WordPlay - Language, Culture, Media, and Meaning

A Review of the Novel 'Admission', With Some Thoughts About College Admission Philosophy and Practice

    Recently I read a novel I really liked, 'Admission', by Jean Hanff Korelitz.  The title of the book is actually rather subtle. In the first instance, it seems to apply simply and directly to the quasi-vocation of the heroine, Portia Nathan, a Princeton admissions officer.But as the story unfolds, the title turns out to also refer to the legal meaning of admission (i.e., a confession of a sort) and finally, to one particular admission decision of one candidate to Princeton, on which the heroine stakes her career.

    The basic appeal of the book is obvious. Ms. Korelitz has published four novels, but her day job the last few years has been as a reader of Princeton admission applications.  So the book offers a peek behind the curtain from someone who knows, at the actual workaday process of Ivy League admissions, a subject of absorbing interest to anyone who's been through it (twice in the last seven years, undergrad and professional school, with oldest child). The novel spans roughly an academic year, September to April, during which Portia Nathan makes presentations to secondary schools in her assigned area, reads and evaluates admissions application - this being a novel, the essays of the applicants are of particular interest to her - discusses her job and Princeton admissions with all sorts of students and parents ar various stress levels, participates on the admission committee that makes the ultimate decision on these matters, and finally becomes so involved in one special application that she puts her job on the line for that young person. It's all fascinating stuff for an outsider, written by someone in a position to know who writes awfully well.

    (Some full disclosure here. My stepson graduated from Princeton in May of 2008, so the setting of the novel was of particular interest to me. I attended the graduation. If I can believe the novel - and on this point, I do - Princeton seeks to admit a class of brilliant kids who are not self conscious about either the brilliance or the Ivy League status. From what I saw, admissions does a great job on the brilliance. The absence of self-consciousness? I'm not so sure.

    Also, Portia Nathan makes the same point to just about every one she meets, that Princeton is looking for more than academic ability, that 'little extra something' that sets the applicant apart. That would be just wonderful if Princeton were the only elite institution with that criterion. But Stanford also looks for that little extra something, as does Harvard, as does Yale, as do all of them. The practical result is that an entire cottage industry exists, specializing in creating that little extra something on a mass produced basis. Obviously, when everybody has that special cachet, no one does.     

    The practical effect of all this is a strong statement to the youth of the land, that, if you want to join the establishment, you had better have done something noteworthy before you're 17. This is almost certainly an appalling thought to both the author and her alter ego. (One of the best short passages in the book is a little section where Portia speculates how many Princeton undergrads wrestle uneasily with some version of impostor syndrome.)  But I do believe that an insistence on some sort of labored, artificial precocity in applicants is one of the consequences, doubtless unintended, of this emphasis on 'something special'. Two generations ago, James Michener opined that nothing a man (sic) did before he was 40 was really of much value, that that time was all preparation. That's probably too emphatic the other way. But if I had to choose between the two, I'll take Michener.

        One other point. There's a big emphasis throughout the book on the importance of diversity, the end of the white male bastion of privilege. Well and good - I don't think any one really disagrees with this. But I was struck by one factoid I ran across while reading the second volume of Rick Atkinson's history of American troops in Europe, The Day of Battle. In commenting on the extraordinary demographic breadth of the US Army in World War II, he used Princeton as an example. (These days, Princeton and/or Stanford seem to be the universal stand-ins for elite universities.) Eighty-four percent of the graduating class of 1942 joined the armed forces. Both the valedictorian and salutatorian joined as enlisted men.

     So I don't know. Sixty years ago, Princeton may have been a fortress of privilege, but when push came to shove, the privileged joined the rank and file. Looking back at the brilliant young people of the class of 2008, I wondered how many of them would have the same sense of obligation in a true national crisis. For sure I couldn't envision too many of them doing KP. The thought crossed my mind that underlying all this diversity (with that 'little something special' yet) was the same old 'noblesse', but without the same old 'oblige'. I wondered whether that was really all that much of an improvement.

      The background was not the only thing I liked about 'Admission' - a slight, but well written, well executed little book. The book has other interesting aspects, and I am going to devote another post to them. But this one is long enough. 

   

Harry Potter and the Green-Eyed Critic

    A couple of days ago I ran across an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled 'Sex and the Single Wizard', a genuine exercise in superciliousness, conducted by someone named James Parker, who gives off all the vibrations of a committed twit. The article was of the 'bait and switch' type, in that it purported to be a discussion of the difficulty of transforming the Harry Potter novels into quality screenplays. However, the pudding proved in the tasting to be a snide attack on the books themselves. A little warning to Parker and others of his ilk – if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, snide is the most easily recognizable variety of envy.  Sorry, Parker, but your secret is not safe with me.

