The Books: Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA books:

Next book on the shelf is another childhood favorite: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I wrote a huge thing about it here, if you’re interested. It kind of covers why I think this book is so great.

It STILL surprises me, this book. It has not grown old, or quaint. I don’t re-read it, thinking, “Oh, man … member how much I loved this as a kid?” No. I re-read it, and think: “Oh shit, Harriet’s gonna get into trouble for that one …” or “Oh man … what will Harriet do without Ole Golly?” etc. It’s STILL a good read.

Harriet herself amazes me. I wonder if you could get away with writing such a character today. Also, her parents! Would such parents be understood today? Or would someone look at the Harriet character and think she was “neglected”? Harriet has no after-school activities, like kids have today every night of the week. No – she comes home, and she occupies herself. She writes. She goes on her spy route, which involves BREAKING INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S HOMES. Uhm, Harriet? That’s illegal? She has TONS of unsupervised time – which seems to not really exist for kids as much anymore as it did when I was a kid. There seems to be such a conformist attitude afoot in the culture at this moment in time … people hemmed in by what is acceptable, offensive, politically correct. Being “nice” is HIGHLY prized. (Look at how people were bitching about Prince blowing off Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. I thought it was GREAT – because, hey, Prince is Prince … He’s not “nice” and if he were “nice” then he wouldn’t be Prince.) I’m not saying “niceness” wasn’t a virtue in other times – but being “nice” is really not the only thing in life – there are MUCH greater and more complex qualities to strive for … and this book completely acknowledges that. It’s about the messiness of someone who might be destined for greatness. Such a person must reconcile themselves to being a loner, to being misunderstood. THIS is Harriet’s journey. A more conventional book would have this prickly 10 year old loner learn some tough lessons about how to “fit in”, how to not be so weird and mean, how to “play well with others”. This book does not go that route. Because to smooth out Harriet’s rough edges would be to smooth out what is special and unique about her. She has to accept who she is. She has to accept that she will NEVER be a “nice” normal person … her life is going to be weird, and she has to be okay with that. (Ahem – see why I loved this book as a kid??) I am now thinking of Katharine Hepburn, a great example of this type of thing. She had to be who she was – she couldn’t hem herself in just to make the “nice” people of the world feel more comfortable – but she had to just accept her loner status. Now – one of the important things about childhood is learning how to “play well with others”. In a way (and this is just me observing from outside) – it seems that “plays well with others” is now the PRIMARY virtue. I find that a bit disturbing. I mean, of course – be nice to each other, blah blah blah … but when I read Harriet the Spy I realize, yet again, that there are things more important than being “nice” to everyone.

Harriet is not nice. The ending of the book is not neat. There is definitely some resolution between Harriet and Sport and Janie … but it doesn’t come in a conventional way. Harriet is very sorry about her mean diary … but she’s not sorry that she had those thoughts about other people. It’s just that by the end of the book she realizes that her meanness might be her best quality – as long as she can channel it into something ARTISTIC. She starts taking her mean little diary – and writing short stories, and she puts out a fabulous school newspaper – filled with biting observations about everyone in the school. Again – not “nice” observations – She definitely calls people OUT. But now – instead of just bitching about how ugly someone is, or how they smell, or wondering how their parents could love them … she turns them into characters in a story. Or – there’s something empowering about what she chooses to share in the newspaper. “Janie has just won the battle. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go ask her.” So … even though she’s STILL observing everyone around her with the cold clear eyes of a spy … there is something a bit different in what she chooses to share.

This just occurred to me, in writing this: Perhaps what has happened to Harriet is this – perhaps THIS is Harriet’s real journey: The plot of the book is: She writes in her journal all day long. It is a private expression. It is how she gets stuff out. She is hostile, biting, mean … even to people she loves. Anyone who has ever kept a really honest journal will know what what this is like. But then – the kids at school steal her journal and read the whole thing. HORROR. They read all the mean things she has said. They confront her. They are not just mad – but mean. For the first time in her life Harriet really feels afraid, looking at all their mean faces. Harriet gets into big trouble. Her parents won’t let her write in her notebook anymore – or they limit how much time she can write. They won’t let her take it to school, etc. Harriet seriously suffers from withdrawal. She aches to write stuff down. When she starts her journal again, it is different. You’d have to read the whole book to see how … but it is.

