October 25, 2013
I have my entire weekend packed full of things that I need to do for my job or for my classes. Tonight, my plan was to check out this book from the library right after work, read it all this evening, and get my blog post and the little bit that I would need to do for my YA lit class completed, so I could go on to my other tasks tomorrow and Sunday. Well, mission accomplished, obviously, though I was dismayed to see that this book had over 350 pages when I picked it up today. However, it was a relatively quick read. I'll admit that I'd actually started another book (another one for the course, but that one will be an "independent choice" book that I will give a presentation on in, like, two or three weeks?), but found so little time to read this week that I had to go with a new plan. I'm hoping that, if I'm efficient enough this weekend, I'll be able to read a bit of that other book. Anyway...
Okay, so when I read up a little bit about this book on my local library's website, I didn't get that it would be a love story between the two main characters. I thought that Ari and Dante were sweet, and even though Ari (the narrator) comes off as being really confused about everything (hell, he's a teenager, what teenager isn't confused?...or what person, for that matter?), I had no doubt that he was really a good kid, a good person, really, and that he would make the right choices. Ari and Dante's feelings for each other were obvious from the day that they met, and I found myself rooting for them. Dante wasn't so afraid of his feelings...Ari was.
Let me put this situation into context. The story is set in El Paso, from June of 1987 (the year I was born!) to late summer 1988. That's from the first day that Ari met Dante at the local pool, to the evening that they finally admitted their feelings for each other (or rather, that Ari admitted his feelings for Dante, as Dante had been pretty open about it for like a year at that point). I found it really interesting that the story was set in the late '80's. I don't think that it would be all that much different if it'd been set today, except that maybe Ari and Dante would email or talk on Facebook rather than write letters. It makes me sad to think that a kid would get jumped and beaten just for being gay, but in Texas today...I wouldn't doubt it. I would also like to think that any parents today would be as understanding and supportive as the Mendozas and Quintanas were of their sons, but of course, that's not the case...those parents seem too good to be true. Even though Ari describes his father as being disturbed by his experiences in Vietnam, and emotionally distant, Jaime seems like a very kind, wise man. Ari and Dante are both very lucky to have parents who work hard, and who care about them. Though Dante's parents are a bit more educated and a bit more wealthy than the Mendozas (Dante's dad is a professor, mom's a therapist, while Ari's dad is a mailman, mom's a high school teacher), they all get along well with each other, and have quite a bit in common.
Look, it was never a question that Dante and Ari would get together. What drove the story was Ari himself, and his personal growth. He's 15 at the start of the book, approaching 17 at the end. The summer that he meets Dante, they become best friends. Ari doesn't have many friends; being young and sexually confused, he doesn't really feel comfortable around guys, and thinks most of the kids his age are idiots. He has some friends at school, but isn't very popular, though he does get invited to parties and stuff...he would just rather be alone. God, do I ever get that. I really connected with Ari for that reason. He felt weird about not fitting in, but by the end of the book, he'd come to realize that it was okay for him to want to be alone. He was like his father...and I had a very good impression of Jaime's character. I liked Ari because he reminded me of myself, in some ways.
Ari does a really brave thing that changes his life forever. One afternoon, on a rainy summer day when he and Dante are just hanging out, Dante spots a bird with a broken wing in the middle of the rainy street. Being an animal lover, with an especial soft spot for birds, he decides to mend it, and goes to pick it up. As a car comes speeding around the corner on the slick road, Ari runs into the road and pushes Dante out of the way. Dante ends up with an arm cast; Ari breaks both legs and fractures some part of his arm, too. While Ari is lauded by Dante and all of the adults as a hero, he doesn't want to talk about it. He is uncomfortable with the fact that he did it out of love for Dante. To make matters worse, Dante's family moves to Chicago (temporarily; his father gets some guest professor spot), so Ari is left alone to deal with some very confusing feelings.
Ari begins to grow up that school year. He's attracted to girls, to some extent. He falls for a pretty older girl named Ileana, but she's caught up in some messed up things, has a boyfriend in a gang, and he ends up hurt. He'd only kissed her one time, flirted with her a few times, but he was still hurt...and his recurring dreams seemed to reveal that he feels guilty about liking her, when he knows how Dante feels about him. Ari also seems to have a love-hate relationship with one of his girl friends, Gina, but nothing really comes of that. He later decides that she and Susie, who have been annoying him for years but have also kept him somewhat connected with the social scene, can be his friends, wondering why it's not okay for guys and girls to just be friends.
