Krishna
The subtitle for the book is ‘The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature As An Adult’. It is definitely a misnomer. The descriptions of the story themselves are sparse and also in many instances uninteresting. However, the research he does (as an adult) about the lives of the authors is fascinating. So, if you are looking for insights into children’s stories that you did not get as a child, you will be definitely disappointed. However, it is a lot of fun to read for other reasons. Read on for more particulars.
Another deception is that the cover is definitely misleading. He does not talk about one of the things hinted at in the cover, except in passing, maybe.
For all that, it is a fascinating and fun book to read.
A fun read about children’s literature as Bruce has put a lot of thought into the descriptions and it shows. Reading it, I found more joy in the biographical trivia that the author sprinkles all around than in the description of the stories or of why Bruce finds them to be great. So, if you are not fanatically interested in comparisons of stories, and are interested in what the famous authors’ lives were like, this would be a great book for you!
True, there are some interesting discussions regarding the stories (For example : Why do mothers abandon children in many stories including The Cat In The Hat, The Cat in The Hat Returns, Horton Hatches An Egg or Good Dog Carl, You gave to pay attention to footnotes to catch this one!)
He prefers the A A Milne version of Winnie stories to the ‘watered down commercial’ versions of Disney – fair enough. I have not read either (to my mortification) and will take the author’s words on this.
But if you are talking about The Jungle Book, the Rudeyard Kipling’s version that we have reviewed here before, and the Disney movie – especially the original animated version – I will not agree. I never gave weight to classics because they were considered classics and you were supposed to venerate them and purely evaluated it from an entertainment value – a layman’s entertainment value. To me, the movie is more coherent, entertaining, and engaging than a bunch of short disconnected stories about the same characters, which is what the book is.
Even though it is supposed to be about the children’s books, in the style of Bill Bryson (see A Short History of Nearly Everything for a sample) Bruce mixes in the personality of the authors too. He first talks at length about Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. The review is interesting. How Margaret was a genius in reflecting children’s views, how this is different from both the children’s book styles prevalent until then (‘Fairy Tale and magical tales’ on one side and ho humdrum ‘Here and Now’ style on the other).
Equally fascinating is the character of the author. Single, obsessed with children’s tales – she had a huge number of finished and in progress manuscripts in flight. However, she did not get along with children! Finally, when she was forty two, she had a whirlwind romance with the scion of the Rockefeller family, James Stillman Rockefeller Jr. They fell in love and planned to get married. When she went on a yacht trip with him south of France as a pre-wedding holiday, she fell ill and an ovarian cyst was discovered as the cause. She had a successful operation, recovered fully and then, to demonstrate how well she was feeling, she executed a cancan kick. This dislodged an unknown blood clot in one of her legs, which killed her within two hours!
Till the end, she was not happy with her genre in which she was so gifted She wanted to write adult books but never did. She turned her attention to poetry, also unsuccessfully.
Next the author turns to Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth.
He talks about how vivid and gruesome the fairy tales are in their original format. Even a single story of Cinderella exists in many forms where, at the end, the evil stepsisters are cruelly tortured with gory punishments – different in different versions and in one version, kind Cinderella marries them off to nobles for a universally happy ending. He defends Disney for adding colour to the characters as well as toning down the cruelty and gruesomeness.
In fact, it is unfortunate (or so I think) that some of the rapturous descriptions of some authors ( For example, Sendak, who wrote Where the Wild Things Are, put me off from reading the book but I enjoyed more the description of the author’s life and their idiosyncrasies. )
For instance, the description of Beatrix Potter’s entries in her private diary – which she thought would never be read by another human being – about some of Leonardo’s paintings are fascinating. (‘I wouldn’t pay tuppence for these’ was a sample about a particular painting).
Beatrix Potter comes from a rich (and in her own description, ‘loveless’) family in London and was interested in animals from a young age. She kept a pet menagerie at home – including a rabbit that she had named Peter.
Like I said in an earlier review (don’t remember which one), please do not ignore footnotes in this book either. They contain gems like the following : ‘Aesop may or may not have been an actual person. He is said, in some traditions, to have been born in 620 BCE (if he did exist at all). The name may have been derived from the areas where the stories originated (Asia Minor and Ethiopia). Adding to the confusion, there is a whole lot of what seems to be myth about him himself : that he had a hunchback, a misshapen head, a potbelly, bandy legs or a speech impediment – in various tales.
Inevitably, Dr Seuss or Theodore Seuss Geisel to use his real name, merits a full chapter due to his enormous influence in the kid books. We learn that he himself was a kid at heart who ‘never really grew up’.
We learn that he was terrified of public speaking and he had no kids. When asked he used to say ‘You have them, I’ll amuse them’. He was not particularly fond of kids either!
He was suspended from Dartmouth College for selling bootleg wine (during prohibition). He dropped off from his PhD since he realized that his true passion is drawing and story telling. He used the name Seuss and then added ‘Dr’ as an ironic prefix in reference to his abandoned PhD.
Also interesting is his struggle to establish himself. His first book was not a success. The second was rejected by something like six publishers. Dejected, he was walking with the manuscript, while a chance encounter with an old classmate of his, who was associated with the publishing industry changed the course of his trajectory. Fascinating stuff.
