We Were All Kids in the Beginning, Except for Benjamin Button

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Every one of us can relate to looking back at our younger years and remembering the highs and lows of that time. Feeling nostalgia or regret or embarrassment, etc., from an adult perspective. And perhaps getting insight into what helped make us what we are today.

Among the many authors who have explored a fictional character’s past is Haruki Murakami in the rather lengthily titled Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which I read last week. As a teen two decades earlier, Tsukuru had been part of a group of five close friends when the other four suddenly and completely cut him off without explanation. Tsukuru was devastated, and never quite got over it even into his 30s. Finally, his girlfriend insists that the Tokyo-based Tsukuru try to find out what happened — which leads him to revisit his Japanese hometown of Nagoya and even take a trip to Finland.

Revisiting/analyzing one’s younger years is also a major theme of Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood. In that novel, celebrated Canadian painter Elaine Risley is invited back to her Toronto hometown for a retrospective show of her art. That visit brings to the surface many memories of her childhood — which included negative experiences (such as being bullied) and more positive ones.

Harper Lee’s renowned To Kill a Mockingbird novel has its Scout Finch character recount her childhood from an adult vantage point. Nicholas Sparks does something similar in A Walk to Remember, as the middle-aged Landon Carter recalls his teen romance with the gravely ill Jamie Sullivan. In both cases, virtually the whole book takes place in the past, except for the brief later-life framing.

Many other novels chiefly focus on a protagonist in adulthood while offering brief childhood flashbacks to more fully flesh out the character. Elin Hilderbrand’s The Blue Bistro, a book I just finished set mostly in a Nantucket restaurant, does that well.

The recollection-of-childhood approach is different in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, as the title character uses a first-person narrative to chronologically chronicle her life from girlhood into adulthood. George Eliot does a third-person version of that in The Mill on the Floss as she tells the life story of Maggie Tulliver (and to a lesser extent Maggie’s brother Tom).

A chronological kid-to-adult story line can of course be extended into a series, as is the case with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children books (The Clan of the Cave Bear, etc). In those two series, the sagas end in early adulthood for the young protagonists.

Another type of approach is in Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which features Henry Lee in parallel story lines — as a 56-year-old adult in the 1980s, and as a 12-year-old kid seeing his friend Keiko Okabe relocated to a harsh Japanese-American internment camp in Idaho in the 1940s.

Then there’s F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” in which the title character ages in reverse — from old to young. Kind of a different category. 🙂

Your thoughts about, and examples of, this theme?

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127 thoughts on “We Were All Kids in the Beginning, Except for Benjamin Button”

  4. Hello Dave,

    So, I will offer a twist on the theme.

    A man who stays young, but see his life aging in his portrait.

    You know I’m suggesting The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

    I think I am saying; his old self in the portrait is looking upon his young self, as his young self sees himself aging.

    Dorian stays young and beautiful; all the while, his portrait ages and visually records every one of his sins.

    He is looking backwards at his life when he looks at the picture.

    UCH…well I tried!

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  5. The childhood memories of Tsukura, or of his being ostracized seem really to be very sad. I have never read any novel by Haruki Murakami and it would be high time, Dave! Many thanks!
    Your proposals made me think of “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, where a group of boys, which is transported by plane and shut down, ends on a deserted island. Without adults the do not seem to be able to come to grips with the situation and terrible things happen!

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  6. How about this? It’s an English novel and rather good. This is Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I really enjoyed it.

    This is an excellent coming of age story about Jason Taylor, a 13 year old boy living in a small village in Worcestershire, back in 1982. It is very muddy and very sleepy, but there is more to find out during the one year.

    Maybe give it ago.

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  7. While I’m having trouble thinking of an example for this category this morning – you have brought to my attention many books that I would like to read! 🙂 Although there were a couple mentions in there that I have managed to check off the list already

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  9. Great subject and post Dave. I see alot of the books I’d have mentioened in comments even A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, which I was clining to there. But the comments are soemthing I also find ineresting re thes eposts ..quite a communtiry you have created here… so I HAD to read them. All I can think of right now is Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley, a kind of forgotten book that was a big seller in its day, that is narrated by the family’s yongest member, Huw from boyhood to adulthood. But there’s a few books rattling about in there so I may be back and do better.

