Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Rumble Fish
Book Review: Adult and loving to live again
Summary: 5 Stars
if you grew up in the old days in the city and on the streets, you will find a nice walk here. stay out of trouble. hey you kids...Book Review: Aventure and deeper thought
Summary: 5 Stars
Rusty-James is 14 and idolizes his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy. He wants to be just like the Motorcycle boy but never seems to live up to his brother's reputation. But does Rusty-James really understand his brother and the forces which have made him who he is today?
This is Hinton's shortest novel so far but covers a surprisingly large number of issues. To begin with there is the theme of individualism. Why are people different and can't 'rebellion' be just giving in to the rules of peer groups? Then there is the issue of poverty. Don't environments like ghettoes mold the characters of their occupants? Can the occupants ever really escape for this influence even if they leave the ghettoe? Wouldn't lower class people act differently if they had more opportunity? Also there is the theme of madness. Are ordinary people pushed to extremes crazy? What about weird experiences like out-of-body trips? Are they crazy? Then again there is the issue of drugs and alcohol. Is it really 'cool' to use them? All this material for discussion makes <Rumble Fish> ideal for high school book reviews.
Hinton's The Outsiders probably has more action and excitement, but I believe that <Rumble Fish> is her best work to date.
Book Review: Choose your heroes carefully.
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this and the other S.E. Hinton staple books ("The Outsiders," "Tex," and "That Was Then, This is Now") repeatably as a teenager. Even then they were dated in literal context (i.e. gangs are between caucasian upper and lower class in this book), but they still captured the angsty spirit of being a teen and the changes that result from growing up. It also captured the brutility of living life in a gang. As usual, the author has parentless boys raising themselves, creating their own sense of 'family' plot-point. In this instance, there is a mother not seen through the protagonists eyes, but that of his brother who actually sought her out. Their father is an alcoholic, gambling non-entity.
Rusty is the perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He, as well as not only his gang but rival gangs, look upon Motercycle Boy with awe. Motercycle Boy lives in another world that gives him a beyond 'cool' exterior. In a normal family life, he'd likely have grown into a professor of philosophy, but within the paradigm he exists, he is a suppressed ticking time bomb, but a remarkably passive one. He has fully accepted his lot in life, as well as his likely demise, and observes it from a distance that lacks sound and color.
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Rusty is insistent that he will be just like his brother when he grows up, though others around him scoff at the idea. He repeatedly point out that they look just alike and that once he finishing growing up, he will not only look identical but assume the 'coolness' of Motercycle Boy. He is correct, though not precisely the way he expected. After a bitter gang fight that causes the retreat of the only real stable point in his life, Steve, and then the police shooting death of his brother, Rusty suddenly experiences the lack of sound and color that was his brother's legacy of mild madness. The epilogue has a grown Steve running into Rusty as though he were seeing the ghost of Motercycle Boy. By this point, though, Rusty, as had his brother, had so thoroughly distanced himself from the world at large, that he was hard pressed to even remember his old friend.
I intend to give this to my son soon, for its lessons of violence and crime, as well as the poignancy of 'be careful what you wish for.'
Book Review: Classic Teenage Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is one of those books that every kid at age 15 should read. It may seem to have subjects that kid shouldn't be exposed to but let's not kid ourselves. Children these days just seem smarter and capable of more and more each day. If they are exposed to such adult topics as adult social interaction, violence, alcohol and broken homes in the world of superbly crafted literature it would do nothing but broaden their understanding of reality and the world around them a hundred times over. They are going to seek out or happen across these topics as the world is getting smaller and smaller so why not allow it under favorable conditions? This book represents a very meaninful moment in my childhood: a day that I grew up a little.Book Review: Clearly the greatest book in the world.
Summary: 5 Stars
Although all of S.E. Hinton's book are remarkable, this one is undeniably the best. The first time I read this book I was left with an unexplainable feeling which I have never experienced from anywhere but this book. Although I have read the book numerous times, it never fails to affect me profoundly.