obbo was more trustworthy than anyone else, including Nana Cath. 

FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TERRI: Terri is finally abandoned by the two children who live with her, four-year-old Robbie and sixteen-year-old Krystal. While Robbie is in Krystal's care, Krystal has sex with Fats Wall by the river, after instructing Robbie to wait for her on a bench. But Robbie wanders off, falls into the river, and drowns. On learning this, Krystal returns home, barricades herself in the bathroom, and injects herself with a lethal dose of heroin, thus committing suicide. We last see Terri at Robbie and Krystal's double funeral. 

THE ABANDONMENT FRACTAL: Abandonment is a fractal pattern in Terri Weedon's life.
 

• CORE EVENT: The core event, establishing the abandonment pattern, is the abandonment of Terri at age eleven by her mother. In a good home, when a parent dies, much can be done to surround the child with supporting love. But Terri came from a highly dysfunctional home, where her mother's departure was devastating for two overwhelming reasons. 

1. First, Terri's mother left willingly. She chose to leave, and Terri never saw her again. This is far different from a death. This is saying to a child that the child means nothing to the mother, usually the most important person in a child's life.
2.  Second, Terri's mother left Terri in a horrible situation. Granted, Terri's mother was escaping from a very abusive husband. But she orchestrated her own escape without planning for her children. The three children were left in the care of the abusive Michael Weedon. The two older children were able to escape by moving in with their boyfriends' families. But Terri, at age eleven, had nowhere to go. She was left with a terrifying father who beat and raped her. Her mother's abandonment did not just leave Terri motherless; it left Terri in hell.

• PATTERN: Each successive departure of someone significant from Terri's life re-enacted and entrenched the abandonment pattern. The initial core abandonment was so devastating that Terri would configure all later departures of people from her life as manifestations of the same fractal.
• POOR MODEL OF FAITHFULNESS: Because Terri was so sensitive to abandonment, she was ready to see ANYONE who stayed with her as faithful, even the drug dealer and pimp Obbo. Obbo undermined Terri's attempts to stay off drugs and endangered Terri by asking her to hide stolen and illegal material, but Terri saw him as the one faithful person in her life because he was always there and didn't out-and-out hurt her.
• THE FUTURE: It is hard to imagine what will happen to Terri Weedon next - beyond the deaths of Robbie and Krystal. What a painful abandonment to add to all the previous abandonments.

OVERALL: I find the idea of fractal patterns in life to be very helpful. Observing the fractal pattern of abandonment in Terri Weedon's life and seeing how it recurs and re-entrenches helps in viewing with compassionate eyes a person who repeats negative behavior. It is easy to condemn Terri's visible drug addiction, prostitution, and lack of parenting skills, while ignoring the invisible pain of her abandonment fractal pattern.

It is also clear in examining life fractal patterns that these fractal patterns are matters of interpretation. Terri INTERPRETS departures as abandonment. She could interpret them differently.

I think that a key for my own life is to recognize fractal patterns, consciously reinforce the positive ones, and re-interpret the negative ones so that they are no longer negative. For example, in a fractal pattern of abandonment, one might reinterpret people's departures as simply their moving on to something else, rather than their abandonment of me.

Reflections on Terri Weedon's Use of Language in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling

SPOILER ALERT

My previous post focuses on the adult characters in THE CASUAL VACANCY by  J. K. Rowling and on the various purposes for which they use language. Most of these purposes involve ways in which these adults seek to enhance their own significance. In this post, I will focus on one particular character, Terri Weedon, and on what I find to be her very interesting and revealing use of language. 

THE CASUAL VACANCY is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. The process of filling the vacant council seat reveals the dark underbelly of the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford.

As this political process and various directly-related and tangentially-related inter-personal interactions unfold, we see that the town of Pagford is divided in its attitude toward the Fields, a poor area to the north over which Pagford has jurisdiction. Many in Pagford regard the poor within their own town as the "deserving" poor, who work and contribute to society, but they see the poor of the Fields as the "undeserving" poor, who do not work but drain society of resources. The poor of the Fields are considered as lazy free-loaders and their children as undisciplined trouble-makers.

TERRI WEEDON. Terri Weedon is one of the "undeserving" poor of the Fields. Terri, in fact, is particularly "undeserving." She is a heroin addict who has cycled through the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic more than once, only to return to her drug habit. She is a prostitute. She is the mother of four children. Her eldest two were removed from her home and raised by others. She lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Krystal, and her four-year-old son, Robbie, and her fitness to care for them is highly questionable. Krystal often escapes the chaos of her own home life by spending the night at the home of her friend, Nikki. Robbie, at four, is still wearing diapers and is frequently absent from the nursery school where he is enrolled.

As far as I can see, Terri doesn't use language very much. She rarely initiates conversation, and she gives very brief replies when asked a question. Terri seems to have learned that language can entrap you, but that two uses of language serve as a defense: denial and agreement, each with its specific context for use.

DENIAL. When speaking with someone whom she perceives as an accuser, often a social worker who is trying to ascertain whether Terri is staying off illegal drugs and caring properly for Robbie, Terri simply denies having done anything that the social worker would not approve of. The denial is automatic and sometimes nonsensical. For instance, Terri may be clearly under the influence of heroin, yet she will steadfastly deny having taken any. Below is an example of Terri's knee-jerk denial in a conversation that includes Terri, her sixteen-year-old daughter Krystal, and social worker Kay Bawden. I have excerpted the words of the conversation from pages 109-110.

