Penrod

There are some books that you remember even after a long time. It may be because of some deep message or maybe because of the fun you in reading it or because it touched you in a way couldn't have predicted. This is about such a book: Penrod by Booth Tarkington



This is not the funniest book I've read (no, that's the Hitchhiker's Trilogy) but it comes close. The book is about Penrod Schoefield, boy on the cusp of his 12th year, growing up in small town America. The book is basically about the joys of being a boy, exploring, discovering, taunting, getting into fights, and usually getting getting spanked for it. The pages are filled with colourful characters like his pal Sam Williams, the african American Brothers Herman and Sherman, the love of his life Marjorie Jones, his cowardly but loyal dog Duke, among others.

Some of the episodes in his life are just too damn funny. Scenes like where he is forced to take an etiquette (or specifically dance) class, his attempts to get Marjorie to got to the dance (cotillion) with him, the one where he gives Georgie Basset (a so-called PERFECTLY GOOD boy) small pox medicine in lieu of the drink he was supposed to be giving, all had me rolling on the floor laughing.

Here is an excerpt from the Cotillion Scene. The instructor is instructing on the etiquettes of inviting a girl to the cotillion:

"Now please all remember that if in case—Mister Penrod Schofield, when you make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that gentlemen in good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you appear to attempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the lap. Now please all remember that if in case—Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please! Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back by causing frictions between it and the back of your chair, either! Nobody else is itching here! I do not itch! I cannot talk if you must itch! In the name of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? Where ah! the cotillon—yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody shall fail to be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he cannot possible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the form of good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself—and he must give the reason."

In one scene, he is convinced that the term 'little gentleman' is the worst possible insult (this scene takes place in a barbershop):

"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman,'" ventured the barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success.

"They better not call ME that," returned Penrod truculently. "I'd like to hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try it ag——OUCH!"

"Why? What'd you do to 'em?" "It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me that again long as they lived!"

This in fact leads to an utterly humourous scene where he fights everybody who calls him that; some (like Marjorie & her brother) were only calling to taunt him, while others (like his sister's boyfriend) were calling it to praise him. But to Penrod, it was all the same.

What makes this book endearing is that although written in the third person, it conveys Penrod's perspective. It's like a book by an adult who perfectly understands preteen boys. The pangs felt by Penrod due to his unrequited love for Marjorie is perfectly conveyed. It deals with how boys hate social niceties, how they deal with peer pressure all in a lighter vein.

The book culminates in his 12th Birthday Party, which holds more than one surprise for him.

It also has some philosophical gems like this one:

...she (Penrod's Aunt) presented Penrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructive capacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife.

"I suppose you'll do something horrible with it," she said, composedly. "I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do it with this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you're the Worst Boy in Town."

"Oh, Aunt Sarah!" Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand.
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Crim.
"But on his birthday!"
"That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?"

Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly, answered as a matter of course, and absently, "Yes'm."

"Certainly!" said Mrs. Crim. "Once you accept a thing about yourself as established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are just people, really."
"No, no!" Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily.
"Yes, they are," returned Aunt Sarah. "Only they're not quite so awful, because they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with little pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now, except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it seem nice and pretty and noble."

"No, I won't!" said Penrod suddenly.

"There's one cookie left," observed Aunt Sarah. "Are you going to eat it?"

"Well," said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, "I guess I better."
"Why?" asked the old lady. "Why do you guess you'd 'better'?"
"Well," said Penrod, with a full mouth, "it might get all dried up if nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted."

"You're beginning finely," Mrs. Crim remarked. "A year ago you'd have taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift."

"Ma'am?"

Truly, my writing isn't good enough to convey the beauty of this book. A great read. If you're looking for an uplifting book, this is it.

This book was published in 1914 and is out of copyright, so you can head over to Project Gutenberg and get it by clicking here. Hope You enjoy it as much as I did.