English Rowan TH

     Sag Harbor is probably the book we've read that talks the most about childhood. Fun Home  did discuss childhood but mostly in the context of explaining adult behaviors, and most of the other books we have read have focused on their protagonist's adolescence. By looking back at Beji's childhood so much, Sag Harbor  gives us the idea that coming-of-age is not just a series of firsts, it is also a series of lasts. Growing into new things also means growing out of old things. In the very first chapter, Ben sets this tone by mentioning how Reggie no longer wants to bike around the neighborhood with him even though they always had before, saying "It was the last time we'd start the summer that way" (31).     This idea goes through the whole book and I think that it can be picked up in a lot of different examples of the way that Benji interacts with his friends and often feels behind. One of the quotes that jumped out to me as exemplifying this ide...

    Jason is bullied pretty ruthlessly in this book. It's so intense that it sort of defined the whole book for me even though the Chapter "Maggot" about the bullying was the 9th chapter of only 13. I think that it works this way not just because of the intensity of what Jason experienced, but also because of the way that it is built up through all of his social interactions in all 8 chapters that come before "Maggot". In the first chapters especially, Jason is constantly talking about his fear of judgment from his peers, and how it is inevitable if he does certain things. On just page 6 he says if people knew about his poetry they would "gouge [him] to death behind the tennis courts with blunt woodwork tools and spray the Sex Pistols logo oh [his] gravestone." He's constantly censoring himself, concealing the things that he is interested in, concealing his poetry, even trying to conceal his friendship with Dean Moran even though Dean is basically ...