KAY: Terri, you'd used when I arrived yesterday, hadn't you?

TERRI: No, I fuckin' hadn'! Tha's a fuckin' -- you're fuckin' -- I ain' used, all righ'?

KRYSTAL: You fuckin' --

TERRI: I ain' fuckin' used, you ain' go' no proof --

KRYSTAL: You fuckin' stupid.

TERRI: I ain' fuckin' used, tha's a fuckin' lie. I never fuckin' did, righ', I never --

Hoping to find a way to keep Terri in the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic's program, Kay says, "I think the only way you can possibly avoid being thrown out . . . is to admit, up front, that you've used, take responsibility for the lapse and show your commitment to turning over a new leaf" (page 112). Rowling then explains, "Lying was the only way Terri knew to meet her many accusers" (page 112), and "She seemed to be trying to take in what Kay had said to her: this bizarre, dangerous advice about telling the truth" (page 112).

AGREEMENT. On the other hand, Terri never says no to a demand or a request. When a social worker gives instructions, Terri agrees to follow them. When Obbo, a drug dealer and pimp of Terri's acquaintance, makes a request that involves breaking the social worker's instructions, Terri agrees to do whatever Obbo is asking. The agreement to requests and demands is just as automatic as the denial of accusations.

When Kay Bawden, the social worker, agrees to try to keep Terri in the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic's program, Kay also says, "But, Terri, as far as we're concerned, I mean the Child Protection team, this is serious. We are going to have to monitor Robbie's home situation closely. We need to see a change, Terri" (pages 112-113). To this, Terri typically responds, "All righ', yeah" (page 113).

Just as typical is this conversation on pages 409-410, several weeks later with Obbo:

     "Listen, said Obbo, "couldja keep a bit more stuff for me fer a bit?"

     "Kinda stuff?" asked Terri, prying Robbie off her leg and holding his hand instead.

     "Coupla bags o' stuff," said Obbo. "Really help me out, Ter."

     "'Ow long for?"

     "Few days. Bring it round this evenin'. Will yeh?"

     Terri thought of Krystal and what she would say if she knew.

     "Yeah, go on then," said Terri.

     She remembered something else, and pulled Tessa's watch out of her pocket. "Gonna sell this, whaddaya reckon?"

     "Not bad," said Obbo, weighing it in his hand. "I'll give yeh twenty for it. Bring it over tonight?"

     Terri had thought the watch might be worth more, but she did not like to challenge him.

     "Yeah, all righ' then."

DENIAL AND AGREEMENT. Denial. Agreement. Denial. Agreement. This seems to constitute the bulk of Terri Weedon's language repertoire. She seems to use language largely for two purposes: to defend herself against others, and to place or keep herself in others' good graces.

In other words, Terri's language has little or no relationship to the truth of the matter under consideration. Whether or not Terri has used heroin, she will deny using it when questioned. Whether or not Terri intends to follow a social worker's instructions, she will agree to do so when instructed. The only way to understand most of Terri's language use is as defense or acquiescence, not as expressing any sort of truth about what she has actually done or what she actually intends to do.

It certainly seems important for people in positions like that of social worker to understand this kind of "communication" dynamic and to recognize when they may be dealing with it.

My consideration of language in this post and the previous one suggests that I might benefit from paying more attention to my own language use. Do I use language to express the truth, or at least my truth? Do I ever attempt to hide the truth by my use of language? Do I ever use language to manipulate? Good questions.

My next post will be my final post on THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling. I will examine a relationship I see between Rowling's novel and an idea I've learned about from the philosopher Jean Houston. Jean Houston speaks of the mathematical concept of fractals and how fractals apply to our lives. In particular, I will examine the fractal pattern of abandonment in the life of Rowling's character Terri Weedon.

Reflections on Adults' Language Use in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling

SPOILER ALERT

My previous four posts have focused on teenagers and their thirst for significance in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling.  I will now turn my attention to the adults, who reveal their own thirst for significance in this novel, Rowling's first since her Harry Potter series. While the teen characters seek significance largely through their actions, the adult characters do so largely through their use of language. 

THE CASUAL VACANCY is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. The process of filling the vacant council seat reveals the dark underbelly of the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford. Throughout this political process and the many directly-related and tangentially-related inter-personal interactions that arise, one of the most striking elements is the multitude of ways in which the adult characters use language.

COMMON VIEW OF LANGUAGE. When we think about language, we usually assume that its purpose is to communicate a straightforward message. That is, we have a message we wish to convey to someone else, so we put the message into words that we speak to the other person, and the other person hears our words and receives the message we wish to convey. At least, this is what happens in a straightforward spoken communication when all goes well.

Most of us also realize that other factors can complicate the message transmission process. For example, the message receiver may mis-hear or mis-interpret our words. In addition, our message is conveyed not only through the spoken words themselves, but also through voice tone, facial expression, gesture, and body language - all of which strongly shape the message received and may even contradict the straightforward meaning of the spoken words. Moreover, our past communication history with the other person will influence how the other person understands our message.

Besides all this, people consciously and sub-consciously use language for purposes other than to convey a straightforward message. THE CASUAL VACANCY is a cornucopia of such purposes. Most are related to fulfilling an adult character's thirst for significance.

