Trendy Topics & Unbelievable Characters in Search of a Plot

At the risk of incurring calumny from readers on this site by criticizing yet another sacred cow of children's literature, I have to say that I thought E.L. Konigsburg's The View From Saturday was little more than a self-indulgent exercise in stylistic innovation.

The Plot

For those who dislike reading spoiler reviews, don't worry. I couldn't successfully spoil the plot of this novel, even should I wish to. What little plot existed in The View From Saturday was so deeply hidden in a scrambled jigsaw puzzle of multiple point-of-view narratives and chronological gymnastics that had the author herself offered a summation of the simple plot on page 1, it might have improved the overall effect of this jumbled, award-winning mess. The whole plot may be summarized in one single sentence (close your eyes here if you don't want to know): Four 6th grade students and their teacher discover a special relationship, experience personal growth and awareness, and win an academic tournament. That's it (you can open your eyes now).

The View From Saturday is only 163 pages long. Yet no hint of a plot, no lure into a story line, even begins to emerge until about page 75. Up until that point, all the reader is given are several seemingly separate narratives by three of the main characters, interspersed with sections by an omniscient narrator who takes you backward, forward, further back, further forward, down to Florida, back to New York . . .

Oh, stop, I'm getting dizzy! I felt like shouting at the author, "Give me a story for goodness sake. Don't expect me to patiently wait for you to spin some kind of a tale."

I've no doubt that Konigsburg knew where she was going with her story. I actually suspect, based upon the painfully contrived artifices of her construction, that she wrote the story and then chopped it up into little pieces which she scattered and reordered like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. [Interestingly, she actually introduced a jigsaw puzzle session into her story, almost as if she were saying, "Look, they're doing a puzzle, just like me!"]

With constant switches in narrative voice and time frame and the emergence of no discernible plot for the first half of the book, I literally had to force myself to keep reading, trusting that it would all come clear sometime in the not too distant future. This would be bad enough in an adult book, but this book is intended for children in the 9-12 age range.

The Tone

From the very first page of The View From Saturday, I got the feeling that E.L. Konigsburg was writing for no one and to please no one other than herself. Now, this may be said, to some extent, of everyone who has ever written anything. But Konigsburg seems to take it to extremes. Almost every phrase Konigsburg wrote in this story had less of a ring of truth about it than an air of "aren't I clever." I can't say that I found her to be, but I got the distinct impression that she found herself amusing.

The Characters

There are so many characters in this tale who are so ill-developed that it is a veritable chore to even remember who's who. For the first half of the book, I felt absolutely no connection to any of the characters, and even once their personalities gelled a bit, I still found them unappealing. There were certain thoughts expressed by the characters which seemed real enough (but not many). Some of their interests and activities also seemed to have at least some feel of verisimilitude (I'm being generous here), but these were characters that for the most part failed to touch me at all. They were instantly forgettable.

We're Talking Bad Dialogue Here

Konigsburg tries to tell too much of the story by padding information into contrived dialogue. Opening the book at random (and this is a sure bet, as I'm not much of a gambler), let's take the following slice as an example. At this point in the story (is there one?), Nadia Goldstein is having her first ever conversation with her grandfather's new wife's grandson Ethan. She is suspicious about Ethan's supposedly unexpected visit. Having confirmed her suspicions that Ethan's surprise arrival was, in fact, booked-in-advance, Nadia launches into the following conversation:

The worst part of my trip was worrying about Ginger. She had to fly as baggage. We were advised to tranquilize her and put her in a dog carrier. Ginger had never been tranquilized before, and she has been dopey all week. She is just now getting back to her real self. I promised her that I will not do that again.

Oh, come on! No one, particularly not a 12 year old girl, speaks like this. This is made-for-TV-movie-script-explanation dialogue, and this book is full of these.

In fairness, Ethan's character is somewhat more appealing, and his dialogue, though scarcely more believable, is at least slightly more entertaining. Nadia describes herself as a mixed breed, half-Jewish, half-Protestant. She then asks Ethan if he is a hybrid, to which he replies:

"Not at all. The only claim my family has to hybridization is right there," he said, pointing to Margaret. "Grandma Draper is a thoroughbred Protestant, and Izzy is a thoroughbred Jew. But they don't plan on breeding."

Is this dialogue amusing? Yes. Is it believable? I don't think so. Nor are Ethan's inner thoughts (presented in his narrative) any more believable than his conversation. Take, for example, his musings on the difference between farmers and suburbanites:

The way I see it, the difference between farmers and suburbanites is the difference in the way we feel about dirt. To them, the earth is something to be respected and preserved, but dirt gets no respect. A farmer likes dirt. Suburbanites like to get rid of it. Dirt is the working layer of earth, and dealing with dirt is as much a part of farm life as dealing with manure: Neither is user-friendly but both are necessary.

If this were a passage narrated by an omniscient narrator, I'd have no trouble with it, but Konigsburg attributes these thoughts to her 12 year old character. It's too glib. It's too clean. It's too old. It's not believable.

I am an avid fan of not only children's literature, but also science fiction and fantasy. I have no difficulty with suspension of disbelief. When authors give me half a chance, I jump right in and lose myself in whatever mythical world they wish to offer me. And yet, this isn't a fantasy. The View From Saturday should not require a greater suspension of disbelief than, say, The Hobbit. But, with totally unbelievable characters thinking and speaking totally unrealistic, unbelievable words, Konigsburg is asking too much of me, and too much of the young readers the book is primarily intended for, too.

And please, before anyone decides to leave me a comment convincing me that 12-year-old New Yorkers do speak this way, let me say that I spent some time living in New York when I was a teenager, and nobody I met, I mean NOBODY, spoke like this. Not in Manhattan or Long Island at any rate, nor even Upstate. My fifteen years of living in England render me even less able to accept Julian Singh's Anglicized speech as being believable.

Would I Recommend This Book?

It's too disjointed and confusing for a read-aloud for younger children. It's the sort of book that might push a middle reader over the edge into being a confirmed reluctant reader. And, unless an adult were on a quest to seek out the best existing examples of unbelievable characters and bad dialogue, the book has little else to offer. Unless, of course, you are impressed by stylistic artifice, in which case this book's for you. I just happen to prefer a strong plot and full-bodied, believable characters over crafting gymnastics.

I normally enjoy books which the American Library Association acknowledges with its prestigious Newbery Medal. The View From Saturday won the Newbery Medal, so I expected to like it. I didn't. Lucky for me, I borrowed this one from the library, saving precious book budget money for a more enjoyable purchase. Should you decide to read it, I would recommend you borrow rather than buy it, too. You just might dislike it as much as I did.