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  11. Me again, Dave. I’ve just awoken to the memory of Edgar Kellogg, protagonist of Lionel Shriver’s ‘The New Republic’, who throws up a successful and affluent lifestyle as a corporate lawyer to pursue the insecurity of a journalist based in a province fighting for independence – all because he spent his childhood wanting to be like the enigmatic charmer who he followers back then, rather than one of the many second-raters (in his view) who worshipped the guy. 😊

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  12. My daughter is a big fan of Nicholas Sparks beginning with his book The Notebook, her fav. Me: Not so much a romantic lit kinda person, I eventually gave up and watched the movie instead. Discovered Sparks based the book on his wife’s grandparents. *sigh* young love thru old age; 60 years of it. Yet I think Wuthering Heights is fairly similar in an odd sort of way. As a result, I have to give it to the Brontes re: romantic lit. I confess I did enjoy The Sterile Cuckoo by Alan Pakula as well. Seems to me between baby and old age, our lives are basically a love story and/or should be. Great theme Dave. Thanks, Susi

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    • Thank you, Susi! Nicholas Sparks is very readable (I also enjoyed “The Notebook” novel) but of course not the deepest of writers. As for the Brontes, their books are much deeper and more literary but of course are romantic and mass audience as well.

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  14. Dave, thanks for bringing Haruki Murakami’s novel to our attention. I’ve never read any of his novels. The theme is an interesting one, since we’ve all been young once. Some lives are shrouded in mystery or deadly secrets which make for great storytelling. If I recall correctly, the novel Hannibal by Thomas Harris takes us back to Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s youth, providing insight into the circumstances creating the monster he has become.

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  16. Two of Dickens’ most highly regarded novels “David Copperfield” and “Great Expectations” feature somewhat mature protagonists remembering their childhood and youth.

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  17. You’re making me think – and I like it! Such great ‘grist’ when we rewind into the past as humans…as readers…as writers. I love the examples you shared. Some I’m familiar with – some not.
    Many thanks, Dave! 😉

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  18. Another great topic,Dave. I look forward to following the comments on this discussion. For me, reading books that recall childhood memories provides two equally important outcomes. Reading books that evoke happy times allow me to escape into simpler times, fostering nostalgia and emotional connection. Alternatively, reading books that evoke unhappy childhood memories allows me to confront and process past traumas, facilitating healing and understanding.

    Books serve as a bridge between past and present, reinforcing the value of imagination and creativity that often flourished during childhood. I believe these stories enhance my appreciation for literature and its power to shape our identities. These are the books that have given much to think about.

    “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger
    “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
    “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
    “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery
    “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott

    I must leave you with one of my favourite quotes from The Secret Garden:

    “At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done–then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.” Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

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  19. I watched some of the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last evening on PBS, I stayed with it as excellent performance by Cate Blachett,Brad Pitt was believable in lead role. As I remember The Lovely Bones by Seybold spoke of a past murder.

    I also,for nostalgia, streamed FREE on Tubi Licorice Pizza, took place in CA 1970’s,era I grew up in, Queens borough for me.

    Watching the clothes really took me back, I remember wearing these types of clothes, it made the very good film even better,plus not having cell phones, having to post flyers in film to get word out, having more freedom, not being tracked, better way to grow up in my opinion to not be inundated with information, to be more present in one’s life.

    Michele

    E & P, way back

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    • Thank you, Michele! I’ve never seen the “Benjamin Button” movie, but the acting sure sounds good. 🙂 And it IS interesting to see films set during years we can remember from our youth. A much lower-tech youth, as you note!

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  20. A difficult one for me, Dave. For some reason the only text that comes to mind – apart from those you’ve mentioned – is Scrooge being taken to re-examine his childhood by the ghost of Christmas Past. Aside from that, nothing – which is strange for me, as I’ve written two books which feature the main character looking back from the end of their lives to their youth, and the path their lives have taken to bring them to where they are now. I’ve got another one almost-planned too, so it’s clearly a formula which resonates with me, so why can’t I think of any more by others? If I think of any more I’ll be back; it’s a brain-teaser for sure. Thanks for the mental exercise! 🙂

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    • Thank you, Laura! Scrooge/”A Christmas Carol” is a great example! And no problem not mentioning other examples; perhaps my post had already mentioned one or two you would have cited. 🙂 And very nice that you’ve had characters looking back at their youth in your own books!

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  22. Speaking of “Benjamin Button,” a classmate in a fiction workshop submitted a story that he wrote in the form of a palindrome. The order of the sentences changed at the halfway point, but not the order of the words in the sentences. The prof absolutely savaged it. (Unfairly, I think.)

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  23. Your description of the plot of the Murakami book makes me want to mention Nick Hornby’s HIGH FIDELTY, the first of the novels that he wrote and I read, and still my favorite, even though I think I’ve read all the rest. A man in his early thirties decides to find out from all his past girlfriends why they broke up with him, and the book is about his finding them and asking them (or not) and what he learns. It sounds like it could be sad, but it’s extremely funny, even as it makes you think about how complicated relationships are (all his books are about that, actually!)

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    • Thank you, Marie! When I read a short-story collection by F. Scott Fitzgerald a few years ago, I was impressed with how good most of the stories were. He definitely had a knack for short fiction in addition to novels.

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