Fellow readers, today I have the pleasure of introducing you to my favorite literary character of all time:
Harriet M. Welsch
Or, as she's more commonly known,
Harriet The Spy
I'm starting to write this blog on 3/31 in anticipation of reading. Good Lord. I can't even wait to start re-reading this book because of all the feels. All I've done is look up book covers and some of the art, and I'm about ready to tear up. This book is really responsible for shaping me into the word nerd that I've become; I can't believe I haven't reviewed it before now. When mentioned in one of my very first blog posts, I had this to say about it:
One of the single most influential books of my childhood was Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. The exact date of initial inspection is unknown, but the approximate age was 9 or 10. Everything traumatic or important in my young life seemed to happen between 3rd or 4th grade, at least that’s how I remember it. I read that book so many times that it fell apart twice. The protagonist is a 6th grade hotshot named Harriet. My heroine is a self-proclaimed spy who constantly carries a notebook to write down observations. The plot thickens when she accidentally drops her notebook during a game of tag. Her friends find her notebook and read it. The remainder of the story intimates how she deals with each insolent child and the subsequent year at school. This is where my obsession with writing began. I’m also sure that it’s responsible for the birth of my obsessive/compulsive journal collection.
There are so many feels, I don't think I'll be able to handle it.
Mayhaps I'll read that next. But for now, I'm ecstatic to explicate:
Harriet The Spy
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
300 Pages
Reading Time: 3 days
This is the cover that I remember as a kid. I read it to pieces no less than three times. THREE. It got dropped in the bathtub several times, too. I think that the current version that I still own is the third one that has stayed with me through childhood.
Note how worn out and dingy it is. I'm kind of afraid to start reading it, because it looks like it'll just disintegrate in my hands. I know I've read it before in this condition, though.
Just got this one from the library so I don't destroy mine.
I think that I started reading it in 5th grade. I remember this because Harriet is a 6th grader, and I recall being slightly annoyed that she and I weren't in the same grade. This book is responsible for my addiction to scribbling in notebooks, my compulsive journal buying, and my love for tomato sandwiches ("When I look at him, I could eat a thousand tomato sandwiches" 58). I started writing down everything in a notebook and "spying" when I was a kid, just like our heroine here. I also remember that it was discovered by my mother (even though it obviously had "PRIVATE" written all over the front of it), and she read it. I think, at that point, I hadn't reached the part of the book where the notebook was discovered by Harriet's classmates. If I had, I most likely would have had a better hiding place for it. Side note- as a parent, if my kids are writers (and they most likely will be), I'm not going to read their journals (well, unless they join death-metal bands and start sacrificing goats on the weekends). What a terrifying invasion of privacy! I felt completely betrayed by my mother as she nonchalantly rattled off, "oh yeah, I read it." Yeah, no big deal, there, it's just my SOUL you are reading! I mean, it was the stupidest, juvenile, 5th-grade stuff (which I can read through when I look at my old journals), but even a 5th grader deserves some amount of anonymity and privacy. Sheesh!
5th/6th grade were two of my worst years in school (2nd and 3rd grade were the other two worst); I was bullied a lot and had no close friends I could trust. I think that was one of the main reasons I started journaling. Re-reading the betrayal and bullying that Harriet endures really kicked me in the childhood feels and made me remember why I related to her so much.
I think that one of the scenes that I relate to the most is the discussion between Harriet and her mother right after the notebook is found:
" 'Harriet Welsch, answer me. What do you write about your classmates?'
'Oh, just...well, things I think....Some nice things ... and-and mean things.'
'And your friends saw it?'
'Yes, but they shouldn't have looked. It's private. It even says PRIVATE all over the front of it.'
(Private, not public. DUH)
[...]'Don't you think that maybe all those mean things made them angry?'
Harriet considered this as though it had never entered her mind.
'Well, maybe, but they shouldn't have looked. It's private property.'
'That, Harriet, is beside the point....'" (198-199).
