Some thoughts on The Outsiders

I read S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" today.  I thought I had read it before, but I was talking about it with a friend and he mentioned some stuff that happened in it that I never remembered.  I think maybe I started it previously and never finished it.  I should have finished it, because I liked it this time.  It was interesting, except when they go to the farmhouse, but that part was supposed to be boring, it was fast-paced, and it has some good insights into human nature.  However, there were a few things that I was wondering about as I read the book:

1.  What kind of city greasers go to rodeos and are big on riding horses?  It doesn't seem to fit well with the rest of their activities. 

2.  The main greasers are tough and bad, while at the same time soft and wimpy.  They're always crying because they can't help it, they always have their heads on each others' shoulders or laps, and at one point they have a pillow fight, not to mention they all took gymnastics together at the Y like I did in kindergarten.  Yet they also murder some guy, have a brawl (although it was organized and it was noted that the other guys were promptly on time), and commit suicide-by-cop.  There's a real dichotomy in the characters' actions.

3.  Some of the plot points don't go anywhere.  For instance, at the beginning of the book it's said that Sodapop understands everything, then isn't really shown to have any special understanding of human nature or anything for the rest of book.  He's just a happy-go-lucky goof off who doesn't care about much.  Instead, Ponyboy, Cherry, and Johnny are the characters that have real insight into human nature and the situation they're in.  Ponyboy also appears to have suffered brain trauma from the big rumble (can't concentrate, changed personality, grades suffer tremendously), yet no explanation is ever offered for those things.

4.  My biggest quibble with the book is that everything is explained; nothing is left for the reader to learn on her or his own.  A big part of the book is Ponyboy realizing that Darry actually does care about him and love him a lot.  The author gives many clues about this, but still feels the need to come right out and say it near the end of the book, complete with an explanation why.  This also happens with the poem about "staying gold" and how Johnny tells Ponyboy to stay gold.  I thought this one would be explained too, but then it wasn't for awhile and I was hopeful...but no, at the end the author spells out exactly what the symbolism means.  I know the book is meant for teens and I'm guessing the author was making sure that everyone who read it would understand everything she was writing about, but I wish she would have left some things for readers to figure out on their own.  She did give many clues when she was making a point, so it's not as if readers had almost nothing to go by.  Discovering deeper meaning on your own is a great feeling.  Also, if things aren't spelled out readers have to think critically about the text to try to decipher what it meant.  This helps readers appreciate a text more as well as develop critical thinking skills. 

At the end of the book there was information about the author and I learned that she wrote this when she was 15-16 years old.  That explains why everything was explained, I think.  She must have been a super smart person who wasn't old enough to realize that other people would understand her meanings too.  I have a friend like that, who thinks that no one understands anything and he has to spell things out for them.  It is both hilarious and annoying.  This book, however, was neither of those things.  It was just plain good.  Two thumbs up.