I'm really enjoying Sag Harbor. I think Whitehead is an incredibly witty, thoughtful writer who masterfully captures coming-of-age in all its forms. I know this because I don't have a whole lot in common with Benji on the surface. Yet, there are multiple scenes throughout this novel that have resonated deeply with my experiences growing up.
This scene reminded me of a journal entry I wrote years ago that documented a similar realization to the one Benji goes through. I wrote, "the older I get, the more I realize that no one has a clue what they're doing." Realizing for yourself that Everyone's Faking It is initially quite daunting. You feel like you've been tricked in some kind of cruel way. Like, I thought I'd have it all figured out by the time I became an adult?? My parents seem to know what they're doing?? But as we see through Benji's incredibly complicated family dynamics, even parents don't have it all figured out.
One notable example is the scene where Benji sees two of his friends (I forget which ones) totally botch an impromptu handshake. This is a significant moment for Benji, as he sees The Handshake as a kind of secret code, a way of demonstrating your exclusive updatedness on black pop culture. Up until this point, Benji is under the impression that everyone in his friend group knows about the newest handshakes but him. He describes paying close attention to his friends at the beginning of the summer so he can quickly master the trendiest techniques, feigning coolness until he actually achieves it by the end of the summer (only to "lose" it again by the time the next summer rolls around). When Benji sees his friends botch the handshake, he realizes something remarkable: everyone is faking it.
This scene reminded me of a journal entry I wrote years ago that documented a similar realization to the one Benji goes through. I wrote, "the older I get, the more I realize that no one has a clue what they're doing." Realizing for yourself that Everyone's Faking It is initially quite daunting. You feel like you've been tricked in some kind of cruel way. Like, I thought I'd have it all figured out by the time I became an adult?? My parents seem to know what they're doing?? But as we see through Benji's incredibly complicated family dynamics, even parents don't have it all figured out.
Despite my initial panic, this realization was ultimately more of a relief than anything else. Acknowledging that everyone is faking it means that I'm alone in being uncertain about my future. I am allowed to mess up, because everyone does. It is okay that I don't know what I'm majoring in, or what I want to do after college, or what I'm making for dinner tonight, because that's just part of the ride.
I hope that the Handshake Incident gave Benji the same kind of relief that my realization gave me. Everybody's faking it (and that's okay).
This reminds of me of what we talked about at the very beginning of the semester about coming-of-age. I remember we had a prompt about when we come-of-age and I wrote something about how we might never really come-of-age. Like you said our parents seem to know what they're doing and they seem like maybe they've reached a point where they have come-of-age and finally figure out what they're doing. Or maybe they're just faking it like everyone else and there is never a point where a person completely comes-of-age.
ReplyDeleteI loved that scene as well, and it just reminded me so much of people on tumblr and instagram (exposing myself haha) posting about how they adult and it consists of eating 42 chicken nuggets for dinner, which, if you just mention that you cooked dinner for yourself, it sounds fine and everyone will go along, but the specifics is what makes it stand out, which is what I felt from the handshake. Everything looks fine on the surface, from a distance if you squint just a little less than normal, but once you get close and see the details, no one knows what they're doing and that's kind of the fun of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anika - I feel like you never really come of age completely. I think the majority of people spend their much of their lives trying to hide the fact that they have flaws, when it's forgotten that those are what make us human and beautiful, and that's what connects us to the world. I feel like as we grow into our late teens and think about college and the future, we're expected to know what to major in and what we want for the rest of our lives, when in reality, we have no idea. And why should we - our lives will likely be completely different in five, ten years; maybe even in a few months. There's no way to tell the future, so I think the world should make it easier to just go with the flow, and not as taboo to express your humanness.
ReplyDeleteI loved this part as well because I think it made Benji feel less alone in the world. At the beginning of the book we see Benji thinking a lot over the new handshakes, slang, music. Benji does not seem super comfortable in his own skin but I think that by the end of the book he is. The moment I realized this the most was when he is at the club and it dancing how he wants to dance, without a care in the world.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I used to think adults knew everything and always did the right thing but ha no. We all just learn as we go and if we make a mistake we learn to fix it and hopefully don't make it again. And people won't usually tell you how to do things because they don't know what's going on either. Benji thought that everyone else had some "in" which allowed them to know what was hip and how to be, but then he began to learn that everyone is pretty much lost themselves.
ReplyDeleteI love this. No one literally ever knows what they're doing, and adults are so good at faking it, only because they've had more time to go through similar events so they think they know how to act in certain situations. But to realize that is kind of meta, as we're old enough to realize that old people don't actually know what they're doing -- we're turning more and more into adults every time we have a Benji-noticing-the-handshake moment. Maybe we'll stumble ourselves enough that one day we really will know what to do in every situation, some kind of "old sage" vibes. But until then -- we really are all faking left and right, but getting better at being smooth with it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's amazing how much stress we put ourselves under. We're frantically trying to fit in -- be that signature handshakes -- or trying to decide what we want to do with our lives. I know that I sometimes forget everyone else feels the same way. Benji's realization that we're all just faking it brings me so much relief. I'm still bound to be stressed by all the responsibilities heading my way, but thanks to Benji, at least I know I'm not alone. That's the great part about novels and friend groups: our support for each other makes life a little easier to bear.
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