Introduction

Harold Hardscrabble captures the feelings of frustration and helplessness that many of us experience in our daily lives. These sentiments are embodied in the contemplative, quietly charming protagonist, Harold, who, like Walter Mitty, lives largely in his own world of thoughts and dreams. We follow Harold's transformation from a dreamer to a man of action as he struggles to discover how to live a meaningful life in a materialistic world.

Harold copes admirably with the many disasters and injustices that assail him on his life's journey; but when he is finally overcome by circumstances beyond his control, he is forced to take matters into his own hands to attain justice for the all the misfortunes he has been made to suffer. This is a story of a quest for self-realization that unfolds slowly as it builds to its explosive climax.

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Excerpt

We all know people whose lives didn’t work out the way they appeared destined to unfold…people who drifted off in a direction that could not have been foretold. Harold Hardscrabble was one of these people.

Harold met his future wife during his junior year in college. Her name was Carol. She was in his English class and although they often exchanged glances during class, they didn’t speak to each other before or after.

Then one day when Harold was studying in the library, Carol appeared and sat down across from him. She draped one leg over the empty chair next to hers and flicked a pencil back and forth in her hand. She stared at him, sizing him up as it were, and smiled at him.

—Which authors are you going to write about for your term paper? she asked when she finally spoke.

—I’m not sure yet. Maybe Hemingway and Henry James, Harold said.

—Why is it always Hemingway? Why doesn’t anyone ever use his first name?

Harold had no answer.

—Well, it’s probably not important, Carol said.

—How about you? Which authors are you going to write about?

—I haven’t given it much thought yet, she said, at least not as much as you.

—I haven’t thought about it at all, he said. I mean, I have the names, and…

—That’s more thought than I’ve given it.

There was an awkward pause in the conversation, such that it was.

—I think they have different aesthetic outlooks, he offered.

—Who?

—The authors I’m going to write about.

—Oh, well, maybe, Carol said. I wouldn’t know anything about that.

She got up as abruptly as she had sat down.

—See ya, she threw over her shoulder as she walked away.

That was the beginning.

In the coming days, Carol visited Harold in the library when he was studying. She showed up in the cafeteria when he was eating, and on the quad when he was relaxing between classes. He was flattered by Carol’s attention. Due to her persistent continuing attentions, he began to notice her pleasing physical attributes. For Carol had beautiful strawberry-blond hair that framed an angular face, and a glowing, flawless complexion. She had a perfectly proportioned figure and carried herself with a self-assured cockiness he found sexy. She also appeared to possess more intellectual prowess than any of the girls with whom he had previously had relations, which was, to Harold, an added attraction.

Carol was majoring in the social sciences because, as she explained, they had practical applications in the real world. Harold’s interest was literature, the lessons of which could be applied to any world.

—I don’t read a lot of fiction. I don’t study stories like you do. I read for fun, Carol said. I just like a decent plot line.

She didn’t study stories, but like Harold, she was devoted to her schoolwork and took learning seriously, believing, as he did, that you only got out of learning what you put in. Since she wanted a lot, and was ambitious, and had plans to make it someday, she worked hard. He was drawn to her industriousness and her diligence. That she could hold an intelligent conversation about myriad topics gave her an additional charm that was hard to resist.

And then there was the sex.

They had been going out for weeks and had kissed and canoodled in all the local bars and on the quad and in quiet, deserted aisles in the library before they went to her apartment and had sex. Only then did she inform him the delay was caused by a former boyfriend, or roommate who had been a sometime boyfriend, and now was not. It didn’t seem right, Carol said, that she should be sleeping with two men at the same time.

Carol lived off campus in a cramped apartment that had formerly been the attic of an old Victorian-style house. The ceilings were sloped so low Harold had to duck to move around. Carol had lived in the apartment since her sophomore year. She had furnished it herself, mostly from Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and secondhand furniture shops. Beads hung from the ceiling and separated the so-called living area from the sleeping space. Rope rugs were scattered on the floor. There was bric-a-brac everywhere: candles and beaded picture frames and ceramic flower pots and wicker baskets, Chinese fans, earth-mother figurines, crystals, Navajo rock sculptures. Chimes dangled from all the windows. Leaves from potted plants poked out of corners. It was cluttered but cozy.

