Sunshine Challenge 2020 - Prompt 3 (Yellow) & Website Updates

[greerwatson]

Pure yellow is not a favourite colour of mine. However, the English language has a term for shades that are close to yellow, i.e. "gold" (or "golden"). Actually, by contrast with the usual colours of things, the term gold can be used for shades that, in isolation, one would probably call light orange, tan, or green, e.g. golden retrievers and golden mock-orange. I like golden tones a lot, especially when the leaves turn in the fall.

One of my favourite books of all time, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, has a quotation from Robert Frost:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour,
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

At the end, the hero, Ponyboy Curtis, gets a letter from his now-dead friend, Johnny, that explains the symbolism of the colour gold in the poem: you're gold when you're a kid. "It's just when you get used to everything that it's day."

The Outsiders is set in 1965, when Hinton began writing it. It was not finished and published, however, until 1967; and I guess it was probably that fall when our local library got copies on the shelves. At any rate, I first read it when I was fourteen, the same age as Pony. It hit me like a ton of bricks. So much more real in its evocation of adolescence than A Catcher in the Rye, which we'd read at school and had bored me to bits.

I borrowed it over and over; and, when it finally came out in paperback a couple of years later, bought my own copy. In the decades since then, I've read it often. I guess over the past few years some time might pass between readings; but it's one of those books I go back to. Each time, I find more in it.

A couple of years ago, someone requested it in a gift exchange I was doing. I'm not sure I even put it down as an offer: certainly, I didn't match on it. However, it got me thinking—and taking it off the shelf once again!—and ideas came, as they tend to do. When, last year, it came up as a pinch hit in the Wayback Exchange with prompts that fit, I grabbed it fast.

Whether luciferinasundaysuit was expecting quite what they got, I don't know; but they seem to have liked it. "A Different Shade of Gold" turns the symbolism of The Outsiders on its head. It's not about Pony in his youth, but about Pony today. Still more or less the same age I am, in other words. He and his wife are turning out the attic; and he finds the old essay he once wrote for his English teacher. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then....

As with all my fanfic, it's also on my website. Of course, I gave it a gold theme. The main background is a variant of GRSites' brown128.jpg (though that's an old graphic found elsewhere, too). I've made many variants of it, using the software on GRSites and/or Microsoft Picture Manager. This one is shades of soft gold and brown; and the same tones are picked up in the broad border of nested tables surrounding the central panel with the story.

Comments

[impala_chick]

I remember The Outsiders being very impactful to me when I first read it, but I haven't revisited it since middle school. This may inspire me to pick it up again, because it's good to hear that it holds up! Also, your website is really gorgeous. The gold pattern reminds me of art deco.

[greerwatson]

Thank you! I'm very fond of brown128.jpg, which reminds me of old-fashioned end papers in books. I have so many derivatives of it, in all the colours of the rainbow and plenty of combinations, that variants appear on quite a lot of pages in my website.

[thewriterinpink]

The Outsiders is such a good story, although it was a book I only read for school (and a movie they had us watch as well) and nothing else which is a shame because of how impactful it is. I still remember my shock when Johnny died. For some reason, I didn't think anything that terrible would happen to the characters. Speaking of the characters, all of them are just really well rounded and fun to read about, not to mention how interesting the Greaser time period was. This book was probably one of the only books we were forced to read that I actually liked and left something in me. It's true that a lot of them tend to be plain boring lol. Definitely a book I should try reading again sometime!

[greerwatson]

From comments here, quite a lot of people have fond memories of The Outsiders. Given how young Hinton was when she started writing it, I think it must have been the product of the most compelling inspiration. I mean, she apparently stopped it at one point, and then went back later and kept on writing—and, speaking as someone who's been disappointed by a lot of WIPs, I think actually getting to the end was an achievement. That compulsion to finish comes through, though, when you read it: it's not a book you easily put down.

