a young narrator (pick your age when “young” stops: 5? 15? 35?) may in some situations or examples inspire trust (“Kids tell the truth about things.” “Kids are innocent.” “Kids see to the heart of things.”)
Other situations or examples might also cause skepticism (“Well, she’s too young to understand.” “All that was going over her head.” “He was in his own little world, bless his heart.”)
“The real truth,” we might conclude, very sagely as those of us who have come of age like to conclude things, “is somewhere in the middle.” But the real truth might be that there isn’t a stable or real generalization: that the kid who doesn’t understand that the banging in the next room was sex at first and then a fight DOES understand that when Mommy does that thing where she tilts her head back and smiles and looks you straight in the eye, she’s about to tell a lie. A child can be both naive and heartbreakingly wise, is what I’m saying. And every child is different.
As stories often tell us not about the average, the mean, but about extraordinary characters or extraordinary moments in the lives of average people, maybe we should give up on the idea of the “real truth” as being a reliable guide to what may or may not happen in a story. General observations are useful but not indicative. Stories are weird. You have to actually ride them and feel when they go off the rails.
End of sermonette for the day.
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Questions:
Q. Snot (who does have a real name: it’s interesting to notice when we learn it) is our narrator. She’s — how old? Not very. Do you believe her? What does she do to establish, or to diminish, her own narratorial credibility? Choose one moment or passage as an example of what you mean.