TO DISPLAY KNOWLEDGE. This can be a way of serving another by sharing knowledge that will be helpful to the other person, and it can be a way of standing out as the one who knows what others don't. Miles Mollison's explanation of the history of Pagford, Yarvil, and the Fields to Kay Bawden, a fairly new resident of Pagford, is largely of the helpful type, although it's also true that Miles' account is colored by his discriminatory attitude toward Fields residents and by his desire to shine as a fountain of knowledge about the area. Kay Bawden's report on the effectiveness of the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic for the Pagford Parish Council is given in a spirit of helpfulness, and it also allows her to shine as someone with important information to contribute to her new community.

TO BE THE FIRST TO TELL NEWS.  A lot of this goes on in the novel. Whenever someone has a bit of news or gossip, that person diligently searches for opportunities to be the first to tell the tidbit to others and to relish their reactions - and even becomes quite anxious lest someone else beat him or her to telling the news first.

TO TAKE REVENGE. A certain amount of talk is revenge talk - talk aimed at making another person uncomfortable but disguised as a seemingly innocent question or a seemingly solicitous suggestion. For example, when Samantha Mollison invites Gavin Hughes and his girlfriend, Kay Bawden, to her home for dinner, she plans what she might say that evening to discomfit Gavin. On page 211, Rowling writes, "Samantha tried to cheer herself up by thinking of nasty questions to ask Gavin. Perhaps she might wonder aloud why Kay had not moved in with him: that would be a good one." (It is clear to Samantha that Kay considers herself and Gavin a couple, but that Gavin is unhappy with this arrangement.)

TO CLASSIFY OR LABEL. Some talk has as its purpose to classify people into categories and label them. Among many in Pagford, the poor of Pagford are considered the "deserving" poor, while the poor of the Fields are considered the "undeserving" poor. On page 224, in a conversation with social worker Kay Bawden, Miles Mollison puts it this way:

"Pagford's full of working-class people, Kay; the difference is, most of them work. D'you know what proportion of the Fields lives off benefits? Responsibility, you say: what happened to personal responsibility? We've had them through the local school for years: kids who haven't got a single worker in the family; the concept of earning a living is completely foreign to them; generations of non-workers, and we're expected to subsidize them--"

Such language classifications and labels allow us to think that we know a whole group of people and to favor or dismiss members of that group based on what we think we know about those belonging to that classification or label.

TO BE SEXY. We see this in Samantha Mollison, who seeks significance in being sexually attractive to younger (much younger) people. Samantha and Miles Mollison have two teenage daughters, so they are probably in their late thirties. Nonetheless, Samantha finds herself strongly attracted to Jake, a member of a rock band on one of her fourteen-year-old daughter's DVDs, a musician in his early twenties. Samantha secretly watches the DVD over and over and buys music magazines with articles about Jake. She fantasizes about being eighteen years old and having sex with Jake. Language about this is evident in its absence: Samantha remains silent about her attraction to Jake, but savors it secretly.

TO CONTROL THROUGH FEAR. We see this in Simon Price and his abusiveness. Simon belittles his wife and two sons, calls them names, threatens them, and even sometimes physically strikes them. He gets his way in his family because he keeps his wife and sons in terror of his rages.

TO UPHOLD EXPECTATIONS. We see this in a very interesting way with Gavin Hughes in his relationship with Kay Bawden. Kay has moved to Pagford to further her relationship with Gavin, who really doesn't want to become entangled with Kay. But Gavin is given to fulfilling expectations, so he nearly always says the expected thing. When he feels that he is expected to compliment Kay or ask her out or respond to her affection, he does so - with the predictable result that he strengthens Kay's ties with him. Wanting to extricate himself from this relationship, Gavin succeeds only in strengthening it because he cannot bring himself to stop the forward flow of events, a flow to which he actually contributes by saying and doing the expected thing. He cannot manage to do the UNexpected thing of simply speaking out directly and breaking up with Kay.

TO STRENGTHEN ONE'S BODY IMAGE. I'm not quite sure what to call this purpose, so I've called it "to strengthen one's body image." This is what we see with Howard Mollison's obesity. Howard's physician, Dr. Parminder Jawanda, tells him plainly that his health problems are due to his obesity and would disappear or diminish greatly if Howard would adopt simple healthy lifestyle changes. Howard refuses to do this because of what he tells himself about his obesity. On page 348, Rowling explains what Howard tells himself.

After his father had left, his mother had sat him at the head of the table, between herself and his grandmother, and been hurt if he did not take seconds. Steadily he had grown to fill the space between the two women, as heavy at twelve as the father who had left them. Howard had come to associate a hearty appetite with manliness. His bulk was one of his defining characteristics. It had been built with pleasure, by the women who loved him, and he thought it was absolutely characteristic of Bends-Your-Ear [Dr. Parminder Jawanda], that emasculating killjoy, that she wanted to strip him of it.

Howard also notices that thin people have health problems, too: "Look at the Hubbards' boy: built like a beanpole, and shocking asthma" (page 348). Howard uses language to justify his obesity and the unhealthy behavior that keeps him obese.

TO EMPATHIZE. Toward the end of the novel, something very interesting happens in the relationship between Colin Wall and his adopted teenage son, Stuart, or Fats. Colin suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and his mind often accuses him of things he hasn't done. He obsesses that he may be guilty of one crime or another that he absolutely has not committed. He is tortured with guilt for things he has never done. Fats despises his father for this weakness. The relationship between Fats and his father is acrimonious.