It is NOT beside the point. It IS the point. It's COMPLETELY the point! As a child, I totally sided with Harriet in this matter, and as an adult, this scene pisses me off even MORE. People are far too nosy and curious for their own good. Curiosity is a form of pride. Anyone, ANYONE has the right to think and write whatever they want about whomever they want in whatever private way they WANT. It doesn't mean that they should, but they certainly can. This isn't 1984. It might not be the most holy thing to do to write down mean thoughts about people, but regardless, we have an ability to think for a reason, and we were given the gift of free will. We can use it at our discretion (even our 11 year old discretion). If journaling my experiences and emotions keeps me from screaming at people or hauling off and punching and kicking them (which I was wont to do as a choleric 3rd-5th grader who was in a troubled home), then I should be encouraged to do it! If it helps prevent me from saying mean things and smashing stuff (which I was wont to do as an angry teenager from a broken home), then I should do it! Journaling is a great form of temperance- it allows you to express the thoughts in your head (which fly in and out naturally) in a neutral way without hurting anyone. I don't think that Harriet should have been reprimanded at all for writing. She should have been reprimanded for being careless with her notebook that has private thoughts in it AND been taught beforehand the responsibility that comes with carrying around a private notebook. It makes me want to smack her parents and her insolent little classmates who were
You don't get to enjoy that privilege.
Ok. conclusion to rant. Don't be nosy. Or curious. They're both forms of pride. And what is pride? It's a SIN. Mind your own business about what people choose to keep private, and respect their privacy. Everyone should observe an appropriate reserve concerning persons' private lives.
-Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2492
-Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2492
Because, after all the correction and coddling, even Harriet understands that no one can make her stop writing, thinking, and discovering:
THAT WAS ALL VERY NICE BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY NOTEBOOK. ONLY OLE GOLLY UNDERSTANDS ABOUT MY NOTEBOOK. I WILL ALWAYS HAVE A NOTEBOOK. I THINK I WILL WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING, EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY THING THAT HAPPENS TO ME (200).
The kids are retaliating and bullying her because they were nosy little creeps who did something they should not have done. The fairness equilibrium is completely askew at this point. Harriet was wrong in how she was careless about her notebook; her classmates are wrong for invading her privacy and bullying her on top of it. Harriet starts down the wrong path when she maliciously retaliates. But seriously, those damn punks deserve exactly what she dishes out to them.
Can you tell that I'm biased and I love her? I'm pretty sure she's also a choleric/melancholic. I also LOVE the part in the story when scribbling in her notebook wasn't enough and she lugs her father's old typewriter up to her room and starts punching the keys furiously.
I just gotta say right now: if you didn't originally read this as an elementary student, and your first time through it is as an adult, you most likely will not get hit in the feels. You might even completely hate it, which is totally your choice. However, if you read it to any elementary kid who remotely likes to write or has ever been bullied, they'll love it.
Back cover reads:
When I grow up I'm going to find out everything about everybody and put it all in a book. So writes Harriet M. Welsch, who is determined to grow up to be a famous author. In the meantime, she practices by following a regular spy route each day and writing down everything she sees in her secret notebook.
Then one morning, Harriet's life is turned upside down. Her classmates find her spy notebook and read it out loud! Harriet's in big trouble. The other sixth-graders are stealing her tomato sandwiches, forming a spy-catcher club, and writing notes of their own--all about Harriet!
Initial Reaction: First of all, I'm a sucker for hooks. The first sentence is "Harriet was trying to explain to Sport how to play Town" (3). We're immediately sucked in because we don't know how to play Town, either. Secondly, as a kid, I had no idea, absolutely NONE, where this story took place. I don't think I knew what/where Manhattan was, nor did I know that a brownstone was. Now I do! Fitzhugh does an admirable job of piquing the reader's curiosity.
One of the reasons that I love Ole Golly so much is not only because of her firmness (I'm pretty sure she's a choleric), but because she's always quoting literature. Quoting Dostoievsky, Wordsworth, Emerson, Carroll, and Shakespeare to an 11-year-old in context is pretty awesome. It tends to go right over Harriet's head, but that's one of the things that I love about Ole Golly. She tries to make Harriet think by never stating the obvious to her.
