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timerippleI’ve been meaning to write for weeks, but, you know, things happened: I read a picturebook about a highway-rat, complete with coat of claret velvet and lace at his little rat chin. I started reading I, Claudius because I picked it up off a dollar cart and got twenty percent off for identifying that week’s guess-the-quote (the Aeneid, Arma virumque cano etc). I finished watching Flower Boy Next Door and King of Dramas, and I was going to write last night, but then I thought, no, I’ll just check out the first episode of Answer Me, 1997, I probably won’t like it because I won’t get the ‘90s k-pop references but we’ll just see.
In retrospect, I should have known better. JUST TAKE MY HEART, I WASN’T USING IT ANYWAY.
Mind you, I said the same thing three days ago when I read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. (It’s Big News now that John Green reviewed it in the New York Times, and that review and my reaction are an excellent example of vastly differing reader communities. We both loved it, but wow, it’s like we read entirely different books. You should read it too: there’s an awkward, magnificent, Romeo-&-Juliet-hating curly redhead, an eyeliner-wearing comic-reading half-Korean, epic explosions of adorableness and angst, all set to a soundtrack of terrible parenting and the Smiths.)
Actually these two stories are very similar in certain ways: they so perfectly embody the awkwardness, the intensity of being a teenager in a not-so-long-ago age (Eleanor & Park takes place in 1986; Answer Me, 1997 takes place in, obviously, 1997). Both stories are about growing up—that long liminal moment between dependence and independence. They’re about family, first love (true love?), and—of course—music.
They’re about a time in life that—if we’ve had the privilege of experiencing it (and so many young people haven’t, or experience it differently than I did and the characters in these stories do)—we’re expected to leave behind. But that shouldn’t mean we ignore it completely, and I think a lot of people read YA partly because, on some level, teenagerhood informs the rest of our lives, and the things we start working through then don’t just disappear because we hit twenty. This doesn’t mean adult readers of YA are immature or incapable of handling adulthood. It means, perhaps, that we’re still in touch with our younger selves in a way that demands some level of engagement. That questions about identity, family, love, one’s place in the world—that these are universal and ageless, in narrative just as much as in non-narrative philosophy; in living YA just as much as in anything written by dead white dudes.
That’s not the only reason for adults to read or write or edit YA, of course. But it is one that I think deserves a little more credit than it generally gets. It’s more usually phrased as the self-deprecatory “Well, I guess I’m still a teenager at heart”—but I think it demands (and deserves) more examination than that.
In retrospect, I should have known better. JUST TAKE MY HEART, I WASN’T USING IT ANYWAY.
Mind you, I said the same thing three days ago when I read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. (It’s Big News now that John Green reviewed it in the New York Times, and that review and my reaction are an excellent example of vastly differing reader communities. We both loved it, but wow, it’s like we read entirely different books. You should read it too: there’s an awkward, magnificent, Romeo-&-Juliet-hating curly redhead, an eyeliner-wearing comic-reading half-Korean, epic explosions of adorableness and angst, all set to a soundtrack of terrible parenting and the Smiths.)
Actually these two stories are very similar in certain ways: they so perfectly embody the awkwardness, the intensity of being a teenager in a not-so-long-ago age (Eleanor & Park takes place in 1986; Answer Me, 1997 takes place in, obviously, 1997). Both stories are about growing up—that long liminal moment between dependence and independence. They’re about family, first love (true love?), and—of course—music.
They’re about a time in life that—if we’ve had the privilege of experiencing it (and so many young people haven’t, or experience it differently than I did and the characters in these stories do)—we’re expected to leave behind. But that shouldn’t mean we ignore it completely, and I think a lot of people read YA partly because, on some level, teenagerhood informs the rest of our lives, and the things we start working through then don’t just disappear because we hit twenty. This doesn’t mean adult readers of YA are immature or incapable of handling adulthood. It means, perhaps, that we’re still in touch with our younger selves in a way that demands some level of engagement. That questions about identity, family, love, one’s place in the world—that these are universal and ageless, in narrative just as much as in non-narrative philosophy; in living YA just as much as in anything written by dead white dudes.