However, Fats eventually has his own encounter with guilt. While Fats and his classmate Krystal Weedon are having sex by the river, Krystal's four-year-old brother, Robbie, falls into the river and drowns. Robbie was supposed to be in the care of Krystal and Fats at the time. When the police arrive and Robbie is pulled from the river, Fats runs away. As a result, he is overcome with guilt, which is compounded by the fact that Krystal herself, upon seeing that Robbie is dead, storms home, barricades herself in the bathroom, deliberately injects herself with an overdose of heroin from her mother's supply, and thus dies by her own hand.

Interestingly, it is Fats' guilt that opens communication and ultimately reconciles Fats with his father, who understands guilt intimately. On page 495, Rowling explains:

In the gloomy, familiar sitting room, where Fats had confessed to his parents that he had exposed his father's illness to the world [in an anonymous Internet post on the Pagford Parish Council website]; where he had confessed to as much as he could think of, in the hope that they would conclude him to be mad and ill; where he had tried to heap upon himself so much blame that they would beat him or stab him or do to him all those things that he knew he deserved, Colin put a hand gently on his son's back and steered him away, towards the sunlit kitchen.

I think I love this language use the best. It is a way of turning pain to good. Because Colin understood guilt so well through his mental obsession, he could reach out to his guilt-ridden son in love, communicate understanding to him, and speak words of true comfort, essentially saying, "I will use my experience and my pain to help and comfort you."

This post has examined nine uses of language, each related in some way to the thirst for significance on the part of the adult characters in J. K. Rowling's A CASUAL VACANCY. My next post will examine one additional use of language, employed mostly by Terri Weedon, who is a heroin addict, a prostitute, and the mother of sixteen-year-old Krystal and four-year-old Robbie.

Reflections on Teenagers and Their Thirst for Significance in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling - Part 4

SPOILER ALERT

This is my fourth and final post with reflections on teenagers and their thirst for signficance in THE CASUAL VACANCY, J. K. Rowling's first novel since her Harry Potter series. This novel for adults is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. The process of filling the vacant council seat reveals the dark underbelly of the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford.

This post continues and concludes my reflections on a prominent theme in the novel: teenagers and their thirst for significance during that in-between time when one is no longer a child but not yet an adult. This theme shows up in the dis-empowering treatment of teenagers in Pagford, in teens' attention to autonomous thoughts, in their striving for authenticity, in the importance they accord to secret places, in smoking behavior, in sexual behavior, in bullying behavior, in the practice of self-cutting, in the ability to act significantly but anonymously afforded by the Internet, in sports, in family aspirations, in possessing valuable objects, and in suicide.

My previous three posts reflect on dis-empowerment, autonomous thoughts, authenticity, secret places, smoking, sexual behavior, bullying, cutting, and Internet anonymity. This post will reflect on sports, family aspirations, valuable objects, and suicide.

KRYSTAL WEEDON. In this post, we turn our attention to a teenager in THE CASUAL VACANCY whom I haven't yet mentioned in my posts on teens' thirst for significance in Rowling's novel. This is sixteen-year-old Krystal Weedon, a classmate of Andrew Price, Fats Wall, and Sukhvinder Jawanda, a resident of the Fields, and one of the "undeserving" poor. Krystal certainly has a troubled background. She is the third child of Terri Weedon, who is a drug addict and a prostitute. Krystal doesn't know her elder brother and sister, both of whom were removed from the home by social workers and were raised by others. Krystal lives with her mother, Terri, and her four-year-old brother, Robbie. I would characterize Krystal as a young girl with a good heart, an abrasive manner, and a tendency to act on impulse. She is struggling against great odds to keep her mother off drugs and their family of three intact. She also has a rough and sassy attitude, street smarts, and heightened sexual energy.

SPORTS. One way that Krystal reaches for significance is through sports. Krystal is a member of her school's rowing team. The team was formed by Barry Fairbrother, the recently deceased Pagford Parish Council member. Barry grew up in the poor Fields area and succeeded in moving into the solid middle class of Pagford. He has a heart for residents of the Fields and a desire to encourage Krystal Weedon. He took it upon himself to volunteer to form and coach a girl's rowing team at the high school, and he quickly singled out Krystal as a girl with natural strength, coordination, and rowing ability. Krystal became a valuable member of the rowing team, a positive and productive way of being significant. Her team members were inspired by her skill and her confidence in competition.

FAMILY ASPIRATIONS. Here is a beautiful thing about Krystal. She dreams of emulating her great grand-mother, Nana Cath (Catherine Weedon), who, until her death, provides a safe place where Krystal can retreat when she needs to. Nana Cath is protective and loving, yet also stern and forbidding at times. Krystal dreams of having a child - in fact, she has sex with Fats Wall in the hope of becoming pregnant, knowing that Fats' parents would help her out if she were having their grand-child. She imagines herself in a home that Fats' parents would help to provide for her, a home that would also be a haven for her four-year-old brother, Robbie. Here is what J. K. Rowling says about Krystal Weedon's family aspirations on page 328.

[In having sex with Fats, what Krystal] wanted was the baby: the baby was more than a means to an end. She liked babies; she had always loved Robbie. She would keep the two of them safe, together; she would be like a better, kinder, younger Nana Cath to her family.

This dream is never fulfilled, but it shows a very generous side of a young girl who is often looked down upon because of her "unsavory" family background. The one bright spot in Krystal's family, along with her brother Robbie, is Nana Cath, and this is how Krystal dreams of being significant - by loving and protecting her family as she has seen Nana Cath do, and even by improving upon what she has seen in Nana Cath's methods: "she would be a better, kinder, younger Nana Cath to her family" (page 328).

