(1980) So Long, See You Tomorrow
1980-01-01
One thing that makes literature so compelling is that it lets us share the the imagination of an author. Through their writing, we can enter---at least for a short time---the worlds in their head.
In a way, our imagination is one of our most important senses as human beings. We use it not just for our own amusement, but also to understand other people. People tell us stories, and we use our imagination to make them vivid, and to feel what they're trying to share with us. Our imagination also helps us to empathize with others, to share a bit of their joy, or their sorrow, albeit imperfectly.
Beyond just imagining what's being related to us, we can also explore what might be going on in a person's head, in their experience, beyond what they're telling us. It's difficult to share painful events, and to explore all the feelings we have about them. Some things are left unsaid, and need to be figured out by our audience.
Maxwell brilliantly captures this exploration of tragedy in this short novel. He plays with the difficulty of empathizing with someone who's experience pain beyond your own understanding, of wanting to reach out, but failing to, of having to imagine and reconstruct the tragedy. This reconstruction is sorrowful, and beautiful, but ultimately, still a shadow, constructed from a distance.
The protagonist is modeled off of Maxwell himself. The main events of the novel take place with him as a boy, having experienced the loss of his mother, and the maiming of his brother, like the author himself. As an old man, our main character reflects on a friendship he had with a boy, who would play with him on the construction site of a new house. A great personal tragedy befalls the boy, when his father murders their neighbor adultery with his wife, resulting---among other things, to not spoil too much---the boy's family falling apart.
Our main character had the opportunity to reach out to the boy, both at the time of these events, and later, going to school in Chicago, but never does. He wonders at this in his late age, with regret. He can piece together the material facts through archives, but can never truly know the personal details, nor understand the emotional impact this might have had on the people involved.
He thus resorts to trying to craft a story in his own imagination about what the people might have felt, what passions they might have experienced to bring them to such extremes. This story is an extremely well-crafted rural gothic tale in its own right, and explores the tragedy with care and beauty.
In this later novel, Maxwell has perfected his economy and dramatic precision. The events of the novel are laid out perfectly. We understand the tension and mystery behind the trauma at first, and share in the distance the protagonist feels. Then, through the gradual unfolding of the imagined story, we feel ourselves understanding things in the way the protagonist might. But this distance is reinforced further by thinking about how terrible this situation must have been for the boy. And we feel the same sorrow that the protagonist feels in not having reached out to help him.
The novel also crafts an ambiance of sadness very effectively. Details are laid out precisely to create a reflective and somber mood. The dreary details of life in rural Illinois help anchor this mood.
Psychologically, the story is also brilliantly crafted. Characters act in subtle and realistic ways. Their motivations are multi-faceted, and carefully imagined. Complex emotions are portrayed very well, like the tensions between pride and shame when farming on someone else's land, or trying to pry into family affairs while stepping outside of your permit, and of course, the passions that lead to the dramatic core of the novel.
A beautiful and somber novel.