Everybody loves a good underdog. Whether it’s in sports, in politics, in books or in films, somehow the story of the newcomer, the small person, or the unexpected return of someone who had already been written off appeals to an almost universal audience. I recently read Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing, whose main character Kya Clark is a classic underdog. However, nothing about her made me feel for her. Want to know why? Read on!
Where the Crawdads Sing is about Kya, who finds herself all alone in the swamps of North Carolina after her mother, then her siblings, and finally her drunk father leave her. Unable to read or write but looked after by some friends, she finally crawls out of her shell and realises her full potential. Until suddenly one of the village’s most promising young men, Chase Andrews, is found dead and she’s the main suspect, that is.
Before I say anything else, I have to say that I finished Owens’ novel in three days. That’s because it was gripping, it was interesting, and I found myself wondering what had actually happened to Chase. And I wondered what would happen to Kya, that poor girl who decided not to go to school again after her first day was dreadful. I started to wonder what I would have done in her place, had I been left when I would have been just twelve years old. And then I stopped wondering about what happened, because I stopped caring about that poor girl. That’s because she wasn’t poor at all; quite the contrary.
When I think of underdogs, I think of people who have their cards dealt against them. Think Cinderella, who is poor and has dreadful stepsisters, or Forrest Gump, because he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, or the Losers Club in Stephen King’s It. There’s always something wrong with them, something ‘off’. That’s what we like, isn’t it? We don’t like perfection, we don’t like dull characters. Well, that’s what’s wrong with Kya in Where the Crawdads Sing; she’s dull.
Granted, there is something tragic about Kya: she grows up thinking everyone abandons her in the end, and that leaves its trace on people. Apart from that, though, there isn’t a single thing that makes me feel sorry for her. She is highly independent (for she has taken care of herself for years), she is kind and honest (for everyone who truly knows her loves her and would do everything for her), she is beautiful (for every man she meets falls in love with her), she is observant (for she has lived in nature her whole life), she is intelligent (for she becomes a bestselling author about nature in the swamp), and she is poetic (for she also becomes a published poet). She is, simply put, too perfect.
Kya isn’t an underdog – and we’re supposed love her. But I hate her. Maybe the biggest flaw about this book is that I take it too personally; maybe I’m simply jealous of her. Maybe I want to be an author, and immensely intelligent, and breathtakingly beautiful, and wildly admired, and a poet, too. And she also gets away with murder (well, that’s not something I’m jealous of, since I have no inclination to kill anyone at this very moment – but let’s not split hairs here). On the other hand, imperfections are what make us fun, aren’t they? So somehow, I’m also better than her, I think. I hope.
Like I said, I finished this book in three days. But when I had finished it, I kind of wished I hadn’t. It wasn’t a bad novel, per se, but somehow I failed to be rooting for Kya, for the supposed underdog. That’s not because she was an evil character. Her perfection simply reminded me too much of my own lack of it.
I wonder, could there be an important life lesson hidden inside this novel?
What did you think of Where the Crawdads Sing? What do you think of too-perfect characters? Have you ever been jealous of fictional characters? If you were a character from a novel, what would be your biggest flaw? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
The Open Book 