The Meaning Of Jasper Jones By Craig Silvey
Jasper Jones is technically good in that it has a message and themes and all that. But the deeper meaning is so close to the surface that a five-year-old could tell you what Craig Silvey is really trying to say. So I guess it’s not really a “deeper” meaning at all, more like a “surface meaning.” As suggested by my “better” title, Silvey was very obviously inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird. It sometimes seemed like he was writing it as TKAM fanfiction with a bunch of major changes and twists, and before he knew it he had a novel, so he decided to go ahead and publish for real.
My main problem was that I got the sense that Silvey was trying too hard. I don’t know what he intended Jasper Jones to be when he started it, but he seems to have
been pretty serious about it not deviating from that plan. Sometimes stories get a mind of their own, and you have to let them go a little. This can result in some truly amazing writing. Silvey doesn’t seem to have done that; the result is a 13-year-old narrator whose inner monologue sounds more like a 40-year-old philosophy professor having a midlife crisis. I get that Charlie, Jasper, and everyone else has been through a lot and they've had to grow up pretty fast, but jeez, let these kids think about comic books and girls for a while.
That said, Jasper Jones definitely has its merits. Charlie’s best friend Jeffrey Lu is ten kinds of awesome and I sort of want to adopt him. It does a better job of portraying the realities of bullying than about ten other YA novels I could mention, and there was some really gorgeous imagery that didn’t feel as forced as some other areas. (Keep an eye out for a thoroughly awesome Batman/Superman metaphor). And while Charlie may think like a guy who’s paid to explain Cartesian thinking to burnt-out college students, he acts almost exactly like a kid at the bottom of the social ladder who’s in love for the first time. The ending was pretty great too; it made me smile. So if you want a book that could’ve been completely wonderful if Silvey had just loosened up a little (and if you want to enjoy Jeffrey Lu’s brilliant sense of humor), give Jasper Jones a shot.
My main problem was that I got the sense that Silvey was trying too hard. I don’t know what he intended Jasper Jones to be when he started it, but he seems to have
been pretty serious about it not deviating from that plan. Sometimes stories get a mind of their own, and you have to let them go a little. This can result in some truly amazing writing. Silvey doesn’t seem to have done that; the result is a 13-year-old narrator whose inner monologue sounds more like a 40-year-old philosophy professor having a midlife crisis. I get that Charlie, Jasper, and everyone else has been through a lot and they've had to grow up pretty fast, but jeez, let these kids think about comic books and girls for a while.
That said, Jasper Jones definitely has its merits. Charlie’s best friend Jeffrey Lu is ten kinds of awesome and I sort of want to adopt him. It does a better job of portraying the realities of bullying than about ten other YA novels I could mention, and there was some really gorgeous imagery that didn’t feel as forced as some other areas. (Keep an eye out for a thoroughly awesome Batman/Superman metaphor). And while Charlie may think like a guy who’s paid to explain Cartesian thinking to burnt-out college students, he acts almost exactly like a kid at the bottom of the social ladder who’s in love for the first time. The ending was pretty great too; it made me smile. So if you want a book that could’ve been completely wonderful if Silvey had just loosened up a little (and if you want to enjoy Jeffrey Lu’s brilliant sense of humor), give Jasper Jones a shot.