Call It Courage, by Armstrong Sperry

Call It Courage, by Armstrong Sperry, continues my run of “boy comes of age” books. Our hero, a Polynesian boy of about 12 years of age, becomes known in his community as a coward. In a culture that lives mere feet above sea level and depends on the sea for food and travel, Mafatu is afraid of water. He does not go out to fish like the other boys his age. He sits on the shore with the (oh horror of horrors) women and girls. Thus he learns net-making, net-mending, how to make tools from bone.

Mafatu’s fear is attributed to a horrific experience he had as a child, in which his mother died. The gods of Mafatu's culture are active and personal; Mafatu hears the sea god calling to him…that he was supposed to die too and the god will make sure it happens. In addition to the gods, Mafatu feels pressured by family ties. His father is a hereditary chief—how will his fraidy-cat son carry on the family tradition of honorable leadership? Mafatu knows that he is a disappointment as well as a joke.

In a scene oddly reminiscent of “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” Mafatu overhears other boys talking about him, calling him a coward, and deciding to exclude him from their “games” (activities).  In response, Mafatu takes off alone in a canoe. He doesn’t care anymore. Let the sea god take him.

What follows is the story of how Mafatu recognizes his own strengths and courage as he struggles to survive first on the open ocean and then on the island upon which he lands. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, Mafatu must master hunger, thirst, fire, shelter, safety, and loneliness.  Mafatu has an advantage in the loneliness department. His faithful dog has traveled by his side all the way. Mafatu also tamed an injured albatross, which follows him and occasionally guides him (especially toward home). The two animal associates validate Mafatu early on as a hero. We know that no ordinary boy would have such loyal friends.

Call It Courage is a small book and a quick read. It was awarded the Newbury medal in 1941. The text presents many native words in context gives the flavor of pre-colonial Polynesian life. However, I cannot verify the authenticity of the culture described. Perhaps it is oversimplified or romanticized. It didn’t feel that way. Certainly the land/seascapes were beautifully drawn—the vastness of the ocean, the surf and sand, the description of life on a coral reef. The boiling sun was over-present until a storm raged and I wanted it back. The author’s love of the islands saturates the writing.

Side Bar: Would you or wouldn’t you?

Would I survive such an experience as Mafatu’s? When I imagine myself marooned on an island or trapped on a mountaintop, abandoned in the ocean or in outer space, I have the feeling that I would not be a triumphant survivor. My survival skills mostly involve writing, not foraging. I might be able to figure out a shelter of some kind. (I’ve read enough books to know how it’s done fictitiously.) And I could probably do OK with loneliness. But I would be lousy at making a fire and keeping it going. And I’m lousy at weapons. In other words, I’m pretty much doomed.

I enjoy these would-you/wouldn’t-you questions. Like, if you knew the world would end in one week, would you try to survive? Would you just eat some cyanide? We really can’t know and I suspect that my guesses would be useless. There may be more than the two or three scenarios I imagine. A friend and I who quit smoking around the same time made an agreement that if we found that the world really was going to end, we would be allowed to smoke again—it wouldn’t matter anymore. But, having been smoke-free for many years now, I doubt that I would smoke at all. I wouldn’t meet the end with a butt on my lips. Why? Why not? What difference would it make?

I often wonder, too, if I would be one of those people who evacuates from a hurricane ahead of time or whether I would decide to sit it out. This was an easier question before I had pets. I would want to get the cats and dog to safety even if I wanted to stick around. Again, not much rational thought goes into this decision making process and in the actual event, I have no idea what I would do.

I also ponder questions about what I would do to survive. I’ve already decided that I would never kill another person, but that’s in the abstract. If my loved ones’ lives were threatened, would I kill or let them die? There’s a great Star Trek NexGen episode about this.

Would you or wouldn’t you? I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

I just finished reading Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, a few minutes before sitting down to write. First thought: Hunger Games reads hard and fast. By hard, I don't mean "difficult to comprehend." I mean that the blows just keep coming as thick and fast as the pages keep turning.


Collins pulls us into a post-apocalyptic world in which order is maintained through a cruel parody of the Olympics--the Hunger Games. The games demonstrate the power of the central government of Panem over the provinces. All residents of the country are forced to watch as 24 contestants--two from each district (or state) battle to the death in an arena as rigged against all of them as they are against each other.