As a child, I guess it never struck me how completely "absent" Harriet's parents are from her life. They are kind of bumbling, distracted, privileged morons, but I think that they're set up that way in the beginning of the book so we pay more attention to the relationship between Harriet and Ole Golly. Harriet is an only child who has two completely oblivious parents. After Ole Golly leaves and Harriet's notebook is found, they finally start stepping in and acting like parents. Some of the descriptions of Harriet's loneliness just break my heart, though. "Without a notebook, she couldn't spy, she couldn't take notes, she couldn't play Town, she couldn't do anything. She was afraid to go and buy another one, and for once she didn't feel like reading" (258). It's so sad that she doesn't have any siblings to play with, and her parents just take her to a shrink to find out what's "wrong" with her instead of trying to actually talk to her. But, the lack of emotional attachment of Harriet to her parents is obvious, and it's because they've practically been absent for all of her 11 years. It makes me sad. One of the readers on goodreads.com said that the book is "like social commentary on the lonely lives of privileged NYC children." I agree somewhat. I can't keep reading the comments on goodreads or I'll want to scream. Harriet is like a mini-me, and I love her, faults and all.
Harriet's first few articles in the Sixth Grade Page are such a let down after all of the notebook drama, which points to more absentminded and passive parenting. Instead of writing good things, she ends up publishing honest and mean observations about some of the people on her spy route and gossip about her classmates heard from her parents. Writing in private is one thing. Publishing them about someone is another. Where the hell are her parents, and why aren't they teaching her this stuff?!?! Why don't they also pay attention to the fact that she is IN the room and tries to listen to EVERYTHING?! Gah. I just want to smack them.
Lastly, this thought just dawned on me:
I'm just as bad as her classmates. Bahaha.
An aside about the movie with Michele Trachtenberg and Rosie O'Donnell: The two actresses don't really fit the characters well, in my estimation. I used to own it on DVD, but I got rid of it before I became a missionary. It's not bad, but it's not the book. There are certainly similarities, but there are several glaring differences that fans of the book will notice and dislike. It's a 90s movie, but it's not a good 90s movie. In the movie, Harriet's nemesis (Marion Hawthorne) finds her notebook and reads it. In the book, Janie, Harriet's best friend, finds her notebook and reads it. There's much more of an emotional betrayal in the book. In the book, Harriet is internally sassy and externally moderately well-behaved. In the movie, she's much more snarky externally. They tried too hard to make the character funny.
Promote Virtue? Bravery & perseverance (dealing with bullying), self-awareness (Harriet knows who she is. She's not ashamed of things that she likes), self-control and temperance (writing private thoughts in a book). I think the story focuses more on being true to yourself amidst a huge dramatic crapstorm during middle school rather than trying to improve yourself. Harriet doesn't really change at the end of the book, but she has learned some important things. The book also leaves us hanging, so we don't get the opportunity to see her life after the lesson.
Transcendentals? Harriet and Ole Golly love truth. That's evident. Fitzhugh's writing is beautiful, and I love that she waxes word-nerd every now and then about writing. Goodness isn't really too apparent.
Overcome human condition? I wouldn't say that Harriet really strives to be good or kind, but she deals with what life throws at her in an admirable way. The book really fails in two respects. First, there is a lack of follow through about the lesson Harriet should have learned. She doesn't really learn her lesson about being more careful about carrying around her notebook and writing mean things about people. She even publishes mean gossip in the Sixth Grade Page. *sigh* Next, Ole Golly gives her permission to lie. Albeit, she only encourages little white lies that "don't hurt anybody," but it's lying nonetheless. And you all know how I feel about lying. I never understood the lying part as a kid. Harriet doesn't need to lie, and she doesn't actually lie in the rest of the book. It kind of sounds like Ole Golly is giving her permission to lie about apologizing or saying she's sorry without actually being sorry. That is NO GOOD. I think that it'd be a great springboard for discussion with my kids about perfect and imperfect contrition as well as the four cardinal virtues.
"It made Harriet feel better to try and quite like Ole Golly, so she wrote: THE SINS OF THE FATHER. That was all she knew from the Bible besides the shortest verse: Jesus Wept" (189). It makes my heart so sad for her.
Paganry? Nope
Swearing? Damned.
Violence? Barely the schoolyard variety.
Appropriate age? 3rd grade and up.
Writing Style: Fitzhugh writes in a way that sucks the reader in and makes you curious. Her characters are realistic and often full of humor. She makes so many sneaky literary references that it makes me swoon. Re-reading it as an adult is just as fun as reading it as a 5th grader. Several instances in the book made me laugh aloud. Some things are very clear: Fitzhugh likes Dostoievsky, and she loves to write.