Krystal aspires to take the few positive elements of her family life and build her own life upon them. We can question her method of getting pregnant by Fats Wall so as to have Colin and Tessa Wall's grand-child and hence their help, but for a teenager with very few life options, it is a generous plan, one in which Krystal seeks significance through what she can give to her family.

POSSESSING SPECIAL OBJECTS. This way of feeling significant is not surprising for Krystal Weedon, who has had so little of her own in life. Krystal likes to take things that don't belong to her, preferably things that belong to people who are significant in Krystal's life. One interesting instance of this is the wrist-watch belonging to Tessa Wall, who is Krystal's guidance counselor at school and whose grand-child Krystal would like to have. It is interesting to trace the path of Tessa's watch through the novel after Krystal takes it.

I confess that I have felt contemptuous of kleptomaniacs. I can sort of understand shop-lifting, since one doesn't have a personal relationship with the store owner, and indeed, the store may be a large chain store. I can see that a person might shop-lift without feeling that they were harming anyone in any way. But to take something that belongs to a friend or an acquaintance - surely anyone would know that this is wrong.

J. K. Rowling's character Krystal Weedon, however, gives me a different perspective on this. Krystal takes things from people she admires without really understanding why she does it. But given the harsh realities of Krystal's life, I think I can see the reason. Perhaps having something from an admired person means a deeper connection with that person and with that person's significance. In having Tessa Wall's wrist-watch, Krystal may feel a closer connection with Tessa. Perhaps, also, in Krystal's sub-conscious mind, some of Tessa's significance is transferred to Krystal through this object. I think that there is a way to understand what looks like theft as a yearning for a deeper connection with an admired person and as a yearning for one's own significance.

SUICIDE. At the end of the novel, Krystal Weedon commits suicide. She does this right after learning of her four-year-old brother Robbie's death, for which she blames herself. While Krystal was having sex by the river with Fats Wall in an attempt to become pregnant and thus receive the Walls' help in obtaining a home for herself, her baby-to-be, and Robbie -- Robbie, who was supposed to be in Krystal's care, fell into the river and drowned. On learning this, Krystal rushes home, barricades herself in the bathroom, and injects herself with enough of her mother's heroin to kill herself. On page 480, Rowling explains, "Robbie was dead, and it was her fault. In trying to save him, she had killed him." Then on page 481, Rowling says, "Krystal Weedon had achieved her only ambition: she had joined her brother where nobody could part them."

Krystal Weedon was a generous and capable girl who could have grown into a strong and kind-hearted woman with much to give to the world. Because Krystal's home life was so abysmal, she needed a mentor, such as she had in Barry Fairbrother, until he died.

So much was stacked against Krystal, and in the end, she didn't make it. Here was one more loss - the loss of her precious little brother, Robbie - piled upon the very recent loss of her mentor, Barry Fairbrother, and of her protective great grand-mother, Nana Cath. Krystal's impulsiveness took over, probably coupled with overwhelming grief piled upon grief, and the resultant despair.

This world had become impossible for Krystal - or at least, it seemed that way to her. The people who had given significance to Krystal's life were no longer in this world. So Krystal reached out into the spirit world, where she could join Robbie - and Nana Cath and Mr. Fairbrother - the people who had given her life its meaning.

My next post will turn from the teenagers in THE CASUAL VACANCY to reflections upon the adults.

Reflections on Teenagers and Their Thirst for Significance in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling - Part 3

SPOILER ALERT

This is my third post with reflections on teenagers and their thirst for signficance in THE CASUAL VACANCY, J. K. Rowling's first novel since her Harry Potter series. This novel for adults is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. The process of filling the vacant council seat reveals the dark underbelly of the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford.

This post continues my reflections on a prominent theme in the novel: teenagers and their thirst for significance during that in-between time when one is no longer a child but not yet an adult. This theme shows up in the dis-empowering treatment of teenagers in Pagford, in teens' attention to autonomous thoughts, in their striving for authenticity, in the importance they accord to secret places, in smoking behavior, in sexual behavior, in bullying behavior, in the practice of self-cutting, in the ability to act significantly but anonymously afforded by the Internet, in possessing valuable objects, in sports, in family aspirations, and in suicide.

My previous two posts reflect on dis-empowerment, autonomous thoughts, authenticity, secret places, smoking, sexual behavior, bullying, and cutting. This post will reflect on Internet anonymity.

INTERNET ANONYMITY. Rowling's novel shows how a savvy Internet user can post on the Internet with complete anonymity. In THE CASUAL VACANCY, teenager Andrew Price does exactly this. A substitute teacher has recently told Andrew's computer class about SQL injections, which allow one to hack into a website that doesn't have proper security. At an Internet café, Andrew uses an SQL injection to hack into the Pagford Parish Council website. Since the site is administered by a very amateur computer user who has not set up even minimal security against hacking, Andrew is successful on his first try. A post by the recently deceased council member, Barry Fairbrother, allows Andrew to access the dead man's username and password and to post a comment himself after changing the username to The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother.

