Books

The Body

“The most important things are the hardest to say.”

I first read this probably back in 1990 or so when I was still a little younger than the characters. I also had seen the movie a few times, and listened to the soundtrack about a million times. The novella, like the movie, is narrated by the adult Gordon LaChance, and like some of Stephen King’s other books, the past and nostalgia play a huge role. One thing that emerges soon in the book is that the tightness among the boys seen in the movie is less clear in the book. These four are not the Musketeers (or Mouseketeers) and they’re not together by chance or anything like that, but they are four friends, among a larger group of boys, but happened to be the four boys together when Vern’s news about the body of Ray Brower comes up. Another thing that emerges from the reread is that there is probably a longer version of the movie to be made out of this book, but that that movie would probably be worse. There’s a second “Story by Gordie LaChance” that happens in this book, a noir film rip-off, that is simply not nearly as good or impactful as the pie-eating contest, which better captures boyish of Gordie as a young writer. It’s certainly the case that he would write derivative nonsense like a noir ripoff as he’s trying to figure things out, but his story plus the group’s reaction to it means more. It’s also funny how many references that I now get that I didn’t at the time. There’s a lot of small little cultural allusions happening constantly. Some of them very big references that are wide, and others that are incredibly small and even esoteric really. But I am so familiar with the story by this point that it’s hard to not to have looked them up at some point. It’s like watching the Simpsons and really thinking that Sheriff Lobo was some huge cultural touchstone and not a blip that someone focused on in their own life for some reason. The other thing that comes up here, and comes up plenty in other Stephen King novels is just how much of the wilderness he makes Maine to be in the 1950s. It was, and to a certain extent still is, but here’s it’s near primordial. The movie also does a great job of conveying that, but here there’s some added emphasis.

The movie ends up being more haunted and more dangerous than the version here, and in going to see a dead body of someone their age or so, the book casts a long shadow on the bodies that have clearly piled up in Gordie’s life.

Knight of Shadows

“Her name was Julia, and I’d been damn certain she was dead back on April 30 when it all began.”

Book nine of ten in the series and four of five in our second series, and we’re starting to better understand the shape of things. The very first book of both series opens up with a kind of mystery. Corwin’s story involves him waking from some kind of fog and not even really knowing who or where he is. Merlin’s story opens up with him knowing a lot more about the world and his own life, but really nothing about the mystery and plot he’s entering into in the life of the story.

Both stories open things up more so, but I don’t always feel I have a fully grasp on it it all. Now in book four, the shape of the mystery itself is taking place, and Merlin is beginning to understand that the events of his life, people trying to kill him and the like, are all part of a larger plot he’s so far only played a small role in, and of course will be playing an increasingly larger role in as we move forward. What stands out to me is how much a story like this reminds me of the kind of fantasy storytelling you get in a lot of fantasy RPGs especially when being the “Chosen One” isn’t the only way the story is told, sometimes with a wider focus on being part of a much larger story.

Silence

“News reached the Church, in Rome.”

This is a Japanese novel from the 1960s, and I have read a later Endo novel, and one that I will likely reread. It’s the 17th century in Japan, and outsiders in general are not particularly well-liked or trusted. Japan has opened its ports, in part, to foreign traders, and with that has come Catholic missionaries. Japanese Catholics are not only tiny in number, but are also subject to oppression and torture (at least in the novel here). We have several different narrators in this story including a Portguese Jesuit priest who is travelling to Japan to address rumors that a previous priest has gone apostate (renounced his faith). The novel follows this story, and discusses the wider implications of Japan’s cultural and historical legacy with outsiders, with Christianity, and also with Christianity’s penchant for being in unwelcome spaces.

Prince of Amber

“It was starting to end, after what seemed most of an eternity to me.”

What all happens in this book? I am not sure if I could explain it. Not only is this ten books’ worth of context, it’s also oddly episodic. You could tell me that Roger Zelazny had carefully plotted out every detail of this series, and I would have to trust you as it entirely feels like the guiding style of this series is “and, then”. There’s plenty of mythopoeia in the book already with our lead character called Merlin, references to Alice in Wonderland, and other elements that are entirely familiar Already the main characters are kinds of planeswalkers, so it makes perfect sense to imbue this with the sense of interconnectedness.

