For our first discussion of Sag Harbor we started off by simply
discussing the ways in which Benji presents the opening of his summer. This was
one of the most open-ended discussions we’ve had in class yet to date, and soon
enough it had drifted entirely away from the book and simply into the realm of
all things summer. It didn’t take long for my mind to wander (sorry Mr.
Mitchell), and pretty soon I was thinking of all the wonderful things that I
might get up to once school was out for the year. Tuning back in, however, I
picked up on the theme of the conversation going towards the very things I had
been daydreaming about. We all agreed that part of what makes the excitement of
the start of summer what it is, is the promise of a new phase in which we can
hope to improve ourselves. Whether it’s reading that book you’ve been meaning
to, getting those extra runs in, or finding a job for yourself, Summer brings
with it the poetential of an entirely new set opportunities.
On that day I was certainly feeling
it, and was quite ready for summer to begin, but as the book progressed I was
struck by an entirely opposite feeling. I’m of course talking about a feeling
of nostalgia. I get it from many books, simply because I wish so badly I could
live in the world they help me immerse myself in, but this was entirely
different. The sense of longing that I got from Benji’s visit to his childhood
house made me think back to my own childhood, and what it was like. Lots of it consisted
of thoughts of what my elementary and junior high days were like, but even
before that I thought back to what my life was like before I moved to Urbana.
It still seems like a simpler and happier time, when I spent most of my time
playing with friends, and running amuck in parks. Maybe everyone has similar
memories of their pre-adolescent childhood, but for me Benji’s account of his
childhood memories really struck a nerve.
Perhaps more pertinent to my
current situation though, is how Benji reacts to the end of his summer. Maybe
this is a little bit backwards, since my summer is just about to begin and his
was just about to end, but I think there is a certain basic similarity to the
phases, by which both summer and a school year progress. Both start out with you setting your sights
high and being ready for some serious self remodeling, and as they come to an
end you wonder where all that has gone. Such is the progression of each, and
this school year has proven no different for me.
Unlike years past however, I feel
much less as though my summer is one of so many more that will come with as
much time as I could want. Honestly, much like Benji I’m starting to feel as though
this stage of my life is coming to an end. Obviously this feeling isn’t so
dramatic as it would be were I a graduating senior, but it’s starting to feel
less and less like the next stage of my high school career is up next, and more
and more like I’m nearing the end of some stage of my life. Of course I’m
starting to look ahead to what’s to come after high school, but at the same
time it makes me think back to what I was like even two years ago. I can’t help
but compare what I was like as a freshman or subbie to those I see roaming the
halls. Similarly to Benji I’m realizing it’s a strange feeling to realize
you’re no longer the upcoming generation, but instead a member of the fabled
upperclassmen who are preparing to leave. Still I have one more year, in which
I’m sure I’ll have even more thorough reflections back on who I was, even this
year.
You describe nicely Benji's complex mood at the start of the novel: he sees this as the "last" Sag summer even before it starts; he'll soon be among those who "no longer come out." There's a sense of nostalgia already mixed in with the great sense of potential for positive change. This also makes the book's nostalgia more complicated: if Whitehead had written about a summer when Benji was, say, ten or eleven, one of the little kids who's just totally free, running around on the beach, not self-consciously contemplating his reinvention or his racial identity, the nostalgia would have seemed more purely longing. The summer he depicts doesn't seem especially legendary or awesome, the changes that occur are slight and possibly a result of his imagination. But the nostalgia resides in the sense of an era coming to an end--and the reader feels that, too, with the novel's "time capsule" style, cataloging all the little details of life in the 1980s. We feel the distance, even if the time itself isn't idealized.
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