    J.K. Rowling hardly needs defense at this point in her career from a minor league blogger like yours truly. But I have long wanted to write a grace note on the Harry Potter novels, an exercise in uninhibited fandom, and  this seems to be the right occasion. Rowling did not succeed on the scale she did because of luck or good connections. She succeeded because she is a narrative genius.  I have to confess a failing here that in any case will shortly become obvious. I am a story addict, a quintessential 'tell-me-what-happened-next' reader. I often finish books and movies that are plainly terrible, just to find out how the story turns out. So with that sordid confession behind, let's proceed.
Leaving the question of literary value aside for a moment, and considering the Potter novels simply as storyteller's art, the series is one of the great achievements in Western literature. Using prose of elegant simplicity, Rowling succeeded in weaving a dazzling number of threads - plots, subplots, sub-sub-plots, extended themes, characterizations, nuances, thrones, principalities, etc. - into a seamless narrative by which the plot arc is (seemingly) effortlessly advanced – the art that conceals art, the finest kind. A loose comparison can be made to a passacaglia, a form of musical composition in which the progression of the piece occurs in the base line, while various melodies play in the upper register.  In the same way, the  plot arc (Harry vs. Voldemort) moves relentlessly through a series of harmonic progressions towards an inevitable resolution, while the minor plots play out in the upper staves.

    A few devices – the most obvious example being the enigma of Snape's loyalty and motivation – are almost as large and extended as the plot arch itself. Others, such as the extended account of the Weasley family's confrontation with their obnoxiously ambitious son Percy, have a multi-volume scope. Smaller riddles – Dumbledore's puzzling tolerance for the charlatan Madame Trelawney – are of lesser scope, but also run through more than one novel. Then there are the volume stories themselves – the first five books stand alone nicely. The smaller narrative mechanisms are too numerous to recite. All of them are integrated gracefully and naturally into the flow of story and  characterization.

    The 19th Century Viennese music critic Edward Hanslick despised Wagner's operas (and paid a price in consequence). But he was honest enough to note his admiration for the 'bee like industry' that informed every bar of Gotterdammerung. A nice phrase, 'bee-like industry', and one that applies equally to Rowling's attention to detail in Harry Potter. I do believe it's a quality that can be found in almost all successful  'large' works of art.  

    It won't do, of course, to bestow all this raving praise on the Potter books and stick to high concept. I do believe a trip to the nitty-gritty is required, a hard look at the worker bee in action.  By way of example. I'd like to take a hard look at  an episode at the end of the fourth book, the Goblet of Fire. I choose this particular scene because the nadir, the truly wretched bottom of Parker's supercility, is reached when he compares Tolkien's Sauron favorably to Voldemort. That's absolute nonsense, for reasons I'll address in a moment. But for now, to the nitty-gritty. A caution; there are Spoilers here. But I am making the natural assumption that any reader who is interested in these thoughts is already thoroughly familiar with the Potter novels.

    Near the end of Goblet of Fire, Harry wins a wizarding contest. But when he lays hands on the prize, it proves to be a trap, a magical device that transports Harry to a place where Voldemort lies in wait with his most faithful servant. As the action goes forward, Voldemort is restored to his full power, his acolytes arrive, Harry escapes miraculously, and returns to Hogwarts to give an unverifiable account of what happened. Doubts about Harry's veracity spring up like weeds, and the consequent cloud over him in the bureaucracy and elsewhere becomes a central theme in the books that follow

    Now, all this would work naturally and plausibly even if Harry alone fell into the trap. But that is not the way Rowling chose to tell the tale. Harry is accompanied by Cedric Diggery, a minor figure that Rowling has taken great pains to characterize and to include in final journey. Diggery is a sort of Hogwarts' Frank Merriwell, a boy popular with everyone and a heartthrob with the girls. His presence at the scene of Harry's confrontation with Voldemort adds nothing to the action, for he is murdered instantaneously with his arrival. 'Kill the spare', Voldemort directs, and so it happens. So why all this effort to inform the reader of Diggery's sweetness and popularity? And to see to it that he is present when Harry first confronts Voldemort?

    My own intuitive explanation?  Rowling has organized the story in the way she did precisely so she can introduce Voldemort with the line  - 'kill the spare'. In its ruthlessness, its murderous malice, and its complete indifference to the human qualities of Cedric Diggery, it demonstrates immediately all the evil with which Voldemort has been described by others. To Voldemort, to whom only his own needs matter, Diggery is the 'spare' – not even inquiry about his name or why he happens to be there - murdered for no other reason than he is redundant. From the involved preparation for this scene, it is apparent it was no 11th hour inspiration. Rowling had had this masterstroke in mind at least from the outset of the fourth novel (when Harry encounters Cedric and his father before the World Quidditch Match, at which time the boy's charm and effect on the schoolgirls is apparent ). In its directness, its efficiency and its effect, it is that – a masterstroke.

    Rowling goes on to present Voldemort in a tremendous series of scenes and encounters – the one that registers most vividly with me is a dinner during which a helpless captive twists upside down from the ceiling while the other 'guests' each wish they were anywhere else.  His influence becomes more and more a reality in the lives of the principals. In the last volume, the lights are going quietly out all over the magic kingdom. Harry and his allies are reduced to living in a mobile tent, as their friends are overwhelmed, one after another. Off hand, I can't think of another hero reduced to such desperation before the tide turns. Voldemort's evil has moved from the realm of the possible to a complete, devastating reality.

