This week: Tom Sawyer is the defining example of the American picaresque novel, but is it time to update the model? We discuss that question in this week's main section, then footnotes, and then a slight diversion to get us out. Here we go.
First things first. Here's a definition of the picaresque novel from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms:
a novel with a picaroon [rogue or scoundrel] as its hero or heroine, usually recounting his or her escapades in a "first-person narrative" market by its "episodic structure and realistic low-life descriptions. The picaroon is often a quick-witted servant who takes up with a succession of employers.
In American literature, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer1 built the template for a century's worth of picaresques2 for young readers. Tom Sawyer is a loveable rogue. He gets his friends to do his chores for him, runs away from home, spies on the adults in his life, and even crashes his own funeral. And yet, by the end of the first novel, at least, he is well-liked by everybody who knows him.
Characters like The Great Brain3, Encyclopedia Brown, Oz's the Shaggy Man, and even Nancy Drew have episodic adventures that see these protagonists outwit friend and foe alike in the name of having fun and / or solving crimes.4 By contrast, older teens, like the Hardy Boys or Tom Swift were often hard-working, well-mannered, and highly respected by their peers and authority figures alike.
On the comic book racks, characters similar to these almost-grown protagonists took center stage with the same hard-working ethos. Superman and Captain American fought Nazis, Batman5 solved crimes, and the Incredible Hulk...smashed. Things. Lots of things.
Enter Peter Parker, aka Spider-man.
Peter Parker is the first, and maybe only6, picaresque comic book. He was older than the teen sidekicks but younger than the other heroes. He didn't have Batman's funding or Superman's otherworldly disregard for things like apartments7, he was just a young person trying to keep a job while also be a hero. He was snarky and none-too-respectful towards his boss at the paper or the cops who showed up to arrest the criminals he had caught. He wasn't above pranking other heroes or toying with crooks. Most importantly, he didn't always do the right thing. Even after his greatest lessons8, Peter Parker was fully capable of interpreting "the right thing" to mean what was best for Peter.
And, well, nothing is more episodic than a comic book.
So, let's update the cultural narrative. Let's allow Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher to wander offstage into happily-ever-after-land while we bring new(er) takes on the picaresque to the forefront of academic discussion. Let's look at the ways in which a newer Spider-man's adventures, those of Miles Morales (seen onscreen in the fantastic Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse movie) are an equally viable picaresque narrative. Let's examine how race and gender play into the picaresque narratives we tell by discussing Miles and Spider-Gwen and how their stories differ from all the versions of Peter Parker we've seen over the years.
And, that's my point: the picaresque narrative is a vibrant part of American pop culture and one that we continue to love, even if we don't know the word, but we've grown beyond Tom Sawyer and the white picket fence, and our understanding of literature and literary theory should reflect that.9
And Now For Something Completely Different
Board games have always been a part of my life. I grew up playing the classics like Monopoly and Clue as well as more traditional games like Chess and Backgammon. So, when board games suddenly came back into fashion a few years ago, I was ecstatic.
I teach English as a Second Language in my day job and I have been using games to do so since I first began teaching. Giving learners an easy-to-learn set of rules and gameplay lets them use new language in an intuitive yet structured way that can lead to better retention and nuanced usage. And yet, lessons that use games can break down because of the competitive nature of a lot of games. Learners, especially younger ones, can find themselves bogged down by rules and by wanting to win and never mind what they're supposed to be learning.
So, it's been interesting to see the rise of more cooperative games over the past few years. Cooperative games, just as the name suggests, encourages or requires players to work together to solve a common goal. In the ESL space, it's taken slightly longer to take hold, just because it often requires a lot more explanation and comprehension of the language to set up.
Reading this piece on Slate, about the development of the game Wingspan, gave me some food for thought this week; it is something I'm sure I'll be thinking about quite a lot over the next few months as I prepare my fall semester. Regardless, it sounds like a fun game and I'm looking forward to trying it out one of these days.
Footnotes
I love the book, but...I don't want to censor or edit the book for the language, but, then again, I don't read it aloud. I think the conversation it raises about reading literature (or other art forms) in the context of the time it was written is one well worth having and one worth finding the nuances of.
I'm starting to keep a list of these kinds of words - ones where the word isn't all that common and so we talk around it until someone says, "you mean...?" and we all go, "There's a word for that? Huh." As an off-topic example, consider "petrichor," which you may know as "that earthy smell that happens after it rains." You're welcome.
The Great Brain series, written in the 70s, was about a boy living in small-town Utah in the late 1800s who used his smarts to get away with anything and everything. It was, and is, one of my favorite series that I recommend to all young readers.
Obviously, we're using a looser definition here as neither Tom nor the other young protagonists I mention work for anyone. However, if you count parents, teachers, church personnel, and lawmen, they do serve several masters one after the other.
This is well before the grim-dark reimaginings that began with Frank Miller in the 80s and continue into the movies of today. Think more like 60s tv Bats, not hurts-to-talk Batman of the 00s.
Although the depiction of The Flash from the DC Animated Universe may come in a close second.
I mean, if you had a Fortress of Solitude, why you would bother with an actual apartment just to keep up the pretense of Clark Kent?
What is it the kids say? If you know, you know.
Obviously, this is arguable. I mean, a quick search on Google Scholar shows a half-dozen thesis and dissertations written over the past few decades that all argue what, exactly, a picaresque novel is and which one is America's best attempt at it. Four titles I found:
American Picaresque
Does the Picaresque Novel Exist
The Picaresque Novel in America
The Quixotic Picaresque.