[thewriterinpink]

Yeah, it's very impressive how young she was when she produced this story. It was clearly a passion project she wanted to complete and make it the best she possibly could. She really put her all into it and it shows.

[greerwatson]

I've read some of her later books—and they're not bad (not at all), but after The Outsiders they're a bit disappointing. Decent YA novels, nothing more.

I think she really lived with Ponyboy, his brothers, and the rest of the gang. Lived in her head, I mean. They weren't just characters in a book she was writing: they were real. I suspect she told herself that story over and over until she felt utterly compelled to write it down because it wouldn't shut up.

[thewriterinpink]

I was curious and started reading her Wikipedia article and apparently she wrote the story because of the greasers/socs at her own school—that she really wanted to empathize with the greasers through writing this story. I think that desire to breathe life into the story through that experience and make it real on the page probably led to a compelling narrative that spoke to a lot of people. It's no wonder it's so solid and people keep coming back to it.

The Outsiders

[oldtoadwoman]

The odd thing about The Outsiders is that I remember it having a huge impact on me (particularly it being very upsetting) and yet I remember barely anything about the story. Any time I stumble across a pop-culture reference to it, my stomach does a little flip: "That was the book that was so sad." But I don't remember what specifically I was sad about. I remember a character died, but I don't remember how or who the character was in the story.

I probably read it at about the same age as you (and the characters) and only read it once. I'm now a bit curious what adult-me would make of the book.

Re: The Outsiders

[greerwatson]

A book that has an unexpectedly tragic ending—one that hits you hard—can be difficult to re-read. However, you'll probably find that, now you know what happens, it'll be easier to go back and try it again. A sort of desensitizaton, I guess. You've got to get past that instinctive tummy-flip.

Adult-you will probably think Pony is barely fourteen, with all that implies about his maturity and knowledge of the world. As first-person fiction goes, it's very much in character.

Re: The Outsiders

[oldtoadwoman]

now you know what happens, it'll be easier to go back and try it again. A sort of desensitizaton

I'm sure that's true.

[writedragon]

I love autumn gold too, and old brass, worn leather: things with a bit of patina. Yellow is ok in the right context and alongside its complementary colors. Renoir, Van Gough, Monet, Cassatt, Edward Hopper and other artists understood how to make yellow work in glorious ways.

[greerwatson]

There are so many shades of gold; and you can find them all in the autumn. To get the full effect (and, as you say, some artists are brilliant!), you have to blend them all to produce that glory.

[sportivetricks]

Love that book, love that poem. Both are deceptively simple. I can see why you return to the book again and again.

I'm partial to gold myself.

[greerwatson]

Thank you! It really is a classic.

[enemytosleep]

You're bringing back a lot of feels for The Outsiders and I'm gonna have to go looking for it again, I think. Stay gold, Ponyboy.

[greerwatson]

Stay gold, too!

[tippetariuswrites]

I've never read The Outsiders, but I think I'll add it to my list. And dang, I really should read Robert Frost poetry. One of my favorite songs by First Aid Kit, "Stay Gold," has lyrics that must have been inspired by Frost's poem here, especially this line: "No gold can stay." Thanks for sharing this.

[greerwatson]

Thank you for popping by.

[venusinthenight]

It's been not quite 30 years since I read The Outsiders. Read it for school in sixth grade. I don't remember what eleven-year-old me thought of it, but I assume I liked it enough to get my own copy of it some years later.

It may end up being my next read.

[greerwatson]

It's odd to think of The Outsiders being taught in school!

Then again, when I was in Grade 13, the English exam had an essay question that we were told could be answered with "any book we chose". I knew perfectly well they really meant "any book taken in class that year". (All classes took the same exam; but they didn't all take the same novels.) However, I also knew that my English teacher and I were simpatico. So I wrote an introductory paragraph pointing out the way the question was worded, and then answered it using The Outsiders. Which most definitely was NOT on the curriculum back in those days!