In the Name of Lisa, Scout, and Harriet the Spy

For the New Yorker’s Page-Turner blog, Anna Holmes studies the scriptures of the Fictional Nerd Girl Holy Trinity: Lisa Simpson, Scout Finch, and Harriet the Spy.

Both Fitzhugh and Lee’s heroines are uninterested in, and occasionally contemptuous of, heterosexual coupling. (You can’t blame them: there are few, if any, functional romantic relationships in either book.) …Though Scout’s closest male companion is her older brother, Jem, she and her best friend, the towheaded Charles Baker (Dill) Harris, briefly conduct half-hearted, playful attempts to get engaged. “Dill had asked me earlier in the summer to marry him, then he promptly forgot about it,” Scout explains. “He staked me out, marked as his property, said I was the only girl he would ever love, then he neglected me. I beat him up twice but it did no good, he only grew closer to Jem.”

Holmes draws a parallel between scenes in which Scout and Harriet dress up as food items for local plays (Scout as a ham, Harriet as an onion), yet unconscionably fails to mention Lisa’s Florida costume, which I think we’d all agree is indistinguishable from a huge rubber pork chop. [Image via.]