There’s some secret terrors in this book. Specifically, I find it to be incredibly horrifying to be faced with a double. Not the least of which a double that has aims of killing you and taking over your life. What’s interesting then about everything here is that almost none of the horribleness implied in such moments, the kinds of things that would drive someone mad for its reality breaking is treated as nothing here because of the general immortality of the characters in the book, and the casualness with which they face the universe.

For each of the Dr Seuss books, I might quote from Wikipedia about the book in the Dr Seuss bibliography page because it’s funny to me how they describe the books in a lot of the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss

I call this the “tagline” even though that’s not quite right for this one.

A Great Day for Up

“Up! Up! The sun is getting up.”

Everything is up today! What’s up with up? This book is from 1974, and my copy (and I think this is the original) was illustrated by Quentin Blake. I tend to find the non-Seuss illustrated book less charming in general than the ones he illustrated, and I have complicated feelings about Quentin Blake as an illustrator since I’ve always liked the older Roald Dahl illustrations better than newer ones. That said, this is a funny book with joyful art, and a lot of uses of the word up. It’s a fun book to read aloud because saying UP a million times really offers up some fun time. Also, it all leads to a punchline at the end, which is solid.

The tagline: “Every new day starts a new adventure.”

I would also say that the opening moment is some kind of reference direct or indirect to William Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned” and maybe reviewing a bunch of Dr Seuss books speaks to his larger point. I suppose I have to lay claim to murdering to dissect almost every book I’ve ever read, at least to some degree. But unlike the cat in The Cat Who Saved Books, I do think people should be allowed to read in whatever way they want, so long as they can live with the results.

Anyway, here’s the poem:

“The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun above the mountain’s head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless—

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

Would You Rather be a Bullfrog?

“Tell me! Would you rather be a Dog…or be a Cat?”

The answer of course is a cat. They have it made, don’t have to do anything.

This is a book about questions, how to answer them, and how to explain your answers. It’s also a book of would you rather questions usually between two categorically similar things but with very different implications for the answer of each. It’s another Dr Seuss published under a very easily to spot pseudonym and with art by another illustrator. I wasn’t around for these coming out so I wonder there’s more of a story happening here than is otherwise obvious to me from 2023.

From 1975 — Tagline: “Poses questions for pondering: “Would you rather be a dog or be a cat?”, “Would you rather live in igloos or in tents?”, “Would you rather be a mermaid with a tail instead of feet?””

Two songs it did make me think of, which was certainly unintended:

“El Condor Pasa” by Simon and Garfunkel and “Swinging on a Star” by Johnny Burke and Jimmy von Heusen.

I Wish that I had Duck Feet

“I wish that I had duck feet. And I can tell you why.”

So many kids books delve into body horror. In this David Lynchian story a boy wishes he has several different animal traits. It starts with duck feet, which would allow him to splash around and have fun and not have to wear shoes. From there he wishes with deer antlers, so he have wear several hats at once. He wishes with a whale’s spout so he can keep cool in the heat (although I wonder about the biology on this one). He wishes for an elephant’s trunk so he can help wash his dad’s car and reach things high up. He wishes for a long cat’s tail so he roller skate with a girl in tow. Ultimately all of these would come at a dire cost (mostly getting yelled at by his mom), so he says screw it, all of them at once! This of course leads to lifetime incarceration at the zoo. So he tosses all these ideas in the literal garbage bin, and just appreciates his own self.

Now you might think this is about imagination? Nope. This book is a straight savage dis track against Big Bill Brown, who is just slayed left and right in this book.

From 1965 – tagline: “A boy wishes that he could have many different animal and mechanical body parts, finding fantastic uses for each, along with their problem areas.”

Wacky Wednesday

“It all began with that shoe on the wall.”

