Winning, Losing, But Above All Taking Risks: A Look at the Novels of Paul Zindel

Approaching a new Paul Zindel novel is something of an adventure. Nothing compared with tracking down lions in deepest Africa or going to the moon or starting one's own psychoanalysis, but an adventure all the same. The reason is that, unless he changes radically as a writer of "young adult novels" (a phrase with which I've never been entirely comfortable), one is bound to be either wildly wild about Zindel's books or wildly disappointed. It is a simple matter, although somewhat coarse and irritatingly unsophisticated too: ask, say, a twelve-year-old what he thinks of a particular movie he's just seen and he will look you squarely in the eye and without hesitation answer, "Terrific!" or "It stinks!"

Simple.

Thus it was when the galley copy of Mr. Zindel's latest effort, The Undertaker's Gone Bananas (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), fell into my excited clutches. And like the twelve-year-old moviegoer (I am thirty-four and, in more ways than is good for me, am still a "young adult"), 1 cast all other "matters of consequence" aside, snuggled up in my bed and, with a full bag of Doritos for company, dove in. I wanted to like it- no, craved to love it, wanted to jump up and shout "Terrific!"

Damn it. I think it stunk.

And because of that, this will not be as pleasant as I would have wanted.

There are book reviewers, I am convinced, who get genuine orgasmic joy out of panning books; presumably, I suppose, to make their own bitter frustrations at not writing books themselves somewhat lighter. Poor souls. This writer, for one, due to the perversities of his own nature, inevitably finds bad reviews painful—but that is, as they say, another story. Now, one can—and many do—view a writer's output as some baseball fans do a professional player: he is only as good as the current season. Never mind the fact that he won the batting title two years running, forget that he led the league in strikeouts three years back. If he's in a bad slump now, if he can't get a man out today—well, what can one say, the man's obviously a bum.

But what of the writer?

Are we to call a writer washed up, forget entirely his past achievements, solely on the basis of his present work? Or, as 1 feel the English do, do we celebrate the miracle of one man writing one good book and, if he's produced something lesser now—well, too bad but he is still to be admired? As for me, I've always had a weak spot for the British.

My first contact with Paul Zindel was The Pigman. John, Lorraine, lonely old Mr. Pignati.

I cried.

I actually cried.

I loved it.

Next came My Darling, My Hamburger. I didn't love it nearly as much but certain parts moved me deeply. Maggie growing up, Liz disillusioned, Sean and Dennis going where? Not much plot, really, but plenty of feeling. Kind of nice.

I Never Loved Your Mind followed. Something was changing which I think a lot of readers didn't like. Unlike Pigman and Hamburger, novels which, like nearly all of Zindel's works, revolved around the actions of couples—boy meets girl and they team up to move the plot along—the "couple" in I Never Loved Your Mind rarely team up and one of them doesn't even live with her family. This last fact is a major departure for Zindel and the atmosphere of the novel, in part because of this, weaves a spell of potential hopelessness. Dewey, the male of the couple, may move forward at novel's end but the commune-living, free-loving Yvette might not turn out as fortunate. As with all of Zindel's couples, along the way of the story a certain innocence is lost, but the innocence is often heavy baggage without which the real world can be seen more clearly—and the...