Spartan Beauty

I've been thinking a lot about being poor, which sounds strange when I say it.

What started it was reading Holly's  Black's Modern Faerie Tale series and listening to an interview with her saying how she wanted to keep the gritty realism of life in her books. The characters in her books are mostly poor. The only one I can think of who isn't is Val, but she doesn't count. She and her mother are probably middle class, but Val runs away and lives on the streets. Dave, Lolli, and Luis all live on the streets, too. Kaye and her mother move from apartment to apartment, frequently living with her mother's friends and boyfriends. Kaye works to help support them until she decides to stay with her grandmother. Corny lives in a trailer park and works at a gas station. Roiben lives under a hill of dirt, and he starts out as a slave to the fairy queen.

Part of what I love about these books is that the characters sort of "rise above" their circumstances. Not that they become noble, self-sacrificing martyrs; they're real, honest human beings who do their best and don't let where they came from determine who they become.

The other thing that got me thinking about this was reading about Hayao Miyazaki. I've become obsessed with his movies lately, and I read that his films pay hommage to the working class. Most of his characters have a honest determination about them that comes from having to work to earn their keep. In my favorite film of his, Spirited Away, Chihiro has to learn to work hard as a coming-of-age process.

There's something vulnerable, a wild beauty, about being a part of the poor working class. Maybe it's because life is simpler, less clouded with high-and-mighty morals. Maybe it's because there's a humility there that lets us all be real.