The Three Characteristics of Tangents in Sag Harbor
If there
is one thing that ties all of the coming-of-age novels we have read in class
this semester together, it is the phenomenon whereby the main character is able
to take a relatively short moment in time and inflate it into a long, intricate
spiel about their inner psyche that can last for several paragraphs or even
pages.
·
The Catcher in the Rye is a textbook
example of this. The whole story from start to finish lasts no more than 48
hours, but Holden Caulfield is able to squeeze out every last drop of
exposition from said 48 hours to create a full-length novel.
·
The Bell Jar is chock-full of Esther
Greenwood’s internal doubts about her place in the world, an insecurity so strong
and drawn out that both the reader and Esther herself begin to suffocate in it.
·
Prior to reading Fun Home, you would
think that, as a graphic novel, it would be safe from the long-winded explanations
and chunky blocks of text characteristic of traditional prose novels. This assumption,
of course, couldn’t be farther from the truth.
·
Black Swan Green centers on Jason Taylor’s
slew of teenage anxieties, which he, as a writer in-universe, does not hesitate
to explicate in great detail to the reader. On top of that, the character
Hangman is the literal embodiment of Jason’s tendency for overthinking and over-analysis
consuming him and his daily functions.
But as far as analytical tangents go, nothing can quite match
the sheer verbosity of the narration in Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor. There
are three characteristics which I believe set the tangents in Sag Harbor
apart from those of your standard novel. The characteristics in question are the
placement of tangents within the larger chapters, the length and format of the
tangents themselves, and the method by which the story transitions in and out
of the tangents.
Let’s take a look at one of the many tangents in Sag Harbor
and see how the three characteristics are represented in it. The chapter, “Breathing
Tips of Great American Beatboxers” is primarily centered around Benji and his
friends attempting to gain access to the coveted Bayside nightclub to see
U.T.F.O perform live. After countless negotiations, outfit decisions, and voice
line rehearsals, Benji and NP are miraculously allowed into the club. Ben
begins describing the environment of the dance floor; nothing out of the
ordinary there. All of a sudden, he pauses the Bayside narration to talk about
an experience Benji and Bobby had driving Uncle Nelson around town the previous
day. The tangent begins on page 263 and continues for a solid four pages,
terminating on page 266 right before the end of the chapter. Let’s examine the
three conditions at play here:
2. The
tangent’s four-page coverage is significant enough to classify it as a sizeable
chunk of the chapter as a whole, sizeable enough to make the reader forget
about the previous parts of the chapter while reading it. This is, as you would
expect, a feature of many of the other tangents in the book.
3. The
transition between the Bayside narration to the Uncle Nelson tangent is
provided by a single sentence: “I knew
what Evil looked like” (Whitehead, 263). The abruptness of this lead-in only
serves to enhance the feeling that this whole tangent is out of place. And
again, these sudden transitions are shared by many other tangents in Sag
Harbor.
This is just something I have noticed about the narrative structure
of Sag Harbor. I want to emphasize that I am not claiming that this
structure is bad in any inherent way. Sure, if you don’t take kindly to long,
wordy paragraphs, then maybe this style of narration will be undesirable. But I
personally think that this style is very unique and provides an extra layer of
personality to the book as a whole. Let me know what you think!
MXW
Work Cited: Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. New York, Vintage Books, 2009.
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteHappy graduation day!
It's always really cool to see someone point out similarities between the books we have read this semsster, and you do a fantastic job of doing that here. I feel like in Sag Harbor, tangents are generally used to forward a theme. For example, duality and shades of gray in Gangsters with the fireflies/greedo/houses, and familial dysfunction and loss of home in your example of Uncle Nelson). However, in The Catcher in the Rye tangents are generally used to further develop Holden as a character, whether that's a heartfelt confession about his brother or James Castle, or just ranting about how much he hatres society.
I love the picture of Whitehead standing on the pier at Sag Harbor! I hadn't seen that before.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that this novel is remarkably digressive, and that once he opens up a storyline, "Ben" is clearly in no hurry to get through this thing. The first chapter introduces us to this pace, where first we're in the car with the family driving up the LIE to Sag Harbor, and then we're a few years earlier at a roller-rink bat mitzvah. It can be maddening when you're trying to find a passage quickly during discussion, I assure you! What page is it when he starts telling us about New Coke?
The example you cite here--the Uncle Nelson digression--is a somewhat different case, as this is part of the narrative of the evening before the Bayside incursion, and it is part of the "story" of this chapter. But Whitehead very deliberately, but maybe confusingly, breaks it up--interrupting one of the only unambiguously "good" moments in the narrative to speculate on the nature of "Evil." I would argue that the segue--"I knew what Evil looked like"--is essential to how we interpret/understand that digression. At first we think, "Uncle Nelson is *evil*? Just for buying beer for his nephew?" But that's not what the author has in mind: it turns out Ben is more on Nelson's side here, and the "evil" has to do with this good-hearted screwup of a man being shut out from his family's home. Given Benji's ambivalence about his own father, who is capable of referring to his son as "Shithead" for an entire year because of a few C's on a report card, this musing on how a parent can be "evil" to a child is maybe rather poignant. As to what it ultimately means to briefly interrupt the UTFO show-anticipation with this depressing vignette, that's up to the reader. But I'd say this is one of the less random-seeming digressions in the book, and that it's not technically a digression the way that some of these other ruptures in the time-space continuum of the narrative are.
Nice job Michael! I really liked your point on transition. The way a single sentence is able to shift into four pages is wild, but it seems to work because that is the essential flow of the whole book. It ends up feeling less like a kink in its structure and more like how Benji's brain actually thinks.
ReplyDeleteI think the tangent about uncle Nelson is a notable example of the feeling of nostalgia being broken by something more sinister. The joyful scene is suddenly interrupted by the much more serious family trouble involving Uncle Nelson, and his pain from being shunned by his family.
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