Up, Up and Away

It's Superman!
Tom De Haven

Superman. Everybody knows his story. Everybody. He's been with us for more than seventy years already: the red cape, the blue body suit, the emblem. Heck, even hermits have heard of him, right? And yet after all those years who knew there's still something fresh, something new, something great to come out of that tale?

Enter Tom De Haven.

Oh I haven't heard of you, Mr. De Haven! I'm just another reader from a third-world country who loves books. I read almost anything I can get my hands on in whatever I can find here. And while I've read a lot of books indeed, some pretty old and some new, some trash, some way beyond treasure, I haven't heard of you! And yet, from the first moment I saw this book in the shop I knew I wanted it. It called to me. Never mind I had to come back every so often, sometimes wishing nobody else has the same longing I had for it, until I could commit myself to actually buying it (oh there goes my ritual of buying new books). And one fateful day I gave in and trusted myself into a world of your making.

This is a story of Superman as it should be.

De Haven takes us back to the 1930s: the scenery straight from sepia-tinged photographs of old, the language more so, and peopled by people who try to get by way back then. Enter a young Clark Kent who just realized he's bullet-proof. Like he knows that he's probably the fastest man in Smallville, or even the strongest. But the teenage boy just couldn't believe he stopped a bullet, rather his forehead did.

Sans the trappings of the entire Krypton backstory, Jor-El's guiding voice and a Fortress of Solitude, this is Clark at his rawest self, his alien heritage as unknown to us as it is to him. Raised simply by John and Martha Kent to be a good boy, he has to come to terms with his superpowers and well, be responsible for it. And gee, that's a lot for a boy who apparently have fallen off a wagon when he was a baby and found by the Kents along the road.

How lovely it is to watch the young man grow up, have fun, open up and then doubt himself:

For two years he's been trying to grow up, pay attention, make himself ready... and do you know what?

It was a joke.

He wonders if there's a back door he can use.

And yet it's not just Clark Kent's story. Because a superhero needs a villain. This is as much a portrait of Lex Luthor himself, this time a politician who's also a crime boss. Sinister is the word that comes to mind when it comes to Lex Luthor. He simply reeks of it. And it is quite understandable given that he knows the world is his for the taking. You feel it as well. He has power and lots of it. Power that comes from knowing the enemy and making sure that he has all the aces when he plays his cards - be it usurping another Mafia boss' territory or manipulating the mayor - a power that comes from simply knowing himself. The boy who didn't care for others growing up obviously only cares for himself later in life.

And then there's Lois Lane. Awww.

Is it obvious I'm so enamored of the book? If the hero thinks like this who wouldn't love him?

He loved them, lived among them, but was not of them.

How could he be?

Would his eyes ever dim? His body ever fail? Would he ever die?

He looks human and he tries hard, as hard as he can, to behave as he believes a human being ought to, but it is only playacting. If he isn't human, though, what is he? He doesn't know, just as he doesn't really know anymore who he is - is he Clark Kent or is he this person called Superman? Only three months and he's lost his way, lost his bearings.

There's nobody to teach him what to do, how to act, how to feel about the actions he takes. He is alone, more now than he's ever been. He hates it whenever he reads about himself in the newspaper or goes to the movies and sees himself in The March of Time. "Unique." "Unparalleled." "One of a kind." "In a class by himself."

Alone.

All by himself in the world, in the solar system, in the universe.

Lex Luthor, at least, seemed to get it.

But nobody else does.

It's a different take on Superman indeed. Just Clark, with his emotions in check, trying to be as responsible as he can, because he was brought up that way. And maybe that's all we need to become heroes as well, sans the superpowers.

Thank you, Tom De Haven. Nice meeting you.

Other interesting points of view:

Bookgasm
Bookslut
If You Want to Know About My Life
Is That Right?
Notes of a Book Dreamer
Shaking Through
Stacked
TheoCenTriC
Think About It Central
Unbound