Andrew has composed a post about his father, Simon Price, who has decided to run for Barry Fairbrother's now vacant Pagford Parish Council seat. Simon is very abusive to his family, and Andrew has been swallowing bucketsful of anger throughout his life as he, his mother, and his brother have endured the terror of Simon's rages. Andrew also knows that Simon possesses a stolen computer and has earned under-the-table money by using the printers at his place of employment to do illicit printing jobs. Andrew reveals Simon's dishonesy in a comment on the Pagford Parish Council website titled "Simon Price Unfit to Stand for Council" by The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother. Although Andrew's best friend, Stuart "Fats" Wall, is with Andrew and sees what he has done, Fats remains silent and no one ever discovers that Andrew is the person behind that damaging post.

Later, teenager Sukhvinder Jawanda, daughter of Pagford Parish Council member Parminder Jawanda, uses the same method to express anger at her mother. Sukhvinder, too, heard the lecture on SQL injections from the substitute teacher in the computer class, and manages to hack into the Pagford Parish Council website, compose a damaging post about her mother, and attribute it to The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother. Like Andrew Price, Sukhvinder Jawanda remains permanently anonymous. No one ever identifies her as the author of that post.

Next, Fats Wall composes a damaging post about his father, also a contender for the vacant Pagford Parish Council seat, and finally, Andrew Price composes a final post about an extra-marital affair of council member Howard Mollison.

In the end, Fats, due to an unusual set of circumstances, confesses to having authored all four posts by The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother. Otherwise, one assumes, no author of these posts would ever have been discovered. (Indeed, with Fats taking responsibility for all four posts, the involvement of Andrew Price and of Sukhvinder Jawanda never is discovered.)

The temptation to post anonymously on the Internet can be very strong. In New Orleans, we have the case of Sal Perricone, assistant attorney to U. S. prosecutor Jim Letten, who has been revealed as the composer of Internet comments on federal cases being prosecuted by Letten and Perricone. Perricone posted under the username of Henry L. Mencken1951. As a member of the prosecuting team, Perricone is forbidden to comment on cases being prosecuted, but that didn't prevent him from giving in to the strong temptation to post anonymous comments. Clearly, he wasn't as careful as the teenagers in Rowling's THE CASUAL VACANCY, for Perricone's anonymous comments were traced to him, forcing his resignation.

It now also appears that Jan Mann, another member of Jim Letten's team, has posted similar comments under the username eweman. Tellingly, the comments of eweman stopped just as soon as Sal Perricone was revealed as Henry L. Mencken1951.

I suppose it could be exhilarating to see one's comments in print, hear people discussing them, and continue on as a member of the federal prosecuting team. One would feel very powerful, perhaps even invincible.

I don't know why Sal Perricone and Jan Mann needed to experience this kind of exhilaration, but I can see how it would be intoxicating for teenagers. Teenagers don't have much say-so about their lives. To cause something significant to happen, to know that you caused something significant to happen, to hear people discussing what you have caused and searching for the perpetrator, and just to watch silently what you have set in motion while no one suspects that it was you - this would give teenagers a heady sense of power.

My next post will conclude my reflections on teenagers and their thirst for significance in THE CASUAL VACANCY, focusing on valuable objects, sports, family aspirations, and suicide.

Reflections on Teenagers and Their Thirst for Significance in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling - Part 2

SPOILER ALERT

This post continues my reflections on teenagers and their thirst for signficance in THE CASUAL VACANCY, J. K. Rowling's first novel since her Harry Potter series. This novel for adults is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. The process of filling the vacant council seat reveals the dark underbelly of the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford.

This post will continue my reflections on a prominent theme in the novel: teenagers and their thirst for significance during that in-between time when one is no longer a child but not yet an adult. This theme shows up in the dis-empowering treatment of teenagers in Pagford, in teens' attention to autonomous thoughts, in their striving for authenticity, in the importance they accord to secret places, in smoking behavior, in sexual behavior, in bullying behavior, in the practice of self-cutting, in the ability to act significantly but anonymously afforded by the Internet, in possessing valuable objects, in sports, in family aspirations, and in suicide.

My previous post reflects on dis-empowerment, autonomous thoughts, and authenticity. This post will reflect on secret places, smoking, sexual behavior, bullying, and self-cutting.

SECRET PLACES. Children and teenagers seem to love secret places. Maybe adults do, too. A secret place gives a sense of power. No one else knows where it is. One can be autonomous in one's secret place.

Andrew Price and Fats Wall have a secret place: a cave along the river bank, dangerous to reach. The river bank ends at a hillside, where a very narrow ledge above the rushing river at the bottom of the hill constitutes the only path along the steep hill-face to the cave. One must inch carefully along the ledge, using hand-holds of rocks and crannies in the hill-face until one arrives at the cave's opening. Andrew and Fats are adept at this. They discovered this secret place when they were eleven years old; they are now sixteen. The place is both forbidden and dangerous, increasing its appeal.

A cave that no one else knows about. A secret place of power.

SMOKING. This seems to appeal to many teens, including many Pagford teenagers. This is most unfortunate because smoking is so disastrous for one's health.

SEXUAL BEHAVIOR. Naturally, Pagford teens want to experiment with sex, and do. It's hard to know what a healthy approach to sexual behavior for teens might be. I certainly don't claim to know.

BULLYING BEHAVIOR. Bullying is, most unfortunately, alive and well in Pagford. One target is Sukhvinder Jawanda. Sukhvinder is a middle child with a gorgeous brainy elder sister, Jaswant, and a handsome clever younger brother, Rajpal. Both Jaswant and Rajpal are the pride of their Indian parents, Parminder (the mother) and Vikram (the father), and both are popular among their school mates. Sukhvinder feels awkward and dumb as she endures the scolding of her mother and the bullying of Fats Wall. Fats whispers remarks in Sukhvinder's presence and posts remarks on her Facebook page that question Sukhvinder's sexuality. The remarks liken Sukhvinder to a hermaphrodite, a lesbian, a girl-child covered with hair.

