how a child survives

as I said I might, I thought I would write my impressions of the book Borderliners by Peter Hoeg - see previous post. Sadly I got a whole post ready in my head in the shower but by the time I got a chance to write this post a lot of those eloquent musings have vanished.

Beware - if you plan to read the book there are some spoilers ahead. In the book 3 children all damaged by life in some way try to cope with the environment of a very structured (most notably with time and assessment), rigid boarding school. One child has been horribly abused by his parents - and revenged himself on them by murdering them - another (Peter the protagonist - also Peter Hoeg though supposedly not autobiographical) has been orphaned since a baby and been brought up in institutions, another has had both parents die, her mother first and then her father by suicide. The school is a celebrated one - its structured system, a form of darwinism , means that those who cope with it end up highly successful - but those who fail to do so breakdown. A microcosm of the world really.

The school has taken on these borderline cases, because it believes it can save them. Of course the school has overlooked a crucial foundation for resilience - children need to have not only discipline but also love. The children who cope with the demands of this school environment come from stable family backgrounds. So these 3 have little chance of survival. Only one of them does - not Katarina, the girl who had had a loving family - well at least she doesn't seem to have (she is missing in action at the end) - but Peter the institutionalised one. The abused boy has no chance - the love shown him by Peter is too little too late - although it does seem to prevent him murdering again. Katarina perhaps, has a question mark over her survival, because her father did not love her enough to stay around. The difference for Peter is that he has known not only love but known the redemptive power of self sacrificial love. A pivotal scene is based around the love - grace really - shown him by an older child in one of the institutions - the children are washed by being processed through three showers - one warm, 2 cold, one after another. There is no time to stay in the warm shower, as you must move on as the one ahead of you becomes free - and no-one wants to stay for long in the cold ones. The warm shower is one of the few moments of comfort in their bleak existence. This older child, Humlum, stays in the cold shower until his body cannot take it any longer - and this is in Denmark folks - so that Peter coming up behind him can have a warm shower for as long as possible. This for Peter, encapsulated love. HUmlum's ghostlike presence (Humlum dies earlier) keeps him going.

Humlum is thus the quintessential Christ figure. The sad thing though is that in the book Jesus is equated not with the grace of Humlum but with the rigid legalism of the school authorities who profess to be Christians.

Thus this book has something to say not only to child development but more broadly to what is needed for survival in this world. Depressingly, too often Christians do not provide those moments of grace to others that can make all the difference between being lifted up or being crushed. Here's to a God that lifts up.
Isaiah 42:3
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.