Katniss becomes the contestant (or tribute) from District 12, a coal-mining region that resembles the Appalachians--hilly and green, fertile. But the mining people of the district--Katniss's people--are starving. Katniss and her friend Gale dare to go outside the fence to find food to feed their families. I will not tell you how Katniss comes to be one of the tributes from her district, but I will tell you that it made me gasp. Katniss is joined by the boy tribute, Peeta, who is a towny in District 12.


Katniss and Peeta (and I, as a reader) are then swept up in the games--a gruesome contest of wit, strength, cunning, and survival. Again, I am not going into detail here. However, my gasp at Katniss's selection ceremony was repeated over and over as certain scenes crystallized into some of the most poignant moments I have ever read. You may need kleenex, but keep in mind that this is the first book of a trilogy. Knowing that someone is going to survive helped me keep going through some pretty grim events.

The hero couple from the movie Logan's
Run (that's Michael York on the left).

A recurrent theme in this book is exactly how much rebellion against the Capitol of Panem will be tolerated--and whether Katniss and her associates can stay within these boundaries. As the characters mature, will they make the choice to live in the wild? Will they become fighters for freedom? Katniss, Gale, and Peeta have demonstrated in this book that they have the skills to do so. This theme places Hunger Games solidly in the tradition of 1984, Logan's Run, and numerous other science fiction and fantasy stories in which a sterile or controlled environment is breached or escaped and heroes seek their own fortunes. Even my favorite movie, Jeremiah Johnson, is a form of this story.


The idea of the winner-take-all games is also not new--but it is done so well here that it does not feel at all stale or derivative. Cheers to Collins.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in the
movie of Hunger Games, 2012

My next issue is whether Katniss's journey is a hero journey--a quest. She is invited to step out of her milieu, she is cast into an underworld of a kind, she acquires tools, allies, mentors, and emerges victorious. But this is only phase 1 of Katniss's journey. She doesn't reach adult understanding in this book, especially with regard to her relationship with Peeta. At the end of this book she is on the cusp of adulthood, on the edge of self-determination. She has not yet transformed.


I thank Collins for writing such a good female character--one who is brave, strong, smart, and skilled without being unrealistic. Katniss is not a super-hero. She even has braids like Pippi Longstocking, my gold standard for heroines. However, Katniss doesn't have to be comic to be strong, a hayseed to be smart. I am in love with her and want to adopt her as my daughter and nurture her courage and help her grow up and out into a wide, wide world. Our world needs girls like this and people to nurture them.


I can guarantee that I'll be reading Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy, tomorrow.


Sidebar: Pippi Longstocking

Pippie Longstocking, from the books by Astrid Lindgren, was my favorite girl character from my childhood reading. She was strong, smart, funny, skilled. She could live on her own. She could walk the ridgepole! (Which I admired even though I didn't know what a ridgepole was.) She walked where her path took her, exposing humbug and hoohaw, sticking up for the weak, daring whatever there was to dare. In exchange, she was ugly, awkwad, and ridiculed. It was worth it to her, I think, if Pippi could be seen as having an inner life.


Not for me the Laura Ingalls Wilders or Rebeccas of Sunnybrooks. My life has been one long ridgepole, and I'll walk it awkwardly, but straight and sure!






Sidebar: Logan's Run
When I was a freshman at Ohio State in 1978, I would go over to West Campus (since dismantled) early each morning and study in one of the classrooms. As the height of modernity, there was a TV monitor in that room and every morning it would show Logan's Run, a movie I had already seen a few times. All quarter long, I took in Logan's Run along with Psych 100, Biology, and Classics. It's difficult to say which had a longer-lasting impact.

The fatal dot from Logan's Run

Michael York plays Logan, who gradually becomes aware that the treasured ceremony of passing over into a different world is really a ritualized method of population control--there are no old people in Logan's world. When an implant glows in your palm, it's your time. Logan decides to escape--that's his "run." One of the most poignant scenes is when he (and his of course scantily clad female companion) see an old person for the first time. I developed a great love for this B-movie-so-good-it-gets-an-A over the course of that quarter. I never knew why it repeated morning after morning. If you know, please get in touch with me.