Harold preferred spending time at Carol’s apartment because he didn’t have his own. His housing situation entitled him to an incommodious bedroom in a three-bedroom apartment he shared with two roommates who kept irregular hours and exhibited unpredictable behavior. Carol visited him there once and pointed out that his bedroom was dirty, the kitchen filthy, the bathroom revolting. Harold didn’t disagree. But after passing several consecutive days at Carol’s, he became agitated and anxious. While at first he attributed these sensations to the miniature doll-house proportions of Carol’s apartment, which sometimes did make him think he was suffocating, he soon concluded the cause of his unease was not the apartment but his continual physical and psychological exposure to Carol.

Harold had never dated a girl who had her own apartment. All the girls he had gone out with prior to Carol had either lived in the university dorms or shared an apartment with roommates as he did. Communal living had limited the amount of time he and a girlfriend could spend alone. It made sex a rushed or hushed exercise. Moreover, at some point, you were expected to return to your own place. At Carol’s they had all the time in the world. They had sex, cuddled in bed for hours, took a shower, ate a snack, walked around naked, and had more sex, all without worrying about someone barging through the door and interrupting their private pleasures.

Harold complied with Carol’s desire for him to spend his days and nights at her place. It was so much nicer than his. But there were those times when he felt smothered by Carol and needed to be by himself. At the beginning of their relationship, it was easy to slip away without giving Carol an explanation of where he was going or what he intended to do. A simple I’ll be back later sufficed.

Then, one day when he announced he was heading back to his apartment Carol asked: Why do you have to go? He didn’t comprehend how fraught with issues this innocuous-sounding question was. Only after a long and excruciating exchange did he learn there was no satisfactory answer to Carol’s inquiry, at least none that would free him from the dialectical terror to which she subjected him. For while on the surface, why do you have to go? appeared to be a straightforward question, he discovered multiple meanings were concealed in the phrase, and they were revealed only when it was closely and painfully analyzed.

Close parsing of the words revealed, for example, the word have in Carol’s interpretation of the phrase was a colloquial substitute for the more formal construction it is necessary. Another problematic term turned out to be the infinitive to go, which is a timeless verb tense, as well as an imperative. So when Harold said he had to go, and she asked why do you have to go, her words implied she understood him to mean that he had no choice except to leave and his departure was necessary, and time had no bearing on his behavior. He was saying, in other words, it is necessary that I leave you. How could that possibly be? Clearly, Carol pointed out, there was no necessary reason for his departure. If he was planning to study at his place or in the library, he could just as easily choose to study at her place, couldn’t he? Thus, he had no legitimate reason for leaving. She wouldn’t bother him. She had to study as well. So why did he have to go? Looked at in this light, it was indisputably true that he didn’t have to go.

The amazing conclusion Carol drew from this analysis was not only that Harold did not have to go, but that the locution it is necessary that I leave you was equivalent to him saying, I want to leave you.

—You want to get away from me for a little bit, she said. You don’t have to deny it. I understand.

He did his best to explain he didn’t want to get away from her. There were times when he needed to study alone, to be in his own head, by himself.

—Sometimes I need to work without witnesses, he said.

—No, no. You need breathing room. That’s what it is. I can be suffocating, she admitted, because I don’t like not knowing. I don’t like mystery. That’s why I like to know what you’re doing all the time. I’m sorry.

Confessing she was at fault for his behavior, along with her explanation of her motives and her apology, had the uncanny effect of making her obsessive, irrational demand appear rational. He recognized he was being manipulated. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to comply with her request, even if it meant becoming a captive of her desire for certainty.

He knew it was wrong of her to be so controlling. He came to understand she was a person who needed to be in control of every situation and was only trying to keep order in her world, of which he was now an intimate part. She became dependent on him and couldn’t bear to be without him or have his whereabouts and the hour of his return unknown. While her possessiveness was unsettling and annoying in the beginning, he convinced himself it was an endearing quality that demonstrated her vulnerability. He told himself her outsized demands were indicative of the depth of her feeling for him. She was crazy about him to a degree that no one else he had dated had been. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

Do you think Harold has an idyllic view of the past?

Why, in your opinion, doesn't Harold conform and live a life like everyone else?

Does the critique of contemporary society that the book portrays seem reasonable to you?

What do you think Harold's idea of a meaningful life would be?

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