Childhood Wonders

Historical bildungsromans are a genre unto themselves. Most of them are told as something akin to “How the caterpillar became a butterfly.” Set it in a romantic era with some charming historical details and a few funny relatives, and you have an instant novel. Not necessarily a good novel, though.

One of the things that sets A Tree Grows in Brooklyn apart is that it is never really clear what the moral of the story is. Our heroine, Francie Nolan, grows up, but the novel ends slightly before we find out what exactly she becomes. We are watching Francie change, but it is not clear into what. You can guess at the end about what happens next, but it is purely a guess. You just don’t really know what the butterfly will look like.

Think about your own childhood for a second. Does it have an overarching narrative plot? You might be able to impose one on it with the benefit of hindsight and the desire to have your story be a single plotline. But, when you were growing up, what was your life? It was a whole bunch of unrelated short stories. There was that thing that happened in school in third grade. There was that time you and your best friend got into a fight in 5^th grade. There was that discussion you overheard between your parents that made no real sense. There was that time you got in trouble for that thing you didn’t do. You can add to that list at your leisure.

Did all those events belong in the same novel, though? Of course not. They were just your life as a kid. None of it really made sense. None of it connected to anything else. It was just life in a strange world full of strange events that happened and then stopped happening.

The same was true of all the people in your life. Think of your peers. How many of them do you actually remember? Why do you remember the ones you do remember? Adults are even an odder set. There were your teachers; you probably remember most of them. You remember your relatives too. But what about the neighbors? Your friends’ parents and your parents’ friends? The doctor and the dentist and the mailman and the bus driver and the lunch lady and the guy who worked at the local 7-11? They are all just so many hazy memories of strange adults wandering through life. You never gave most of them any thought at all.

Remembering what it was actually like to be a child is hard. Looking back, we impose order on the whole experience. Knowing what came after, we trace back what were the important things and what were the irrelevant details. But, that storyline you have created is just that: a storyline you created after the fact. Your memories of your childhood are completely disrupted by your knowledge of what came later.

What is it like to think like a child? That is what A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is trying to craft. There are lots of episodes in the novel, but it is not at all clear that they all form a coherent whole. There are lots of people in the novel, but it is not really clear who were the important people and who were not. As you are reading the novel, there are no clues saying “This episode is important.” All the episodes are important to Francie; she is the kid living through them. But, which ones will have a lasting effect and which ones are just the normal experiences of a kid who never quite understands what is going on? You the reader, in other words, know more than Francie, because you, the adult reading the book, understand more about the world than the kid in the story does. There is a crossword puzzle feel to much of the book: can you figure out what really just happened from this kid’s view of what just happened?

There is thus a magic to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and it is no wonder it has proven to be such a beloved novel. The world seen through the eyes of Francie is an amazing place. Wonder is everywhere. There is pain too, but the pain fades and is dulled; kids can be remarkably resilient to pain. There is tragedy and comedy, but neither one dominates the scene. Mostly, there is just another day and another month and another set of things to do. Adults never make much sense. Things just happen. And Francie just keeps moving along.

Growing up spoils a lot of things. There is a magic in the world that simply does not exist when we start imposing order on it. There is a blessed ignorance of the world that no longer exists when we understand the world of adults. Kids just take things as they are. Adults, well, we don’t. And that is most certainly a loss.

The beauty of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is that it captures that element of childhood. This is the power of books. As the novel itself put is, when Francie learns to read:

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.

Here is the book to read when you start feeling cynical and jaded and think that there is no magic left in the world. This is a book that reminds you that life is wonderful even when it seems like it isn’t.