A review of Marcelo in the Real World, Francisco X. Stork

You might have noticed that I have been reviewing lots of non-fiction books lately! After reading Caleb’s Crossing, I had found it difficult to find a fiction book that really captured my imagination and heart. I had turned eagerly to The Finkler Question, last year’s Mann Booker winner, thinking I would find a quality story. However, I struggled with it, finding no empathy for the characters, and getting caught up in its sense of hopelessness.

Then I went away on a church camp, and threw a small book in my backpack: Marcelo in the Real World.

Oh what a delight! A wonderfully written story about lovingly drawn characters who have meaningful exchanges, and grow and shine.

There is a lot that is reminiscent of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time in this book. Marcelo also writes from the first-person, and is gradually revealed to have some form of autism spectrum disorder; however he is functioning at a reasonably high level.

Marcelo hears music in his head, music no one else can hear, and music that he finds impossible to describe, but it represents a safe place for him.

However, all that feels safe for him is about to be taken away. His lawyer father wants to take him out of his caring school, and the job he loves, working with horses, and place him in a holiday job in the busy mail-room of his law-firm. The idea is to help Marcelo confront the “real world”.

Marcelo is terrified by the prospect, especially since his father makes him travel by public transport.

The real world is a terrible place seen through Marcelo’s eyes: people are mean, the pace is ridiculously fast, and it is easy to get lost. The physical and mental challenges for him mirror the personal and spiritual challenges of his father; which Marcelo discovers by accident.

His fine and upstanding father has his own weaknesses and failings. One of those failings is underestimating the depth of his son’s understanding and resourcefulness.

This book captured me, but it is not without faults of its own. The language is unnecessarily coarse, the plot out-workings are a little too neat, and the ending less than believable.

Usually a list like that would mean I had not enjoyed the book; but there is great charm and wisdom in this book; especially in its examination of human relationships. When an innocent describes the horrible things humans are prepared to do to each other, out of greed or lust or jealousy; then it can really touch a chord.

Some readers with experience with autism have been critical of the portrayal of Marcelo; saying he does not fit someone on the autism spectrum, especially in his ability to understand metaphor, and to read behaviour.

However, I still found him an interesting and convincing character; and the response from teen readers (this book is aimed at young adult readers) is extremely positive. Marcelo talks to them.

One of the interesting angles of the book, is that Marcelo is mentored by a female Jewish Rabbi, who speaks very clearly about the issues he is dealing with in the “real world”, usually from a biblical perspective.

I particularly admired her description of the ways that sex can be used for evil (and by antithesis, when sex is good), which she prefaces with a description of Eden and man and woman being created for each other:

Anytime we treat a person as a thing for our pleasure. When we look at another person as an object and not a person like us. When sex consists solely of taking not giving. When a person uses physical or psychological force to have sex against another person’s will. When a person deceives another person to have sex with them. When a person uses sex to physically or emotionally hurt another…

This is great wisdom for our teens to read in a sex-saturated world.

One of Marcelo’s ways of wrestling with the confusing “real world” is to ponder the words of Jesus: “Be in the world but not of the world.” He comments: “But I have not the slightest idea how to accomplish that or even if it’s possible. The world will always poke you in the chest with its index finger.”

Marcelo has found comfort in reading holy books, but he gets to a point of desperation at the choices before him, and he decides not to read them anymore. However, the Rabbi challenges him not to mistake the “longings” that he is wrestling with:

Our longing for Him [God], the big longing, the one with capital ‘L’, sometimes gets confused with a hundred little longings, some of them okay, some of them not. For most of us the big longing lies buried under a mountain of silliness and selfishness.

This is a great description of humanity’s need for God, the oft-quoted God-shaped hole in us all. Her advice to Marcelo is to keep searching for God, and responding to him, and her suggestion of how to discern God’s promptings sounds very New Testament: “His urges are always toward life and more life and forgiveness and more forgiveness.”

I loved the depth of this book, and the richness of the spiritual responses to real world issues.

KARA MARTIN is a lecturer with School of Christian Studies (www.socs.org.au), and is an avid reader and book group attendee. Kara does book reviews for Hope 103.2’s Open House (www.theopenhouse.net.au).