This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, and I don’t know if I could have told you it was Dr Seuss or not because it’s written under a pseudonymn, and I don’t know if the copy my library had listed him as the author or not.

The book begins on Wacky Wednesday, and things keep going wrong. Chunks missing from hoses, shoes on the wall, a fish in a bottle instead of a tank, a palm tree growing out of the toilet. The art is so goofy, but what really makes the story work is that on each page not only are there a number of things going wrong, that specific number is told to you in the text. So you know to look for eleven things on one page. Like good horror movies, this one is actually terrifying. If you’ve ever read a multiverse story where someone cannot actually tell if they’re in their own universe or not, this book offers up a taste of the same. Sure it seems all goofy and fun, but there’s a girl with a missing neck and no one exactly knows who George Washington is. It’s frightening to not know whether or not you can even trust reality.

From 1974 – tagline: “Shows the adventures of a kid and how the kid learns to cope with an abnormal day.”

Maybe you should fly a jet! Maybe you should be a vet!

from 1980 – tagline: “Exposes the reader to many different types of careers.”

“Want to be a ticket taker?”

A classic book of career choices and I couldn’t help but come to a complete halt in the middle with this one:

“Would you like to be a plumber…a policeman…or a bride?”

Classic job: bride.

What Pet Should I Get?

“We want a pet. We want a pet.”

This is probably the weirdest of all the Dr. Seuss books I’ve looked at so far, and maybe will be. It’s otherwise a perfectly normal set of rhymes and a story about a brother and a sister trying to decide ostensibly between a dog and a cat from a pet store. Dr. Seuss dogs and Dr Seuss cats are both classic for being unbearably cute on the page and the cats are especially pure tricksters.

So what makes it weird? It seems like a weird from the grave kind of book, maybe posthumous, and maybe also cobbled together from various source material and presented, stitches and all. Not entirely clear. The story goes that they discovered the materials here, and that Dr Seuss did write it, and it does involve the boy and girl from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, but it otherwise seems odd to me

From 2015 – tagline: “A story written sometime between 1958 and 1962, featuring the same brother and sister from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Book manuscript and illustrations were rediscovered by Audrey Geisel in 2013. This Dr. Seuss book was later re-released in 2019 as a Beginner Book edition.”

And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street

“When I leave home to walk to school, Dad always says to me, ‘Marco, keep your eyelids up and see what you can see.'”

From 1937 – “Marco watches the sight and sounds of people and vehicles traveling along Mulberry Street and dreams up an elaborate story to tell to his father at the end of his walk. The first book written, created and originated by Dr. Seuss. Made into a Madcap Model Oscar-nominated short in 1944 in the Paramount Pictures series.”

This is Dr Seuss’s first proper book, after a collection of odds and ends called “The Pocket Book of Boners”. This is also one of the CANCELLED Dr Seuss books (except they weren’t) because of its portrayal of a “Chinese man who eats with sticks” and I have to imagine the “Raja” riding an elephant wasn’t doing the book any favors. It’s still an interesting book that probably helped to reshape children’s book in part because the book because with a simple drawing and a simple idea: that a boy has been told to look for something exciting and he only sees a horse and carriage (which to me would be very exciting) and begins to imagine a more and more elaborate way to describe the scene adding lots of details each turn of the page, which eventually enjoys the elephant rider and the Chinese man.

The 500 Hats of Batholomew Cubbins

“In the beginning, Bartholomew Cubbins didn’t have five hundred hats. He had only one hat.”

From 1938 – Tagline: “In the kingdom of Didd, King Derwin is riding through a street past Bartholomew Cubbins, a poor boy in the market. Bartholomew removes his hat, according to the laws, but another hat mysteriously appears; when he attempts to remove this one too, another one appears again, and this continues, even as he removes more and more hats, each growing in extravagance and beauty. This is the first book where Dr. Seuss did not write any words in rhyme. Made into a Madcap Model Oscar-nominated short in 1943 in the Paramount Pictures series.”

This is just probably the best Dr Seuss story. It’s silly and absurd, but it also winks at a kind of irreverence that is both important and very American. There’s a kind of Emperor’s New Clothes element to it that’s very fetching as well.