That’s not the only reason for adults to read or write or edit YA, of course. But it is one that I think deserves a little more credit than it generally gets. It’s more usually phrased as the self-deprecatory “Well, I guess I’m still a teenager at heart”—but I think it demands (and deserves) more examination than that.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 10:29 pm (UTC)I just went back to watching Shut Up: Flower Boy Band and finished all the second half in about half a week, and I'm pretty sure I have to save Reply 1997 until later, because I am still so sparkle-eyed about it. But now I have another recommendation I actually think means something to keep it on my "for later" list...
What did you think about Flower Boy Next Door? I adored the fact that all the writer/editor people had semi-realistic work areas. Maybe a little too neat, but crowded with books or comics or pens...
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 07:21 am (UTC)Definitely save Reply 1997 until the sparkle-eyes have passed. (It might take a while. I dearly love Shut Up: Flower Boy Band and it took me ages to recover from it.)
I also love Flower Boy Next Door. Not all of it, but the parts I love (and they form a pretty solid majority) I love intensely. The manhwa editor might be my favorite character. And I say that in the knowledge that when I start a tumblr, it will consist entirely of pictures of Dok Mi, and every single one will be labeled GPOY.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 11:20 pm (UTC)I think it's awesome how they were able to show such an unglamorous side of the career girl, and that she's kind of unaware of being off-puttingly harsh and neurotic...but also can learn her way out of it.
I love how Jin-Rak becomes her love-coach, and that it's ironic, and totally appropriate at the same time.
I kind of unstintingly loved everything about that show, but it didn't have the same deep undercurrent of feeling that Shut Up:FBB did. So for dramas I've watched recently, it's really the first to rival last year's Queen In-Hyun's Man. Maybe a certain dark sense of humor is necessary for something to be actually moving, I don't know.
And I didn't think I was being missed, but I really can't post the kind of commentary on stuff like dramas or books that I can here. I mean, not that many people who might have me on their friends-list want that here, either, but on Tumblr it feels like more of an offense to put up a block of text. X) So maybe I'll begin again?
no subject
Date: 2013-05-04 06:47 am (UTC)My only real disappointment with the show is that it never succeeds in--or even bothers to try--deconstructing the overworn romcom elements it employs: irritating love rivals, timeskip, separation, etc. I love the complications in Dok-mi's relationship with her ex-friend--that moment when she says, "You were enough for me"--!!!!!omgthat'sit,i'mdead,Dok-mi,omg--but I sort of wish that were separable from her Jin-rak obsession.
Then again, it wouldn't be a k-drama without those things either, so I suppose I can't complain too much. XD And Enrique gets all the best, most sensible lines EVER. "Love is not an assigned seat on a plane. Just because I bought a ticket first, I can't just say, 'that's my seat'." And Dok-mi--I don't even have words for how much I love her. I just--I love them all a lot. *cries tears of love* I don't understand how anything with "Flower Boy" in the title can be good, and yet. XD
It's true, Tumblr is not the most essay-and-coment-friendly platform. I may get one, but I'm also sticking around here a little longer, I think.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-05 02:31 am (UTC)I did wish that the drama had engaged more of my emotions for the main loveline, but I was invested enough in the friendships (and I thought it fantastic that the web of relationships had arcs all around--the strength of this and Flower Boy Ramyun Shop) and I chose to interpret the back and forth in the end that seems so inevitable in k-drama rom-coms as at least trying to engage with the problems of "how *can* you put love over your dreams and your needs for yourself?"
Enrique is awesome, because though he edges over into Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory of perky, he's an actual decent human being to Go Dok-Mi. He also obviously engages with his inner demons by going over-friendly retriever. Oh Jin-Rak pandered too much to Dok-Mi, instead of trying to doing what was good for her. He didn't want to be a bad guy. Enrique kinda got off easy by not being too invested at first.
Though I'm not sure I really understood his emotional core at all well. It seemed kinda impenetrable...
But Yoon Shi-Yoon was so cute I only thought about that after, and I have decided to forgive the show it's faults for it's good points. ;)