And perhaps what has happened to Harriet is that for the first time in her life she has become aware of having an AUDIENCE. And so now … when she writes in her journal – she is aware of that audience. She is aware of what they need, of what they are looking for … And instead of crippling her expression, that awareness of an audience actually sets Harriet free.

Every writer has to have SOME idea of their audience. There’s lots of talk in writing books about the “ideal reader” … You know, if you’re a writer: who is your reader? You can’t control who reads you, of course – but who is your IDEAL reader? By that I mean: who is the perfect listener? When you sit down to write, all by yourself, with no audience there … who is the person you are writing for? Yeah, whatever, write for yourself … but the “ideal reader” exists for most writers, and it’s really interesting (at least for me, in my own process) how letting in an awareness of who that person is – for me – has helped me to become a better writer.

I apologize for myself less. I don’t give a shit about the rolling-eye crowd. I’m not writing for them. Once I started getting more readers – it affected my writing for a while. I go back into my archives, and look, and can see the difference between the writing then and the writing now. I was self-conscious for a while – having people showing up to read my site – and that’s fine – but it’s NOT okay when it actually affects the writing itself.

So over the past year or so – I have been working with this ideal reader idea.

My ideal reader is someone who shares my sense of humor, who “gets it”, someone who doesn’t roll their eyes at excitement or enthusiasm, someone who loves to get fired up about this or that, who isn’t put off by a grown woman blithering like a 13 year old. My ideal reader is someone who likes to go deep. Who isn’t afraid to go deep. My ideal reader is not the kind of person who needs to make a joke, nervously, when the mood gets serious.

Now: I’m not talking to ANY of my ACTUAL audience right now and I’m not talking about trying to mold my ACTUAL audience (although I’ve worked on that as well – see the comment policy – heh heh) – I’m talking about the imaginary person who is right beside me when I write … the perfect listener … the person who wants to hear my thoughts, my ambivalence, my darkness, my humor … the imaginary reader who sets my own creativity free. Because imagining that ideal reader – makes it possible for me to write stuff like this. One of my ACTUAL readers completely took that piece the wrong way – made a comment that hurt my feelings so badly that I banned him forever. Good riddance. He had made comments on my blog before which had already revealed him as, to put it mildly, NOT my ideal reader. He was condescending, snarky, completely political at all times, and thought women were kind of, well, silly. He didn’t like how emotional I got. Which makes me wonder: that’s FINE, he doesn’t NEED to like emotion – but why on earth would you read ME if emotion makes you uncomfortable? Or why on earth would you read me if you think women are, in general, kind of silly creatures not to be taken seriously? Bizarre. But here’s the deal: here’s what I’m REALLY trying to say: Some people (and you can probably think of examples) write with their most critical readers in mind. If I wrote with just that one dousche-bag in mind, my writing style would be very different, wouldn’t it?

“I know that you probably think that most women are wack-jobs – and maybe you’re right – but I’m telling you that this was a serious moment for me …”
“Mind you, I know what you are thinking. God, can’t she just grow up and start acting like an adult?”

You get the picture. That’s horrible writing, in my opinion – but I see it all the time. I could fall prey to it myself – so I have to really edit my stuff sometimes, to clip out such argumentative apologetic sentences. Some bloggers are just yelling at phantom critics throughout their entire posts.

I have made a conscious effort to NOT do that. This is because I am trying to write for my “ideal reader” – not someone who holds me in contempt. Not someone I have to argue with, or over-explain myself to … No. I write for the “ideal reader” who gets me. This is how I get into the state of mind that helps me be personal, open up, share stuff … I consciously edit out phantom argument comments like: “Now I know that some of you are probably thinking …” because it weakens the writing. If someone’s main response to my writing is a rolling of the eyes – then I will not waste my time writing FOR that person.

Anyway – as you can see – Harriet has MANY lessons for me – to this day.

