Don't Call me Ishmael
My husband is a High School relief teacher, and one day he found himself in an English class which was studying this YA novel that features Year nine students in an all-boys school. It sounded like a fun read, so when I spotted a copy at a coastal secondhand bookshop, I bought it.
The beginning is the biggest hurdle, as our main character, Ishmael Leseur, starts off rambling. Chapter two purports to tell us how he was named after the narrator of Herman Melville's Moby Dick (a book I also found far too long-winded), yet not until chapter three does he actually tell it. I was wondering whether being a tedious narrator simply goes along with the name Ishmael, when luckily the story started growing on me. Whew!
Ishmael has a fertile and perceptive thought life, but falls short when it comes to talking to people on the spot. He's the king of awkwardness, mind blanks and sticking his foot in his mouth. Bizarre and embarrassing things usually happen to him around his crush, Kelly Faulkner. What's more, he's a prime target of the class bully, Barry Bagsley, a nasty piece of work who relishes his hobby of making others miserable.
Ishmael's coping tool when it comes to Barry and his gang is to make himself as inconspicuous as possible in an effort to slide beneath their radar. When a vulnerable looking new kid, James Scobie, joins the class, the newcomer's future looks grim. Incredibly, James has ways of holding his own against Barry, which Ishmael benefits from. The downside is that Ishmael's new friend James expects him to join their Year 9 debating team, which gives Ishmael extreme stress just thinking about it.
I appreciate the fact that Barry is shown as being a jerk simply because it gives him a buzz. As a bullied kid myself at school, I'd grow weary of hearing justifications for their behaviour from teachers, such as, 'Hurt people hurt people.' Apart from resenting that we victims sometimes received less support than our antagonists, it so often didn't hold true. I knew plenty of kids from loving, nurturing backgrounds who still relished bullying just for the thrill of it. Barry seems to be one of these, and good on Bauer for not glossing over it.
(Update: having read book 2, a fact about Barry's backstory has come to light which some readers will surely say justifies his tendency to lash out at others. But since we don't know about it all through book 1, I'll let my point stand.)
The overdrawn imagery all through this book amazed me at first. Every page is crammed with vividly-descriptive similes and metaphors. I clearly remember, as a new writer, being corrected by an editor for doing the exact same thing. She crossed them out and told me to stop. ('It draws attention away from the flow of the story itself.') This explanation made sense, so I quickly toned them down.
Considering I took pains to train myself out of the habit, to see Bauer doing it continuously irritated me at first. But then I realized that Bauer has given Ishmael this style for a good reason. It's Ishmael's hallmark, and making these bizarre analogies is how he rolls. I enjoyed it when I got used to it.
Just goes to show, even techniques that are generally frowned upon by professionals in the industry can become strengths when used consistently and fearlessly.
The story clearly succeeds overall, because even though I shook my head reading it so many times, I straight away got hold of the second and third books in the series from the library.
Characterisation and dialogue win the day. It's not often that I actually laugh out loud while reading. I've referred to certain books passing my 'tears test' in previous reviews. I'd better add a 'laughter test' now. The fact that I did laugh pushes this one from three stars to four.
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Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs
Apart from his desire to get a whole lot closer to Kelly Faulkner with the wonderful, ice-blue eyes, Ishmael continues to hold his end up for their debating team. He (ineffectively) attempts to make peace when his friends, Razza and Prindabel keep clashing, and (more effectively) tries to help his dad's middle-aged band members put together a 20-year reunion concert.
Strokes of cringeworthy bad luck continue to dog his footsteps. It seems some sort of magnetism is involved. Why do tongue-tied, awkward folk like Ishmael (and me, I admit it), tend to attract more than our fair share of face-palmy predicaments?
One big question for readers to figure for ourselves is whether Kelly is attracted to Ishmael or not? We only ever see her through his viewpoint, which remains ambiguous, even when he tries to sneak a read of her diary to find out for sure. The subject could constitute a debate among readers itself.
Characterisation and dialogue continue to carry the day. People like Ishmael (and me) will continue to envy people like his best mate Razza, who are quick-witted enough to think on their feet and never seem to realize what a fortunate skill that is. The nerds win our affection too. It's good to see James Scobie back as his super-capable self, and I can't help wondering what science geek, Ignatius Prindabel will pull out of his hat in the third installment.
I went away for a quiet weekend and this was a perfect short holiday read. You don't have to concentrate too hard to get a pretty decent story, there are several laugh-out-loud moments, and enough impetus for me to decide, 'Okay, aother chapter.' What will these five boys deliver next?
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Note: I have also read and reviewed the third installment of this trilogy, Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel.
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