How he came to write ‘The Cat In The Hat’ is even more amazing. He was commissioned to write a children’s book that was fun to read, not the ‘See Jane Run’ type that proliferated. He was given a list of 222 words that were appropriate for the child and he almost gave up before looking at two of them ‘Cat’ and ‘Hat’ and a germ of an idea sprouted in his mind. In the course of the Cat’s antics, he managed to put in multiple words for objects that the cat balanced on its paws, tail and other parts of the body!
The Giesels had an initially successful marriage but grew apart. In addition, his wife had a series of illnesses and committed suicide in 1967. After six months of mourning, Giesel went to Reno and waited for the wife of a friend, Audrey to get a divorce and married her. They stayed together until Theodore’s death twenty four years later.
The most successful book, in terms of sales at least, is Green Eggs and Ham. This book was also a result of a challenge, in this case, a bet. Bennett Cerf had bet Theodore Geisel fifty dollars that he cannot write a book using only fifty words. Theodore won the bet, but even more amazingly, used only one syllable words throughout! (With the sole exception of ‘anywhere’ used once in the book).
Next comes Beverly Clearly and her Henry and Ramona. Her life is quite ordinary even if her talent, according to Bruce ‘was exceptional’. I have to confess that reading the excerpts got the opposite reaction from me. I removed Beverly from the list of authors to try out. It is not because of the absence of interesting details in her life but because I do not think I enjoy those kind of stories as an adult – Bruce Handy definitely does!
Now, a confession that goes against the grain : Even though I enjoyed the personal quirks of Dr Seuss, I cannot bring myself to enjoy his timeless classics either – I mean, as an adult. Sorry if it sounds like blasphemy to your ears!
Anyway, after he moves to C S Lewis of the Narnia fame, things, including the author bio, get interesting again. C S Lewis was a staunch Christian and his works are full or religious allegories – very interesting to read whether you are a believer or not – but it is interesting to read that he considered himself an atheist when he was young. He only had a change of heart when he was in his thirties and a Professor in Oxford. Fellow Oxford don JRR Tolkien (yes, that one) had a hand in his reconversion back to the faith.
Once his faith was restored, he could scorn others who did not believe. “Just like there should be no concept of dark if everyone in the universe had no eyes and therefore there is no need to learn about dark, similarly, if there is no meaning in life – because there is no plan and no savior – it is best to not find that there is no meaning in life” was a statement of his. And the ‘C’ in his name was Clive and had a nickname of Jack among his friends.
Moving on, he comes to Frank Baum, the creator of the famous Wizard of Oz. The aim was to create a fairy tale to inspire the kids. Kids, in his view, have lost all fascination because ‘science has killed religion and superstitions and all the old demons which fired the imagination of the kids were dead because of enlightenment’ (though he did not put it in those words exactly. I am paraphrasing).
He also did not want any cruel murders or sex in the books – they corrupt children and therefore the old Grimm tales were inappropriate.
By the way, John Harvey Kellog, a nutritionist and a sanatorium director, prescribed bland vegetarian diet would obtain ‘the desirable effect of ‘ tempering sexual appetites. So that is how cornflakes initially made their appearance : as a libido suppressant!
Wizard of Oz, when initially published was ignored by libraries and was not very popular. There are some particulars in the story that I was not aware of, not having read the entire series. How the Tin Man ends up is fascinating. First of all, the Tin Man was a human (All animals and humans are called ‘meat’ characters by Baum) called Nick Chopper. He was in love with a girl called Nimmie Amee (no not kidding) who was under the protection of a ‘minor league’ witch. She, to separate them chopped his arm off, and he got a tin arm; then she chopped another arm, and he replaced it with tin as well. Until, finally he had no ‘meat’ parts and he became the Tin Man. Understandably, though, all these grisly details have been left out in the movie! There was a Tin soldier later, Captain Fryer, who was also a man and also in love with the same girl with the same results!! Finally, when they go back to meet Nimmie they find that she is married – but to a man cobbled together with discarded parts of both of them! And this was the ‘happy, sexless, violence-less story that Baum wanted to write!
Next he goes on to books loved by adolescents – especially girls – Laura Ingsall Wilder’s Little House series. You learn that the books reflect (a slightly sanitized) version of the author’s true life.
He then moves on to Charlotte’s Web and its author E B White (Elwyn Brooks), via a detour to how children’s authors treat death. He claimed that his other famous book, Stuart Little, came to him in a dream. Some critics were repelled that Stuart Little, a mouse, was naturally born to human parents. E B White fudged the issue by claiming that he just ‘looked like a mouse’ but he was the parents’ second son. But did not explain how he went in search of his love, a bird of indeterminate speciation!
One other surprise is that Fern, the central character was nowhere in the copy until almost the last rewrite, when she was added in by the author!
White was in full health, dividing his time between New York and Maine, where he bought a rural farm. After canoeing, he drove back home in 1984 when he was eighty five. The canoe, when taking down from his car roof, fell on his head and he was never the same again. It caused a rapid onset of dementia and he died next year in 1985.
Love the research about the authors and love the emotions and comments he makes of th books. Very nice and entertaining.
8/10
— Krishna