Bartholomew Cubbins is a boy in a fantasy kingdom who wears a red hat. All the art in the book is charcoal with just the hats being in color. They are a kind of Robin Hood style hat, but red. When the king drives by in his carriage everyone takes off their hat. Bartholomew does as well, but he doesn’t know that when he lifts his hat, there’s an identical one underneath. The retinue stops and he’s accosted by the king’s guard, made to take off his hat, where another one lies directly underneath. This begins a long process of the king getting increasingly mad, and there being ever more hats. We know exactly how many hats too.

I like the lesson here: fuck a king. Nobody has to take off their hat for you.

Horton Hatches the Egg

“Sighed Mayzie, a lazy bird hatching an egg: ‘I’m tired and I’m bored and I’ve kinks in my leg from sitting, just sitting here day after day.”

From 1940 – tagline: “An elephant named Horton is convinced by an irresponsible bird named Mayzie to sit on her egg while she takes a short break, which proves to last for months. Made into a Merrie Melodies cartoon in 1942.”

This is the first Horton story, and he’s an elephant who is asked by a bird to sit on her egg. He puts some joists up under the tree to hold it up and he sits on it through all kinds of weather. Hunters show up to kill him and he doesn’t move. They dig him up, and take him and the egg over land and sea to what could only be the United States where he’s put on display and sold tickets. When the eggs begins to hatch, the bird shows back up (when the work is all done the book tells us), and the egg hatches revealing a creature part bird and part elephant, reminding us that parents are not limited to biological parents.

Yertle the Turtle

“On the far-away Island of Sala-ma-Sond, Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.”

From 1958 – tagline: “

Consists of three stories:
Yertle the Turtle: Unsatisfied with the stone that serves as his throne, the king turtle commands the other turtles to stack themselves beneath him so that he can see further and expand his kingdom.
Gertrude McFuzz: The “girl-bird” Gertrude McFuzz has one small, plain tail feather and envies Lolla-Lee-Lou, who has two fancy tail feathers.
The Big Brag: A rabbit and a bear both boast that they are the “best of the beasts”, because of the range of their hearing and smelling abilities, respectively.”

The first story is the classic story of a king who wants more with the good reminder of “it’s a great empire if you can keep it”. Yertle demands to be higher up so he can see farther afield with the idea that he is king of all he can see. The higher he gets, the more precarious the tower of turtles, and the more downtrodden those at the bottom are. And with the collapse of the tower, all the turtles are free. Turtles of the world unite.

The second story is about a bird with no tail who gets jealous of another bird and starts eating berries that give out tail feathers. One isn’t enough, and two turns into more and more before she’s too heavy to fly and in attempting, all the feathers fall out, reminding her of just how good she had it.

The last story starts with a rabbit bragging that it can hear the best, and that this is the best talent. A bear tells him he can smell even farther than the rabbit can hear. Finally a worm tells both that he can see farther than anyone of them and well, this really shuts them up.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

From 1957 – tagline “The Grinch, a bitter, cave-dwelling creature, tries to steal everything related to Christmas by impersonating Santa Claus. Eventually, he realizes he has a heart for Christmas after all”

“Every Who down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot…but the Grinch, Who lived just north of Who-ville, Did NOT!

On the one hand, sure the Grinch learns the true meaning of Christmas is joy and togetherness (not Jesus, by the way), but on the other hand, have you ever had really annoying neighbors? The art is so strikingly simple, especially given that this is middle-period Dr Seuss, but then really opens up for grand setpieces toward the middle and end of the book. It’s funny because as iconic as the cartoon version of this is, and how not so iconic the film version of this is, this book just is still such a joy. I think the art style, and especially the coloring style really carries it. Something is ruined in part by adding movement to a book with such busy and chaotic art tableaux in the big set pieces. The addition of movement is just less good than the implied movement of the art that you get when you read this yourself and add in the details with your imagination. That’s where the magic is. I also don’t like the song, which is so mean, even if the Grinch deserves it, because like Scrooge, the Grinch has a few good points mixed in with his misanthropy.