This is a terrible way to feel powerful and "significant" at another's expense. "Here is something significant I can do. I can cause another to feel deep pain. See how significant I am - I can hurt someone else." Terrible as this is, people choose this way to feel significant.

Even more, I believe that people choose this way to feel powerful when they already have power. Sometimes the most popular kids in the school are the ones who do the bullying. These kids are popular, they have power - and they love it. They want more. Bullying gives them more. To hurt someone else, to cause deep pain, to be powerful enough to hurt someone significantly - this can produce quite a rush. And there are people who choose that rush of power they feel when bullying.

SELF-CUTTING. Sukhvinder, the target of Fats Wall's bullying, cuts herself. This is a way of replacing deep emotional pain with physical pain. The physical pain overwhelms the self-cutter so that the emotional pain is blocked out. I can understand this intellectually, but it is not something I can imagine myself doing. I certainly don't enjoy emotional pain, but neither do I wish to experience physical pain. My solution is generally to engage in an activity I enjoy so that the enjoyment takes over. Since childhood, I have done this with reading - losing myself in the world of story.

For Sukhvinder, though, self-cutting is a life-line. On page 147, J. K. Rowling says, "[Sukhvinder] clung to the prospect of her only consolation, as she would have hugged a life belt, waiting, waiting, for them all to go to bed." What this young girl was anticipating so eagerly was the opportunity to cut herself with a razor blade. On page 149, Rowling describes the cutting: "With a slight shiver of fear that was a blessed relief in its narrow, immediate focus, [Sukhvinder] placed the blade halfway up her forearm and sliced into her own flesh." Later on page 149, Rowling explains, "The blade drew the pain away from her screaming thoughts and transmuted it into animal burning of nerves and skin: relief and release in every cut."

How much emotional pain one must be in to feel such immense relief when the emotional pain is overwhelmed by the physical pain. To think that one would actually welcome physical pain, actually inflict it on oneself by cutting one's flesh, so as to be briefly free of emotional pain.

The amount of pain in the world, even within one human being, is vast. Just the possibility that a child of mine might experience such intense emotional pain as to want to relieve it by self-cutting makes me so grateful that I have never brought a child into this world, where such pain is possible.

My next post will continue with reflections on the anonymity afforded by the Internet and how this is used by teens in THE CASUAL VACANCY.

Reflections on Teenagers and Their Thirst for Significance in THE CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling - Part 1

SPOILER ALERT

THE CASUAL VACANCY is J. K. Rowling's first novel since her Harry Potter series. It is a novel for adults. The novel is set in the fictional rural English town of Pagford. A "casual vacancy" on the Pagford Parish Council has resulted from the sudden death of council member Barry Fairbrother, due to an aneurysm. The process of filling the vacant council seat reveals the dark underbelly of the seemingly idyllic town of Pagford.

My previous post gave an overview of THE CASUAL VACANCY. This post will begin to offer reflections about a prominent theme in the novel: teenagers and their thirst for significance during that in-between time when one is no longer a child but not yet an adult.

This theme shows up in the dis-empowering treatment of teenagers in Pagford, in teens' attention to autonomous thoughts, in their striving for authenticity, in the importance they accord to secret places, in smoking behavior, in sexual behavior, in bullying behavior, in the practice of self-cutting, in the ability to act significantly but anonymously afforded by the Internet, in possessing valuable objects, in sports, in family aspirations, and in suicide.

This post will discuss dis-empowerment, autonomous thoughts, and authenticity.

DIS-EMPOWERING TREATMENT. Teenagers in Pagford are dis-empowered, but no more so than are teenagers anywhere else. To my mind, teens need graduated opportunities to shoulder more and more responsibility under the guidance of mentoring adults, who extend more and more autonomy to the teens as they show themselves capable and mature. With appropriate guidance, teens can take responsible positions in the work place, author books, report for newspapers, undertake scientific research, excel as athletes, initiate projects that address community needs, produce plays and films, and so much more. This doesn't happen in Pagford, nor does it happen in many communities. Teens are forced through a school curriculum that appears meaningless to them, and they find no meaningful outlets for their energy and creativity. Feelings of anger and alienation build up and eventually burst forth in ways that can be quite destructive.

ATTENTION TO AUTONOMOUS THOUGHTS. Andrew Price is a teen who uses his own hidden thought-life to counter the dis-empowerment he faces in the larger world. Andrew's father, Simon, is very abusive to his two sons, Andrew (about age 16) and Paul (about age 12). Simon belittles his sons, calls them names, and beats them at will. Their mother, Ruth, also suffers abuse at Simon's hands; unfortunately, she refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the abuse, makes excuses for Simon, and tries ineffectually to placate her husband when he rages. The family lives in constant fear of Simon, never knowing when he will strike. As is the case in most dysfunctional families, Simon's wife and sons never speak of the terror that reigns in their home or of Simon's rageful behavior. Andrew is silent about all this even with his best friend, Stuart "Fats" Wall.

