Written By: Chloe Goodin
If the ripe ages of 17-22 could be described in one word, I think most of us would agree, that word is: confusion.
Confusion over career paths, friendships, relationships, life goals, personal identity, dreams, and of course, the abandoned ones too. For many, art can be a way to make sense of this confusion, or escape it as a whole. For college students (English majors especially), at least in my experience, most of the artistic and liturgical outlets we turn to often leave us more confused than ever. That’s what happens when the bulk of our GPA is reliant on ambiguously abstract novels that are deemed “college level.”
Somewhere along the way, I have learned that there is something to be learned from the magical and fantastically simple universes created in children’s literature. Even the stories filled with happy endings and perfectly wrapped up characters who exist only in the paradise built between two covers.
Maybe it was the nostalgia and convenience of a quick read, or the simplicity of childhood naivety, but whatever it was, reading the Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane taught me much more about the abstract jumble of emotions of pre-adulthood than any number of classic YA novels combined.
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane follows Edward, a porcelain bunny Rabbit with fluffy cloth ears and a beautiful assortment of outfits to match his gold wrist watch. Edward is an inanimate toy who can only see and hear the world. While on a vacation with his owner, Abilene, a young girl who calls Edward her best friend, Edward gets lost in a far off land. For the first time in his life, Edward becomes fully alone with nothing to observe but his own memories.
The story is narrated only through Edwards’ very limited senses, providing the reader with an incredibly enlightening view on the world from the simplest and most objective point of view. Edward begins the story unable to feel, but through his journey being lost at sea, in landfills, between dozens of owners, stores, homes, and children’s doll houses, Edward learns once again what it is like to feel.
I know, I know– the journey to truly feel is one of the most overdone tropes in all of literature, especially the YA genre. However, what makes this story so unique and enlightening, is its desire to engage young children. The story uses the simplest forms of love and care to describe the power of connection, enlightening its older readers to see the ways in which love and care are always present, even if they are only observed from afar or remembered from a distant memory.
Edwards’ story perfectly captures the ways that love and connection can be tangible even in their most abstract forms. Edwards memories are all that he has to hold onto as he becomes just another inanimate object amongst the vast landscape that is our world.
Award winning author Kate DeCamillo manages to even grapple with concepts of the afterlife, depicting what it may be like to simply ‘fade to black’ one day, and have nothing but our own existences and memories to live through. While this is usually the source of an undying anxiety amongst most young adults, Edwards’ simple story of love in its littlest forms is able to provide comfort to all of its readers, especially those grappling with the existential dread that is every college student’s mind. In a world where love means a billion different things, sometimes the perfect escape is the one thing that we will all experience at one point in our lives, and therefore, forever– connection.