THE SELECTED WORKS OF T.S. SPIVET - Reif Larson - Fiction

THE SELECTED WORKS OF T.S. SPIVET is a beautifully illustrated novel about a twelve-year-old boy, T.S., a map-maker, scientific illustrator, and adventurer, who is awarded a prize from the Smithsonian for his work and decides to head out to Washington DC to claim it. Not being old enough to drive, or arrange his own transportation, he hops a train with the help of a rather clever technique, and embarks on a series of adventures obviously evocative of Huck Finn. Along the way he fends off an attack by a homeless man, befriends a native american rail-jumper, and is picked up by a helpful, if racist, long-haul truck driver. Once in DC, T.S. learns to appreciate the opportunities afforded by a wondrous place like the Smithsonian, and also comes to terms with a real love for his hometown in Montana, and his distant but loving family.

The story is peppered with delicious details, quirky charaters, and of course, entrancing illustrations representing the maps T.S. creates of the places and events he experiences. For fans of vaguely metatextual work [HOUSE OF LEAVES, INFINITE JEST, even I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU)], the extra details are confetti frosting on the cake. But what of the cake? Even with the addition of two intriguing sub-plots (T.S.'s brother was killed in an accident when the boys were playing with guns; T.S.'s mother is secretly a novelist, perhaps edging out her public avocation as an entomologist) the plot is loosely spun. The characters are over-drawn in the sense of young adult fiction; they accept T.S. too easily, are too single-minded in nature, and become vehicles of fancy more than form. The conniving Smithsonian official who invites T.S. out becomes drawn into his fantasies of using T.S. to promote science to the public, and take on the insidious infiltration of creationists into the American landscape. T.S.'s father, though eventually revealed to have a modicum of caring for his son's well-being, is the quintessential tough cowboy, from his pickup truck to his hat to his "sett'n room" with its shrines to pop-culture Westernalia. And of course, everything that T.S. had dreamed about is real: hoboes do exist, and they ride the rails with the help of a telephone hotline, manned by members of the Megatherium club, a type of scientific secret society that still slinks through the halls of the majestic Smithsonian, which still inspires in T.S. the type of spirited awe that simultaneously rings true for a boy of his age and interests and also makes you wonder how piteously cruel his adolescence will be.

The question remains: who is Larson's audience? Aside from a small joke at the beginning, the book is perfectly pitched to appeal to the middle school reader. (The joke being: the Smithsonian calls for T.S., assuming he is older; he has been out shucking corn with his sister Gracie and tells the caller that he lives with Gracie. The caller assumes Gracie is his wife; he says no, we were just shucking when you called. The reader can imagine.) Comparisons to Huck Finn are natural and practically elicited; Milo of THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH also comes to mind and, in a way, Stuart Little. We learn only what T.S. learns about his parents and their relationship, the effects and possibly the causes of his brother's death, and the best ways to conduct oneself amongst adults who may not have one's best interests in mind. In the most disturbing scene, T.S. is being knifed by an insane man who believes himself to be a religious saviour; T.S. at first accepts this as his fate and his retribution for not being able to save his brother, and only fights back as a physical response to the pain. Yet, we aren't given to see T.S. as suicidal, or even very perceptive about the resonating effects of what must have been the most traumatic event in his parents' lives. His father quite obviously and excessively loved T.S.'s brother Layton more. His mother is shown to have given up a scientific career in favor of a family, and perhaps, hidden literary ambitions. But despite T.S.'s frequent references to Layton, even hiding his name in every one of his maps, he is less than perceptive about the reciprocal reactions of his parents.

Ultimately, the author that TSWoTSS reminds me of most is Nicholson Baker: not in subject matter, thank goodness, or in tone, but in the sense that it is the extraneous details, the afterthoughts and observations and attention to weft and grain, that lift the power of the story away from its plot, and elevate it beyond.