    The cliché that a monster or villain is always reduced in stature by the reveal has become a cliché because it is so very, very  true. Very few reveals succeed. But the reveal of Voldemort, conveyed in these ice cold scenes, are a brilliant success, and another triumphant example of the narrative skill the authoress demonstrates at so many other points.. (The only other one I can think of that is similarly accomplished is the 'reveal' of Norman Bates' mother at the end of Hitchock's movie Psycho.)

    And what of Sauron, whose brooding evil Parker contrasts favorably with Voldemort? In this respect, the Lord of the Rings is a version of the Emperor's New Clothes. Tolkien informs his readers endlessly (and didactically) that Sauron is Evil, that a Shadow is spreading over the Middle World, etc., etc., - but yet Sauron never wins a round. Not even one blessed inning.  Not even one light left jab. He does no significant damage to anyone. It's like watching a tennis match  (mixing the sports metaphors) in which the commentators keep touting one player who never hits a winner. Frodo goes through the entire narrative unscathed. He doesn't lose any friends. He doesn't lose any blood. He doesn't even miss any meals. Hell, he doesn't even miss the mustard for his ham sandwich.

    I remember being first bothered, then really annoyed with this when I first read the books, at approximately age 20.  EYou can't endlessly reiterate the fearsomeness of the villain/monster, and then set up a story in which he is unable to alter even one minor event.  My recollection is that Tolkien was aware of this, but fatuously believed that the basic narrative demand was satisfied by repeated 'cliffhanger' episodes (“And they were about to carry the day, and would have carried the day if not for . . . “). He could not have been more wrong, Sooner or later, no matter how great the risk, you have to deliver the goods, let Voldemort appear, show Norman's mother, let Dracula come out of hiding. Even mediocre storytellers know that. It is a shame that one of Tolkien's Inkling friends, say. C.S; Lewis in a mood of Screwtape realism, didn't sit the lad down and give him the bad news. JR, old chap, this is not working.

    Both Rowling and Tolkien use similar imagery – shadows spreading over the landscape, the silent growing power of the evil force – but where as Rowling gives the readers incidents, murders repulsive in their coldness, personalties changed, apparatchiks running wild (the scene of Umbridge interrogating a half-blood magician is infuriating to read) – Tolkien simply endlessly uses the background imagery, while giving nothing in the foreground. His story becomes frustrating, and then unintentionally comic. It is my own cynical thought that, had Tolkien not been a tweedy Oxford Don surrounded by famous friends, but an ordinary amateur scribbler, that his epic might not have seen the light of day. Even what is good and inventive in it owes a big debt to Wagner.

    Had Tolkien been entrusted with the Harry Potter/Voldemort scene in which Cecil Diggery meets his end, Harry and Diggery would have been menaced . . .  threatened from all sides . . .  come close to death . . .  BUT, at the last second, Dumbledore would arrive, having found the port key, or Cecil would discover a charm on the premises, or Voldemort's wand would break, or something. And Voldemort and his cohorts would slink away, muttering threats, having accomplished nothing. But he'll be back, boy . . . . he's REALLY mean, just wait and see . .  . . I'm tellin' you, that Sauron – er, Voldemort is EVIL . . . you'd better believe it. (Tolky, baby, it ain't happenin'.)

    The plain, ugly, unvarnished  truth is that, if Tolkien had been responsible for that scene, Cecil Diggery would be alive today!!!! But, scandal aside, and unluckily for him, the writer who did have the conn was far more gifted writer made of far sterner stuff. 

    I don't mean to imply that the Potter novels are a perfect, finished work of literature. There is no such thing. There are dozens of minor plot holes, and one major one. But what is good about the books is so very, very good. When considering the value of a work of art that, with no greater means than words on a printed page, managed to capture the attention of the world in a post literate age, it might be a good idea to focus on how the trick was done, not its supposed flaws. Too late for Parker, but good advice for other twit critics. 

    For what it's worth, even Parker's sniggling comments about the sex life (or lack thereof) of Harry Potter are beside the point.  The base storyline concerns Harry's maturation, magnificently told, from complete confusion about who he is, to a recognition of his own identity. Erotic subthemes don't fit well in that context. Besides, there is in the subtext some sly innuendo that one of Harry's principal antagonists, more glibly sophisticated in every way than the chronically confused Harry, may be doing quite well in that way. You would never write 'Harry Potter and the Harems of Hogwarts'. But you might try 'Draco Malfoi and the Sluts of Slytherin'. My sense is that Rowling does not particularly care for this fraternity boy style of loose womanizing. She has a lot of company.

    That's about it. My apologies to Parker, whose rather silly essay in truth was no more than a prompt for an appreciation I have meant to write for some time.  I have to beg the question I raised above, about the literary merit of these books. The question of whether the skill and care that has been lavished on what is ultimately a story of children's fantasy seems a real one to me. Although the entertainment value may be justification enough, the issue is still interesting. I think there is something there a bit more significant than entertainment. I'll take that up on another day, if anyone is interested.

    But this essay is long enough as it is. Thanks for the attention paid.