"Yeep! sang Ramona one warm September afternoon, as she knelt on a chair at the kitchen table to make out her Christmas list. She had enjoyed a good day in second grade, and she looked forward to working on her list. For Ramona a Christmas list was a list of presents she hoped to receive, not presents she planned to give. "Yeep!" she sang again.
"Thank goodness today is payday," remarked Mrs. Quimby, as she opened the refrigerator to see what she could find for supper.
"Yeep!" sang Ramona, as she printed MICE OR GINNY PIG on her list with purple crayon. Next to Christmas and her birthday, her father's payday was her favorite day. His payday meant treats. Her mother's payday from her part-time job in a doctor's office meant they could make payments on the bedroom the Quimbys had added to their house when Ramona was in first grade....
Looking for a good Christmas story? There is none better than "Ramona and Her Father."
Hilary Mantel says, when she is stuck, she imagines her protagonist entering a room and sitting in a chair. Considerations regarding posture, facial expression, gait: These help Mantel sink into her imaginative world. Cleary seems to do that, as well. Look at all the detail invested in the Ramona sketch. Ramona is not sitting, but kneeling on a chair at the kitchen table. In her excited haste, she has opted to write in purple crayon. It's September, but she is already working on her Christmas list. Her spelling is off; she can't quite articulate how she is feeling, but must rely on "Yeep!" She understands her father's payday to be better than her mother's payday; French fries are preferable to payments on a boring bedroom.
Cleary has said she especially enjoys fiction by British novelists--Mantel, for example, or Penelope Fitzgerald. (She cites Fitzgerald specifically.) A trait of these writers is economy, concision--requiring the reader to do inferential work. Understatement. Doing more with less. That's a trait of Cleary's work, as well. Also, in Fitzgerald, you'll find that the children are consistently smarter than the adults. That's often true in Cleary's fiction, as well.
"Ramona and Her Father" is quite dark; it's like "The Long Winter" in Ramona's world. It's like the tail end of Season Four of "The Sopranos." Some early levity has gone missing. In this book, Ramona's father loses his job. To fill an existential void, he begins smoking. Ramona responds by putting up signs that say SMOKING KILLS. I think she replaces his cigarettes with rolled-up paper bits. Everyone in the family endures strain.
Because this is Cleary, there's genius in the particular way Ramona feels exasperation. Mom has to take on extra duties to accommodate Dad's joblessness. This means she can't make Ramona's pageant "sheep" costume in the most desirable way. She just doesn't have time. Ramona is pissed; not only is Beezus stealing the show as Mary, but now Ramona needs to parade around in a shitty costume. Mom tries to invent some half-assed solution, as adults will do, but Ramona, as a stand-in for all kids everywhere, sees the half-assed adult solution as half-assed. ONLY THE EXACT COSTUME WILL DO. This seems so true to actual childhood: the rigid, desperate desire for conformity, the way a child looks for little lapses in love, in even the tiniest gestures. Tiny to an adult. Not tiny to a child.
Thinking about Ramona, you're led to recall other favorite moments. The day the two parents get into an argument, and Ramona believes the family is wrecked forever. Bewildered, the next morning, the two parents say, "We were just tired. Nothing is wrong." But if you're a child, used to seeing your parents behave in a certain way, than any deviation can seem to spell disaster. How are you to know better? There's also the moment of existential panic when Ramona wears a Halloween costume and wonders, "Does anyone know me? How can anyone know and recognize me? WHO AM I???" So smart.
Cleary: No one does it better. Nothing false or syrupy in her presentation of Christmas. Just brass-tacks reality. Small miracles in mundane interactions. Hidden depths of meaning in the ways we treat, or fail to treat, one another. A genius at work.
P.S. This novel ends where it begins-- with thoughts of Christmas. Symmetry!
"Thank goodness today is payday," remarked Mrs. Quimby, as she opened the refrigerator to see what she could find for supper.
"Yeep!" sang Ramona, as she printed MICE OR GINNY PIG on her list with purple crayon. Next to Christmas and her birthday, her father's payday was her favorite day. His payday meant treats. Her mother's payday from her part-time job in a doctor's office meant they could make payments on the bedroom the Quimbys had added to their house when Ramona was in first grade....
Looking for a good Christmas story? There is none better than "Ramona and Her Father."
Hilary Mantel says, when she is stuck, she imagines her protagonist entering a room and sitting in a chair. Considerations regarding posture, facial expression, gait: These help Mantel sink into her imaginative world. Cleary seems to do that, as well. Look at all the detail invested in the Ramona sketch. Ramona is not sitting, but kneeling on a chair at the kitchen table. In her excited haste, she has opted to write in purple crayon. It's September, but she is already working on her Christmas list. Her spelling is off; she can't quite articulate how she is feeling, but must rely on "Yeep!" She understands her father's payday to be better than her mother's payday; French fries are preferable to payments on a boring bedroom.
Cleary has said she especially enjoys fiction by British novelists--Mantel, for example, or Penelope Fitzgerald. (She cites Fitzgerald specifically.) A trait of these writers is economy, concision--requiring the reader to do inferential work. Understatement. Doing more with less. That's a trait of Cleary's work, as well. Also, in Fitzgerald, you'll find that the children are consistently smarter than the adults. That's often true in Cleary's fiction, as well.
"Ramona and Her Father" is quite dark; it's like "The Long Winter" in Ramona's world. It's like the tail end of Season Four of "The Sopranos." Some early levity has gone missing. In this book, Ramona's father loses his job. To fill an existential void, he begins smoking. Ramona responds by putting up signs that say SMOKING KILLS. I think she replaces his cigarettes with rolled-up paper bits. Everyone in the family endures strain.
Because this is Cleary, there's genius in the particular way Ramona feels exasperation. Mom has to take on extra duties to accommodate Dad's joblessness. This means she can't make Ramona's pageant "sheep" costume in the most desirable way. She just doesn't have time. Ramona is pissed; not only is Beezus stealing the show as Mary, but now Ramona needs to parade around in a shitty costume. Mom tries to invent some half-assed solution, as adults will do, but Ramona, as a stand-in for all kids everywhere, sees the half-assed adult solution as half-assed. ONLY THE EXACT COSTUME WILL DO. This seems so true to actual childhood: the rigid, desperate desire for conformity, the way a child looks for little lapses in love, in even the tiniest gestures. Tiny to an adult. Not tiny to a child.
Thinking about Ramona, you're led to recall other favorite moments. The day the two parents get into an argument, and Ramona believes the family is wrecked forever. Bewildered, the next morning, the two parents say, "We were just tired. Nothing is wrong." But if you're a child, used to seeing your parents behave in a certain way, than any deviation can seem to spell disaster. How are you to know better? There's also the moment of existential panic when Ramona wears a Halloween costume and wonders, "Does anyone know me? How can anyone know and recognize me? WHO AM I???" So smart.
Cleary: No one does it better. Nothing false or syrupy in her presentation of Christmas. Just brass-tacks reality. Small miracles in mundane interactions. Hidden depths of meaning in the ways we treat, or fail to treat, one another. A genius at work.
P.S. This novel ends where it begins-- with thoughts of Christmas. Symmetry!
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