Jason's Narration - Blog Post #4
Out of the four narrators we’ve come across in this class, Jason is definitely my favorite. To me, his narration simultaneously manages to be the most amusing of the bunch and the most engaging. Whether it’s from coming up with contractions such as “wouldn’t’ve” or quickly telling us how much of a wank a schoolmate is, Jason likes to toss in little tidbits of both intentional and unintentional comedy to help lighten the overall pretty grim tone of the book but never dwells on them so long that it hurts the pacing. My favorite example I’ve unsuccessfully spent the last hour looking for is prolly when he just casually mentions that none of the boys know entirely how periods work and are all afraid to dwell on the topic and then continues his current rant without blinking an eye.
One piece of Jason’s narration I quickly grew quite fond of was his ignorance of his family situation. As cruel as it may sound, Listening to Jason say things like “I don’t know why they’re being so generous” when his parents start showering him with presents seemingly out of nowhere and then moving along with his day with little to no suspicion is one of my favorite parts of his narration for two reasons. (Mitchell 185) One, it helps my ego when I see other people somehow being even more oblivious than me. Two, it helps the reader develop a feeling of sympathy for our narrator as he unknowingly grows closer and closer to the unfortunate ending that is his parents divorce. Whether it be a divorce or something far smaller, just about everyone knows the brace for impact type feeling when a parent starts being overly generous at “random” and it’s through this familiar experience that we can relate to Jason. His ignorance of the situation unfolding around him makes this connection even stronger as not only do we feel bad about his impending doom, we feel bad that his thirteen year old boy brain is unable to pick up on the circumstances and brace ourselves for Jason. It’s like having your mouth sewn shut and being forced to watch someone run into the middle of a seemingly empty road to grab an unclaimed twenty dollar bill. Sure the twenty’s nice, but the bad of an unseen car is about to far outweigh that good and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it.
However, even this high level of sympathy the reader feels for Jason’s impending divorce related doom comes nowhere close to how badly we feel for him on a day to day basis. The easiest way to make readers like a narrator is to make their life a living hell and boy oh boy does it work here because holy shit, I would absolutely hate to be Jason. This thirteen year old kid has to think miles ahead in his speech both at home and school thanks to his stammer, has to quadruple check his clothing choices before leaving the house out of fear of his peers’ judgment, has to hide his passion of poetry from nearly everyone he knows, can’t dare to be seen in public with his parents, and has to overthink what names to acknowledge his peers by. I accidentally yelled my brother’s name while calling for my dog twice this morning so it’s safe to say I wouldn’t have lasted a month in Jason’s shoes. However, Jason actually does get pretty far into the book before his stammer is exposed to the whole school and that makes him even more likable. Despite his increasingly unfortunate circumstances, he actually ends up a whole lot more popular than most of his peers by the end of the novel and there are few things my walnut sized brain likes more than an underdog-like main character.
Thanks for reading my irredeemable blog post. Have a nice day. Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do, I’m (probably) not your father.
Great post! I agree that Jason's narration is the most engaging so far, especially because his personality is clear from the start. Jason's humor also helps keep the book from dragging even on grim parts, but I think that its good he is also capable of treating serious scenes seriously. I also like how you point out that Jason seems oblivious to a lot of things that readers pick up on, which makes it interesting to see him surprised that seem obvious to us.
ReplyDeleteLOL "One, it helps my ego when I see other people somehow being even more oblivious than me." amazing and so true, it was driving me crazy watching him just ignore all the red flags in the first chapter with the phone call. Dude wasn't gonna use some imaginzation there?? Although I think your point of how it ups the like sympathy of him being young blissfully ignorant child, leaving more for the reader to do all the heavy lifting of "what the heck is going on" and lets us sympathize more with his character.
ReplyDeleteThis was a refreshing post so thanks lmao
I also love Jason's narrative voice, but it can be pretty difficult to try to capture it when I read aloud--I always hear it in my head more clearly than it comes through when I'm reading a passage in class. It's partly that those "wouldn't've's" and "couldn't've's" can be a mouthful, and it's partly that I refuse to even attempt a bad British accent (which I can hear quite clearly in my head when I read). We didn't mention it in class, I don't think, but David Mitchell also deploys italics to reflect the speech rhythms and often the levels of energy and enthusiasm in Jason's speech--and he uses them in a way that's different from Holden's more sarcastic emphases on specific syllables. I can clearly HEAR Jason putting that 13-year-old's wide-eyed enthusiasm behind some of his italics--especially when he does it with the word "epic," which is always italicized. Much like _Catcher_, this novel feels like someone *talking* to the reader--and in this case, he's often tripping over his words not because of a stammer but because he's so excited he can barely get it all out in order. And I love that about Jason.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with your post. I think Jason's narration is vital to a book like this, where his bits of humor and irony help us grapple with grim subject matter and intense passages.
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