Andrew correctly deems it unsafe to confront his father outwardly, so he endures Simon's abuse in silence. But inwardly, he constantly tells Simon what he thinks of him. No one can read or censure Andrew's thoughts; he is completely free to think at Simon with impunity. And this is what Andrew does.

We see this in our first encounter with the Price family, when Simon learns about Barry Fairbrother's death due to an aneurysm and about the resultant casual vacancy on the Pagford Parish Council. Here is part of the scene, with Andrew's unspoken thoughts, on page 13.

     "He'd had a bad headache for a couple of days, apparently," [said Ruth].
     "Ah," said Simon, chewing toast. "And he ignored it?"
     "Oh, yes, he didn't think anything of it."
     Simon swallowed.
     "Goes to show, doesn't it?" he said portentously. "Got to watch yourself."
     That's wise, thought Andrew, with furious contempt; that's profound. So it was Barry Fairbrother's own fault his brain had burst open. You self-satisfied fucker, Andrew told his father, loudly, inside his own head.

I remember engaging, myself, in these sorts of autonomous thoughts with my own father, who was given to rages and abusiveness similar to that of Simon Price. I remember standing silently before my rageful father while thinking my anger at him, and I remember the power of realizing that I was in some way more powerful than he was. My father, in his visible rage, was revealing his emotions for all to see, while I was expressing my emotions covertly in my mind, where no one could see. My father wasn't fooling me at all, but I had the power of fooling him with my outward submissiveness, hiding the inward angry thoughts I was sending at him, thoughts of which I kept him ignorant. I understand Andrew Price and the power and autonomy he surely felt in sending angry thoughts toward his father, who remained ignorant of those thoughts.

STRIVING FOR AUTHENTICITY. Andrew's best friend, Stuart "Fats" Wall, finds a different sort of self-expression. Both Fats' parents work at the school Fats attends - his father, Colin or "Cubby," as deputy headmaster, and his mother, Tessa, as guidance counselor. For Fats, authenticity is very important. Fats absorbs himself in efforts to distinguish his own authentic feelings from his conditioning and to act on his authentic feelings. Here is how Rowling explains Fats' devotion to authenticity on page 74.

The difficult thing, the glorious thing, was to be who you really were, even if that person was cruel or dangerous, particularly if cruel and dangerous. There was courage in not disguising the animal you happened to be. . . . Lately, [Fats] had been experimenting with acting on what he thought were his authentic impulses, and ignoring or suppressing the guilt and fear (inauthentic) that such actions seemed to engender. Undoubtedly, this was becoming easier with practice. He wanted to toughen up inside, to become invulnerable, to be free of the fear of consequences: to rid himself of spurious notions of goodness and badness.

To me, this sounds like a fine way to turn oneself into a sociopath. Actually, I wonder if Fats doesn't have some sociopathic tendencies. As a child in kindergarten, upon hearing that his friend Andrew has a serious peanut allergy, Fats had slipped Andrew a peanut hidden inside a marshmallow just to observe dispassionately what would happen. Fats also seems to enjoy bullying certain other students in his high school class, and even his good friend Andrew becomes uncomfortable with Fats' lack of empathy for fellow teens whom he is hurting. In addition, Fats has sex with a girl his age, having no feelings for her but simply wanting a certain kind of experience. Fats' attitude seems to be that he will act on his "authentic" feelings, no matter what the consequences for himself or others.

Fats also seems to have the idea that authenticity contradicts traditional morality. On page 76, Rowling explains:

What Fats wanted to recover was a kind of innocence, and the route he had chosen back to it was through all the things that were supposed to be bad for you, but which, paradoxically, seemed to Fats to be the one true way to authenticity; to a kind of purity. It was curious how often everything was back to front, the inverse of what they told you; Fats was starting to think that if you flipped every bit of received wisdom on its head you would have the truth. He wanted to journey through dark labyrinths and wrestle with the strangeness that  lurked within; he wanted to crack open piety and expose bloody hearts; he wanted to achieve a state of amoral grace, and be baptized backwards into ignorance and simplicity.

Although Fats' lack of empathy for others is disturbing, his idea that "if you flipped every bit of received wisdom on its head you would have the truth" (page 76) has some merit. This is the way my sister Maria has proceeded - though, unlike Fats, she has allowed empathy to inform her behavior choices. Maria has often chosen to do the opposite of what our parents, the Catholic Church in which we were raised, and conventional society admonish her to do. She is very much her own person, with unconventional attitudes toward sexuality, money, work, living space, spirituality, and other life matters. As a small example, Maria was raised with the maxim, "Don't talk to strangers"; she has tossed that idea away, makes it a special point to speak to strangers, has a much wider than usual circle of friends and acquaintances, and has befriended a number of homeless people.

Tempered with empathy, the idea that "if you flipped every bit of received wisdom on its head you would have the truth" (page 76) may work. Fats does not temper this idea with empathy; Maria does. In the end, though, when Fats understands that his "authentic" actions are in some way responsible for the death of a small child and the suicide of a teenager, he is overcome with a guilt that he cannot shake.

I would say that this striving with authenticity, tempered with empathy and including the questioning of previously unquestioned received wisdom, is a good thing at any time in life. I would further say that authenticity takes account of what one feels like doing in the moment and of what one deeply desires to accomplish with one's life. Sometimes these are at odds. One may feel like lashing out in the moment at an irritating person, but one may choose to act from compassion instead because of one's deeper desire to bring more compassion into the world. 

My next post will continue with reflections on the thirst for significance among teenagers in THE CASUAL VACANCY.