For this installment of favored authors, I thought I would write about a writer who was also an illustrator, in a very distinct style. It is interesting that he majored in English, not art when he was an undergrad at Dartmouth. Indeed, he went to Oxford to pursue a graduate degree in English but married and came back to the United States before finishing it, and was persuaded by his wife to become a commercial illustrator and not a Professor of English as he had originally intended. His first book, written during the depression and inspired by his hometown of Springfield Massachusetts, was rejected by roughly 27 publishers before finally Vanguard Press took a chance on it. I must say, I rather admire that kind of persistence.
The book was, of course "To think that I saw it on Mulberry Street!"
So let us talk, guilelessly, of the author and the man who made the statement in the title: Theodor Seuss Geisel. Otherwise known as Dr. Seuss. Join me, kiddies, underneath the orange squiggle
We can start with this droll little couplet that was penned for him by a friend and fellow contributor on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern:
You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice (or Zoice)
How exactly did this equally droll pen name come about (which was not the only nom-de-plume he wrote under)? Well, like my hero Montaigne, I am essentially a lazy diarist, plus I have the obvious advantage of the web, which poor Michel Eyquem did not. So I will quote from Philip Nel, who wrote the excellent Dr. Seuss: American Icon:
Theodor Seuss Geisel liked to say that he adopted “Seuss” because he was saving his real name for the Great American Novel he would one day write. But that’s probably not true. When talking to the press, Geisel was more interested in telling a good story than he was in telling an accurate story. Another story he told about his name is true: In the spring of 1925, Geisel was editor of and contributor to Jack-o-lantern, Dartmouth’s humor magazine. Geisel and nine friends were caught drinking gin in his room. The dean put them all on probation for violating Prohibition, and stripped Geisel of his editorship. To evade punishment, Geisel published cartoons under other names—L. Pasteur, L. Burbank, D. G. Rossetti, T. Seuss, and Seuss. This was the first time he signed his work “Seuss” (his middle name and his mother’s maiden name). Two years later, he gave himself the mock-scholarly title of “Dr. Theophrastus Seuss.” In May 1928, he shortened that to “Dr. Seuss.”
Yes, and reading about the author and reading the work itself, there is a streak of the satirist and practical joker that Seuss had which I think is part of the reason he is so perenially appealing, and which I think was honed during his time when he edited the Jack-O-Lantern and never left him. Professor Nel points out that his editor Michael Frith recalls receiving a draft page for Dr. Seuss’s ABC, in which Seuss drew a large-breasted woman and the following verse: “Big X, little x. X, X, X. / Someday, kiddies, you will learn about SEX.” Obviously that didn't appear in the published book. Seuss was just making sure that Frith was paying attention. Furthermore, according to that unimpeachable source "Wait wait don't tell me", he inserted the word 'contraception' into 'Hop on Pop' as an example of big words that can be pronounced and read by breaking them into their component parts, this was caught by his amused, or maybe not so amused editor who probably had gotten used to that sort of thing. By the way, this is the technique I am using on my daughter in getting her to read and comprehend, although I have not yet gotten around to explaining what contraception is, and why she must oppose with every breath the rotten turd Republicans who would deny this to her, if they could. but I digress...
Oh yes, one other quote from the same author when he was interviewed by 'Humanities' magazine, on his lack of formal artistic training:
He had no formal artistic training. As he said, at one point during his high school art class, “I turned the painting I was working on upside down—I didn’t exactly know what I was doing, but actually I was checking the balance: If something is wrong with the composition upside down, then something’s wrong with it the other way.” His teacher saw what he was doing and told him, “Theodor, real artists don’t turn their paintings upside down.” Knowing intuitively that his teacher was wrong, the young Theodor Seuss Geisel walked out of art class, never to return.
I would add only this: His pictures work in part because he never lost the aforementioned wicked satirical sense of humor. Doubt this? Check out the following, shameless lifted from "The Secret Art of Dr Seuss":
The Rather Old Myopic Woman Riding Piggyback on One of Helen's Many Cats
Even his regrettable racist wartime propaganda cartoons kept that humor. A few of them can be seen at this excellent diary (Not that the diary has anything to do with Dr Suess besides using his cartoons, but it is so good it bears reposting. But, again, I digress). Tell you what, let's get to the stories. But I also can't help mentioning that in all his career, he never won a Newbery or a Caldecott medal, even after he became wildly popular and his books sold millions. Such are the vagaries and inconsistencies of awards. Also he was passionately engaged in the issues of the day, especially against the isolationism of the Republican party (yes there was a time when that was one of its distinguishing features). He wrote the famous "Yertle the Turtle" in part inspired by Hitler, as the Vainglorious Yertle, by perching on the backs of other turtles proclaims himself the "king of all that I see", before being unceremoniously pitched in the mud, which is, ultimately all that he can see.
One can quote and memorize Dr Seuss endlessly, endlessly, in part because so many of us learn to read from him: Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, Cat in the Hat These couplets stick in the mind. Who can forget thing one and thing two, I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am, and We like to hop. . we like to hop on top of pop! As both a parent and an ex-child I can relate as can many reading here, I imagine. It is also no coincidence that Geisel started out as an ad man, crafting popular jingles and slogans, where you are paid for coming up with catchy, easy to remember phrases like that. His “Quick Henry, the Flit!”—created for Flit bug spray—first made him wealthy and famous. It was the “Got Milk?” or “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” of its day.
Besides the rhyme, there is also the rhythm that gives a Seuss line or couplet its punch. The rythm is called the anapest. An anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable—duh-duh-DUH. This is the meter of the limerick, and the meter that Seuss always used. When you have two weak beats followed by a strong, then two weak and another strong, then repeat weak-weak-strong, weak-weak strong it is called anapestic tetrameter as in "Yertle the Turtle":
"And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
Some books by Geisel that are written mainly in anapestic tetrameter also contain many lines written in amphibrachic tetrameter, such as these from If I Ran the Circus:
"All ready to put up the tents for my circus.