Anyway, Dante moves back to El Paso, and though his feelings for Ari are all out in the open (they even kiss, though Ari pretends not to like it), they decide to just be best friends, like they were before. Still, the tension between them is real...again, though, there isn't really a doubt that Ari will eventually come to his senses and see how he really feels. It's just a matter of him deciding. It's actually his parents who help him to admit his real feelings for Dante. I was really surprised by how accepting they were. They're Catholic, and they're Mexican-Americans...the same is true to Dante's parents, and he even attends a private, all boy's Catholic school. You would think there would be more controversy. Then again (and I don't mean this to be condescending, I'm just basing these ideas on my own experiences), the parents are all pretty well-educated, and of the middle class, and more educated people tend to have more...liberal?...views. After all, Jaime is not a fan of Ronald Reagan, and he and Ari jokingly refer to his mother Lilly as being a "fascist" because of her strict rules. So even though the idea of all of the parents accepting and supporting...hell, even helping to bring about...the relationship between the two young men is surprising in itself, the parents are all such nice and level-headed people that it's not at all out-of-character for them. I do wish that all parents could be that way, though it seems that Lilly and Jaime have had some bad experiences with their other son in the past that might lead them to being that much more understanding of Ari.
See, one other issue in this book involves Ari's mysterious older brother Bernardo. Lilly and Jaime had married young; Lilly had their twin daughters when she was 18, her son Bernardo only a year later. Ari came along 12 years after that, after Jaime had been to Vietnam (I almost thought, for a while, that it would be revealed that Ari wasn't actually Jaime's son, but the way it was explained later on, that clearly wasn't the case). When Ari was four, he was sent to stay with his Aunt Ophelia, a lesbian living in Tucson who had been disowned by everyone in her family except for the Mendozas. At that time, Bernardo was on trial...for punching a transvestite hooker to death. When he was fifteen. Which would explain why Lilly was so strict with Ari...he had a temper himself, which showed up when he broke the nose of one of the guys who jumped Dante. But Bernardo sounds bat-shit crazy...he killed someone else while in juvie. How did the kid get so angry? Was it from when his father was in Vietnam? It's unclear whether or not Ari will ever be able to have contact with his brother, who is in prison, of course. Ari spent much of the book feeling angry that Bernardo was a taboo topic at home, that it was like the family had forgotten about him. I'm sure that Ari would see him if he could, even after learning the horrible truth, but Bernardo won't see any of his family. Ari thinks that Bernardo should "get over" his shame, and you know, as horrible as it was what he did, I can't agree with Ari more. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the most important thing I've learned from the books I've been reading is to not let the mistakes of the past bog you down. If you can make things right, try to, but if you can't, you have to let it go at some point and just live. Or die. It seems that to die would be better than to live with shame.
So the secret of the universe, according to this book, would be to not be ashamed. Ari starts to not feel ashamed of his feelings for Dante, and they share a passionate kiss in the desert at the end of the book. I had to go awwwww because I wanted it to happen. This wasn't an earth-shattering work of literature, but it's good to see strong stories with themes about homosexual teens. I don't think any kid should feel bad about being gay in this day and age. I want to believe that as a society, we've become more understanding. Bans on gay marriage are officially unconstitutional, and more and more states are making it officially legal for everyone to marry. Still, as if the teenage years weren't confusing enough, being a gay teen certainly can't be easy. I have a gay parent, so I know a little bit about it. And I can certainly understand being confused and not fitting in. I can understand Ari's loneliness and his pessimistic viewpoints. He also really was a sweet kid, as the adults in his life kept telling him.
Now, sexual identity was definitely the biggest issue in the book, but racial identity had a place as well. As I noted, the characters are Mexican-Americans. I believe most of the parents, if not all of them, are first-generation Americans, all of whom have broken away from their families' traditions or beliefs in some way or another. For instance, Dante's mother worked her way through school and got a fellowship for her advanced degree to Berkeley, despite her father's belief that girls should not be formally educated. Lilly, as noted, was the only one in her family to keep in contact with Ophelia, and she and her husband and children were the only ones to attend her funeral (Ari inherited her house!). Sam Quintana, an English professor, has parents who don't even speak English at all. Now, in spite of all this, Ari identifies himself as being Mexican. He's darker, and he takes on the tough-guy persona. He can fight, and he's even tossed around the idea of joining a gang (though he knows his mother would never allow it, strict as she is, and his interest doesn't seem serious). Dante, on the other hand, doesn't identify with his Mexican heritage in the least. He comments, several times, that he doesn't feel Mexican, that he doesn't fit in with his poorer cousins. Ari doesn't really get Dante's lack of racial identity. This issue isn't ever really resolved, though they do joke about it a little bit.
This was a nice book. Not one that I would teach to a whole class...not because any of the material is objectionable (it's all rather tame), I just don't think enough students would connect with it to make it worth teaching to a whole group. I could see this book being banned in irrational communities (there are still too many of those) by homophobic, backwards people. I like to think our society is becoming better than that. Progress is slow, to be sure, and gay teens are still attacked and bullied all too often. But I think it's getting better, and I hope to see more quality books centered around gay teens in YA literature.
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Part of Raphael's famous painting, The School of Athens. Philosopher Aristotle is the guy in blue; Plato is the older guy in purple. Ari was actually named for his grandfather, Aristotiles. But the connection was always made back to the famous Greek philosopher. Ari hated that; he felt like it made people have high expectations of it. Personally, I think it's kind of cool.
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