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A review by mfjellstrom
This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
2.0
This Boy’s Life is a memoir dealing with guilt, abandonment, cruelty and lies, but most of all it is a novel about a never dying belief of one’s self. It is an upsetting story about abuse, and about wanting and believing that you deserve a better life. Written in a spare, clear and hypnotic Hemingway-way, a fixating novel.
Toby Wolff, later Jack, and his mother are on the road. They are moving to Utah to start a new life, but unfortunately his mother’s boyfriend Roy comes after them. Jack and his mother eventually escape Roy but soon find themselves moved in with another abuser, Dwight. Dwight demeans, bullies and punishes Jack for no reason and it takes a long time before Jack’s mother realizes what is going on when she is not around, but when she witnesses Dwight hurt her son she decides to get a divorce. In comparison to the protagonist in Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It”, a horrific autobiography describing in detail the abuse Pelzer was subjected to as a child, Jack is not perceived as the typical victim one sympathizes. Because unlike the protagonist in Pelzer’s novel, Jack eventually stands up for himself and understands that what he is subjected to is wrong and unfair. Jack deals with his situation through escapism via imagination and as the story moves on he begins to turn his fantasies into reality.
In Dave Pelzer’s novel it is impossible not to sympathize with the protagonist, but Jack is a rising underdog. He stands up for himself and tries to improve his situation and therefore one sometimes forgets to feel sorry for him. Wollf’s memoir is an inspirational story and it teaches that one should never allow anyone else to define oneself.
Toby Wolff, later Jack, and his mother are on the road. They are moving to Utah to start a new life, but unfortunately his mother’s boyfriend Roy comes after them. Jack and his mother eventually escape Roy but soon find themselves moved in with another abuser, Dwight. Dwight demeans, bullies and punishes Jack for no reason and it takes a long time before Jack’s mother realizes what is going on when she is not around, but when she witnesses Dwight hurt her son she decides to get a divorce. In comparison to the protagonist in Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It”, a horrific autobiography describing in detail the abuse Pelzer was subjected to as a child, Jack is not perceived as the typical victim one sympathizes. Because unlike the protagonist in Pelzer’s novel, Jack eventually stands up for himself and understands that what he is subjected to is wrong and unfair. Jack deals with his situation through escapism via imagination and as the story moves on he begins to turn his fantasies into reality.
In Dave Pelzer’s novel it is impossible not to sympathize with the protagonist, but Jack is a rising underdog. He stands up for himself and tries to improve his situation and therefore one sometimes forgets to feel sorry for him. Wollf’s memoir is an inspirational story and it teaches that one should never allow anyone else to define oneself.