I think I will call it the Circus McGurkus.
Take "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" Again, I don't even need to open the book to blockquote it; I can recite the lines from memory. It is easy in its flowing anapestic way:
"Every Who down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot
But the Grinch who lived North of Who-Ville did Not
the Grinch Hated Christmas, The Whole Christmas Season
Don't ask me why, no one quite knows the reason
It could be perhaps that his shoes were too tight
Or it could be his head wasn't screwed on quite right
But I think the most likely reason of all
Was that his heart was two sizes too small"
Like many, I grew up watching the yearly special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" that was narrated by Boris Karloff and animated by the absolutely fantastic Chuck Jones. It has a claim to be maybe the best television cartoon of all time, and is a neat illustration of what sometimes happens when you mix up two or three incredible talents and let them work. I can visualize the Grinch sardonically turning his head around as the lines are ponderously stated. And the ending is, as many childrens books are, uplifting and teaching at the same times. Or at least good children's literature that doesn't announce its theme or moral a mile away. Geisel always knew to not slap the kids over the head with it; he just thought he would tell his story with craft and heart and nonsensical humor, and the moral would naturally emerge of its own accord. This is not a bad principle for any author to follow
Which brings us to The Lorax which is in a way the finest children's book I have ever read. Maybe it is the finest environmentalist and anti-rampant consumerist book too. It certainly accords with the theme of DK and in a way ties in with the anti-supreme consumerism of The Grinch and in my maybe not so humble opinion should be required reading for every living breathing soul in America. I get a small thrill just reading the first lines:
At the far end of town
where the Grickle grass grows
and the wind smells slow
and sour when it blows
And no birds ever sing
Excepting old Crows
is the street of the Lifted Lorax
And deep in the Grickle-grass some people say
If you look deep enough, you can still see today
Where the Lorax once stood, just as long as it could
Before Somebody lifted the Lorax away
One can almost smell the industrial waste smell, helped with the drearily grey drab illustrations - the illustrations and the text jibe seamlessly, because then the scene is contrasted with the bright colors of the land "when the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean". It is a magical transition, one the movies never quite got right for some reason. By the way, I refrain from comment on the recent 'Lorax' movie. It has its good points and bad points like everything else in the universe although I will say it doesn't quite capture the tight, integrative texture of the book. It feels padded and in a way, phony. But then, I don't like a lot of movies, and if you grill me too hard on this in the comments section you are liable to get an angry diatribe in your personal inbox detailing how I hated "Lord of the Rings".
So anyway, the Lorax appears when the Once-ler (a name that has meanings on several levels) starts cutting down the truffula trees to make thneeds out of:
"Mister he said with a sawdusty sneeze
I'm the Lorax I speak for the trees,
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues
And I'm asking you sir, at the top of my lungs...What's that thing you've made out of my truffula tuft?"
and as I think most people know, the Once-ler trashes the environment by polluting the air, ruining the pondwater and ultimately cutting down every last truffula tree. All to satisfy an unsatisfyable greed. The lorax, whose doleful warnings went unheeded (not unlike global warming) goes away leaving a warning that I remember clearly getting the chills reading:
"And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks with the one word "UNLESS"
Whatever that meant, well I just couldn't guess
S the Once-ler broods for the years until he finally gets it:
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot
Nothing is going to get better
It's not"
So he throws down the very last truffula seed he has to the unnamed child who starts the tale
"Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care
Give it clean water and feed it fresh air
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack
Then the Lorax
And all of his friends may come back
* * * * *
Finally, lets look at I had trouble in getting to Solla Sollew, which is a cautionary though redeeming tale about striving for false Utopias. In it, a young unnamed protagonist has a few troubles in the Valley of Vung, wherein he stubs his toe on a rock, gets bitten by a 'Quillingen quail', stung by a 'Skritz' and has his foot bit by a 'Skrink'. (notice how easy and natural the neologisms sound; that is not an easy thing to do) So someone comes along and offers him a ride to the magical city of Solla Sollew, on the banks of the river Wah-hoo, where they never have troubles, at least very few. He has a series of hair-raising troubles in getting there, but he finally makes it except as usual with utopias there is always one final problem in realizing them, in this case a malicious little imp that lives in the keyhole of the door to the city and prevents the doorman from opening it. So the doorman quits, and offers another utopia to the protagonist. But of course, he doesn't take it:
"So I started to go
But I didn't instead
I did some quick thinking
inside of my head. . .
Then I started back home
To the Valley of Vung
I know I'll have troubles
I'll maybe get stung
I'll always have troubles
I'll maybe get bit
By the green headed quail
On the place where I sit
But I've bought a big bat
I'm all ready, you see
Now my troubles are going
To have troubles with me!
There again is the uplifting and teachable but never heavy handed ending
I will finish here with a quote from "I can read with my eye's shut" which, like his valedictory book "Oh the Places You'll go" is inspirational literature of the highest order; even better because it is written for the children. It has inspired me, it inspires my family, and I would wish that it would inspire our political system, which gets back to the theme of the Lorax: the absolute necessity of making effort to improve that which we find around us, and ensmartening oneself as best one can. Often it is the adults, not the children who forget this, which is why I placed the Dr Suess quote in the title: Try too hard to stay adult, you become merely an obsolete child:
The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you’ll go.
Young cat! If you keep
Your eyes open enough,
Oh, the stuff you will learn!
The most wonderful stuff!
Try to stay Suess, brother and sister Kossacks. Yeah, I know it's tough. . . but it is the best immunization against so very common reactionary thinking that I can come up with.