Notable Quoteables:
"I'm going to take you somewhere. It's time you began to see the world. You're eleven years old and it's time you saw something" (8-9).
"Harriet was scribbling furiously in her notebook" (11).
" 'This the lil Welsch Baby? That her brother?' Sport giggled.
'No, it's my husband,' Harriet shouted" (14-15). LOL
"Ole Golly looked at Harriet in as gentle a way as she could considering the fact that her face looked like it was cut out of oak" (24). Bahahah.
"Then Harriet did what she always did when she was supposed to be asleep. She got out her flashlight, put the book she was currently reading under the covers, and read happily until Ole Golly came in and took the flashlight away as she did every night" (25).
"PINKY WHITEHEAD HAS NOT CHANGED. PINKY WHITEHEAD WILL NEVER CHANGE" (31). (The caps are Fitzhugh's way to differentiate the normal dialogue from Harriet's notes). These two sentences have always tickled me since I was a kid. This is the first of many snarky notes in Harriet's notebook. Harriet is an observant kid, and she definitely has her opinions, but I think that she's just trying to be realistic instead of malicious.
"Like a missile you are, shot from that school," screamed the cook (36). This one always made me laugh aloud because I could visualize the scene perfectly.
"She never minded admitting she didn't know something. So what, she thought; I could always learn" (50). Yup.
"No good. No good," Papa Dei Santi screamed with all his might (54). This is where my use of the phrase "No good" comes from.
The names of the cats of Harrison Withers suddenly take on a different meaning now that I'm an adult and get some of the references to actual historical figures like Rasputin, Goethe, Puck, Faulkner, Willy Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Dostoievsky (that's the second time he's appeared in the book already!).
(73) I didn't really think about having a tomato sandwich until I was in college. Oh man. One year when I was at the Place 2B, the sisters had a CRAPTON of tomatoes during the summer. I ate 2 tomato sandwiches for lunch and dinner every day for about 2 weeks. It was GLORIOUS.
"I'll be damned if I go do dancing school" (83). This was the first swear word I ever encountered in a book as a child. I was one thrilled 5th grader.
"I went there once on a visit with Beth Ellen because she had to go and I was spending the night, and you have to wear party dresses and all the boys are too short and you feel like a hippopotamus." She said this all in one breath and screamed "hippopotamus" (84). This scene is one of my absolute favorites because the visual that instantly pops into my head is:
LMAO!
"The silence upstairs was deafening" (104). I do believe that this is the first metaphor that I completely understood as a child.
"Harriet thought the movie was a gas" (119). I had no idea what in the hell this meant as a kid. I've since learned that it's a positive thing because of similar expressions used in songs by The Brian Setzer Orchestra and the movie The Great Outdoors.
"None of that. Tears won't bring me back. Remember that. Tears never bring anything back" (132). Most people remember the next line: "Life is a struggle and a good spy gets in there and fights," but the four previous sentences have really helped me get through several losses in my life, especially as an adult.
"She sat down to read. How I love to read, she thought" (136). Love.
"Harriet, that's ridiculous. An onion is a beautiful thing. Have you ever really looked at an onion?" Miss Elson was losing all touch with reality (153-54). Bahahaha.
"The head was completely round and carved out of butcher's block so that it resembled a beautifully grained newel post with a face carved in it" (157). Bahahah.
"IS OLE GOLLY RIGHT? IS IT TERRIBLE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT? I WANT TO BE A WRITER AND I'LL BE FINKED IF I'LL BE UNHAPPY WHEN I AM. SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T THINK THINGS OUT" (172).
"IF MARION HAWTHORNE DOESN'T WATCH OUT SHE'S GOING TO GROW UP INTO A LADY HITLER" (184). Bahahahah.
"What was sickening about a tomato sandwich? Harriet felt the taste in her mouth. Were they crazy? It was the best taste in the world. Her mouth watered at the memory of the mayonnaise. It was an experience, as Mrs. Welsch was always saying" (191). Hahah. This reminds me of my father-in-law, who always says that "having BLTs is an event." Bahahah.
"WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING I WISH I WERE DEAD.
Having disposed of that, she got up..." (200). See, even the language (disposed) Fitzhugh uses to describe Harriet's writing is that of release. Harriet has a feeling, she vents it, and moves on.
