Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton

S.E. Hinton’s 1975 novel Rumble Fish is generally described as a youth novel. That’s not all it is however.

While involved in another project I actually stumbled on this novel and re-read it a little while ago. Sometimes a novel benefits from being left alone in your book case for a while and this was definitely one of them. For me personally most of the novels I read in my early teens have lost their pertinance and as we all know there come a time when you must put away childish things.

This novel however stands the test of re-reading and actually as your own perspective changes so do the connotations. Since my last reading I have gone though a lot of literature in the alienation genre and I catch the tone here as well. It is in part because the voice of the main character Rusty-James has that same distance and anhedonic quality.

As a matter of fact all the characters are more or less iconic in that respect. The Motorcycle Boy is referes to as The Pied Piper, Robin Hood and Jesse James all rolled into one and he sees these tags given him more as a burdon than an honour. He chastises Rusty-James gently when they speak of it and says it’s great to be a leader if you have somewhere to go.

The novel also gives a very precise voice to Rusty-James. He know himself well enough to know that he is not smart like his brother and father and he doesn’t understand what goes on around him like they do.  He believes that he could have been just like Motorcycle Boy, but everyone around him tells him that would never be the case.  He wouldn’t be in charge of the gang his brother used to run, he doesn’t have the brains.

Rusty-James best friend, Steve, also fills a particular role. He is in a way the voice of reason, as well as the recorder. He starts the story off by running in to Rusty-James on a beach and making him remember the past. I think it is this particular framework setting of the story that  makes me think of alienation.

Rusty-James doesn’t think about the past, perhaps because it is too painful, but running in to Steve means he is forced to remeber and once the floodgate is open the story pours out of him.

The prose is terse and precise and has a lot to recommend it, actually. Writing from the perspective of a young adult is never easy and Hinton manages to work around the difficulties by giving herself some leeway with the distance of recollection.

The novel gets a lot said in a very short space of time, using language sparingly and leaving a lot of imagery behind. Specially for those of us who enjoyed the movie.

Mule