By the end of the book, even though she is only 10 years old, she has accepted that she is a writer. And people want to read her stuff. When she writes now – she always has that audience in mind. I see that in some of my Diary Friday stuff – me speaking to some imaginary reader. I ALWAYS had that. I always was writing TO someone. My journals don’t feel private – they are FOR someone. Now there are certain things in those journals that I will NEVER share – I would NEVER want people to read certain parts – too awful, too revealing … but in the writing of it, it was almost like how Anne Frank created “Kitty” – as her ideal pen pal. “Kitty” was the perfect listener. Kitty did not judge. Kitty did not roll her eyes, Kitty did not tell Anne to stop being so dramatic, or to grow up, or be “nice”. Kitty just listened. Kitty listened patiently, and with love, as Anne worked things out for herself.

I have strayed far far from the path, but this just goes to show you the impact that this one book has had on me.

Here’s an excerpt. This is from the beginning half of the book, before Harriet’s whole world falls apart. I love how the cook has no name. It’s just “Cook”. I also love how OBNOXIOUS Harriet is.

From Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh.

It was time for her cake and milk. Every day at three-forty she had cake and milk. Harriet loved doing everything every day in the same way.

“Time for my cake, for my cake and milk, time for my milk and cake.” She ran yelling through the front door of her house. She ran through the front hall past the dining room and the living room and down the steps into the kitchen. There she ran smack into the cook.

“Like a missile you are, shot from that school,” screamed the cook.

“Hello cook, hello, cooky, hello, hello, hello, hello,” sang Harriet. Then she opened her notebook and wrote:

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I ALWAYS DO CARRY ON A LOT. ONCE OLE GOLLY SAID TO ME, “I COULD NEVER LOSE YOU IN A CROWD, I’D JUST FOLLOW THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE.”

She slammed the notebook and the cook jumped. Harriet laughed.

The cook put the cake and milk in front of her. “What you always writing in that dad-blamed book for?” she asked with a sour little face.

“Because,” Harriet said around a bite of cake, “I’m a spy.”

“Spy, huh. Some spy.”

“I am a spy. I’m a good spy, too. I’ve never been caught.”

Cook settled herself with a cup of coffee. “How long you been a spy?”

“Since I could write. Ole Golly told me if I was going to be a writer I better write down everything, so I’m a spy that writes down everything.”

“Hmmmmmmph.” Harriet knew the cook couldn’t think of anything to say when she did that.

“I know all about you.”

“Like fun, you do.” The cook looked startled.

“I do too. I know you live with your sister in Brooklyn and that she might get married and you wish you had a car and you have a so that’s no good and drinks.”

“What do you do, child? Listen at doors?”

“Yes,” said Harriet.

“Well, I never,” said the cook. “I think that’s bad manners.”

“Ole Golly doesn’t. Ole Golly says find out everything you can cause life is hard enough even if you know a lot.”

“I bet she don’t know you spooking round the house listening at doors.”

“Well, how am I supposed to find out anything?”

“I don’t know” — the cook shook her head — “I don’t know about that Ole Golly.”

“What do you mean?” Harriet felt apprehensive.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. I wonder about her.”

Ole Golly came into the room. “What is it you don’t know?”

Cook looked as though she might hide under the table. She stood up. “Can I get you your tea, Miss Golly?” she said meekly.

“That would be most kind of you,” said Ole Golly and sat down.

Harriet opened her notebook:

I WONDER WHAT THAT WAS ALL ABOUT. MAYBE OLE GOLLY KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT COOK THAT COOK DOESN’T WANT HER TO KNOW. CHECK ON THIS.

“What do you have in school this year, Harriet?” asked Ole Golly.

“English, History, Geography, French, Math, ugh, Science, ugh, and the Performing Arts, ugh, ugh, ugh.” Harriet rattled these off in a very bored way.

“What history?”

“Greeks and Romans, ugh, ugh, ugh.”

“They’re fascinating.”

“What?”

“They are. Just wait, you’ll see. Talk about spies. Those gods spied on everybody all the time.”

“Yeah?”

“‘Yes’, Harriet, not ‘yeah’.”

“Well, I wish I’d never heard of them.”

“Ah, there’s a thought from Aesop for you: ‘We would often by sorry if our wishes were gratified.'” Ole Golly gave a little moo of satisfaction after she had delivered herself of this.

“I think I’ll go now,” Harriet said.

“Yes,” said the cook, “go out and play.”

Harriet stood up. “I do not go out to PLAY, I go out to WORK!” and in as dignified a way as possible she walked from the room and up the steps from the kitchen.