"THEY HAVE A CLUB AND I AM NOT IN IT. IT IS ALSO A CLUB AGAINST ME. THEY ARE REALLY OUT TO GET ME. I HAVE NEVER HAD TO GO THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THIS. I WILL HAVE TO BE VERY BRAVE. I WILL NEVER GIVE UP THIS NOTEBOOK BUT IT IS CLEAR THAT THEY ARE GOING TO BE AS MEAN AS THEY CAN UNTIL I DO. THEY JUST DON'T KNOW HARRIET M. WELSCH" (224).
"(Ole Golly) ALWAYS SAID THAT PEOPLE WHO TRY TO CONTROL PEOPLE AND CHANGE PEOPLE'S HABITS ARE THE ONES THAT MAKE ALL THE TROUBLE. IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMEBODY, WALK AWAY, SHE SAID, BUT DON'T TRY TO MAKE THEM LIKE YOU" (227).
"I WILL BE SO FAMOUS [...] RACHEL HENNESSEY WILL PLOTZ' (230). Bahahahahah! What a great word.
"She felt her thoughts limping like crippled children" (238).
"...there was her handwriting, reassuring if not beautiful. She grabbed up the pen and felt the mercy of her thoughts coming quickly, zooming through her head out the pen onto the paper. What a relief, she thought to herself; for a moment I thought I had dried up. She wrote a lot about what she felt, relishing the joy of her fingers gliding across the page, the sheer relief of communication. After a while she sat back and began to think really hard" (241). If this isn't the precise essence of what it is to enjoy writing, then I don't know what the hell is. I insisted that all of my papers in college (except for some of the inconsequential ones that I really didn't care about) be written by hand first. There was more of an emotional attachment that way. Harriet gets it. Fitzhugh gets it. I wish kids and parents these days would get it. Get off the screens and the keyboards (and trust me, the irony is not lost on me as I type this on my blog) and just write. And actually, some of my most popular blogposts (The Unveiling of Arwen, Rosaries & Rammstein, The Front Lines, and Stop It) were all handwritten first in a journal. I get it.
"She munched a thought over in her mind" (245). This reminds me of Mother Mary Catherine leading Lectio Divina. She'd always say "give yourself time to chew on the verse." <3
"Quickly Harriet sat up, leaned over, and in one perfectly coordinated motion threw a shoe at her father" (248). Best line in the whole book. Always loved the ridiculousness of this scene when I was a kid. However, as an adult, her father's incompetent passivity make me want to punch him in the face.
"Her fingers itched at the thought of a notebook, of a pen flying over the pages, of her thoughts, finally free to move, flowing out" (257).
" "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' -that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." John Keats. And don't you ever forget it" (277 written in Ole Gollly's letter to Harriet). I've never forgotten this. It's stated with such weight and authority.
"Maybe she wasn't Dostoievsky, but she was readable at least" (285). I'm still completely surprised that this guy has made three appearances in this book. I think I need to read something he's done.
"She took a few notes, concentrating on description which she felt to be her weakest point" (297).
Great words (I'ma list all of 'em): plaintively, dubiously, exasperated, briskly, interspersed, relentlessly, bellowed, burbling, snarky, timidly, sedately, contentedly, billowy, grimaced, despised, simultaneously, immense, iniquity, unmitigated, minuscule, cretin (I had no idea what this word was when I was a kid, and I didn't look it up. I use it all the time as an adult), eccentric, raucously, colloquy, foliage, enunciated, esplanade, agility, aplomb, bemused, peevishly, disconcerted, relented, astonished, amicable, cursory, sidled, pandemonium, askew, pompously, gaping, petulant, filch, agitated, querulous, dejectedly, zeal, aghast, menacing, clamoring, nuisance, despondently, sodden, contemptuous, careened, stealthily, forlornly, perplexity, reverently, bedlam, tentatively, vaguely, incessantly, moping, disdainfully, surreptitiously, and listlessness. These are quite the level for the age that I read it. I'm impressed.
Final Summation: My heart. My 34-year-old-turned-5th-grader-tomato-sandwich-loving-scribbling heart. The feels. Unabashedly, unflinchingly, and in all other ways, Harriet the Spy is and will always remain
PS- It took me at least 8 hours to compose this post in its entirety.
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