Bartholomew and the Oobleck

From 1947 – tagline: “Bartholomew must rescue the kingdom from a sticky substance called Oobleck. The sequel to The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.”

“They still talk about it in the Kingdom of Didd as The-Year-the-King-Got-Angry-with-the Sky.”

The king is mad again, this time that nothing really interesting falls from the sky. So he more or less declares war on the weather, has his wizards cast a spell for new weather, and a green slimy, sticky substance called oobleck starts falling from the sky, getting on and under and in everything. Everyone is upset, and worse, it’s toxic, and will destroy the world. So what has to happen? More magic? No, the king must take responsibility for making a mistake, a thing kings, especially this one, aren’t wont to do. With the first book really being about undermining the inherent legitimacy of kings by nature of questioning the deference paid to them, this one goes in on the abuses of power, and the ineptitude of those in power when they make disastrous decisions that impact their subjects (citizens is where it’s at!) and refuse to take responsibility.

If I Ran the Zoo

1950 – “Gerald McGrew visits a zoo and finds that the animals are “not good enough” and describes how he would run the zoo. He would let all of the current animals free and find new, more bizarre and exotic ones.”

“‘It’s a pretty zoo’ Said young Gerald McGrew, ‘And the fellow who runs it seems proud of it, too.'”

This one starts off with a perfectly good premise of releasing all the zoo animals and replacing them with fantastical animals from all over the world that look weird or are a combination of a few different animals or have a weird thing about them.

This is also one of the canceled Dr Seuss books, and at first I was like ‘Yeah of course for the stereotypically represented Chinese characters” and while that is true, what is ALSO true is that there’s a straight up “Golliwog” representation of someone from South-Saharan Africa. This one is just simply not defensible at all. Yikes.

Horton Hears a Who!

From 1954 – “Horton the Elephant of the Jungle of Nool hears a speck of dust talking to him. The speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called Who-ville, inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos and led by a character known as the Mayor.”

“On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, He was splashing…enjoying the jungle’s great joys…when Horton the elephant heard a small noise.”

This book is a reminder of just shocking the racist art in the other books is, because this one is about the message “a person is a person no matter how small”. Horton, back from hatching the egg, catches a mote of dust on a flower, and because his tremendous hearing realizes there’s an entire city of Whos living on the dust but only he can hear them. Other animals get jealous and angry and want to take it from him, but he does everything he can to protect it, having to go to the ends of the earth to find them after they are taken and then have to prove their existence in order to save them. This very similar to the H Beam Piper novel and other similar science fiction stories in which a sentient race needs help to prove their right to live. Like I said, a stark contrast to other of his books, and hopefully marking a change within him.

The Sneetches

From 1961 – “Consists of four stories:
The Sneetches: Because the Star-Bellied Sneetches are being prejudicial to the Plain-Bellied Sneetches, a “fix-it-up chappie” named Sylvester McMonkey McBean appears and offers the Sneetches without stars a chance to have them by going through his Star-On Machine. Adapted into a 1973 television special.
The Zax: A North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax meet face to face in the Prairie of Prax. They refuse to move out of the way for one another and end up staying there. Teaches the value of compromise. Adapted into a 1973 television special.
Too Many Daves: A mother, Mrs. McCave, who named all 23 of her sons Dave and has trouble telling them apart.
What Was I Scared Of?: The tale of a character who repeatedly meets up with an empty pair of pale-green pants and has to learn to accept them.”

“Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars.”

There are four stories in this book, anchored by the Sneetches, and the Zax, and then less so by the last two stories.

The Sneetches, the story of Twitter Blue people thinking the Blue Checks were status symbols and not identifiers. Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it.

So this book could be about class, and class markers, and this reading works every well. The issue for me is that the story is almost directly taken from the novel Black No More by George Schuler from the 1920s, which is about a Black scientist who finds a way to turn Black people white, and when that happens turns out white people don’t think being white is such a special thing after all. They of course find new ways to make themselves special. The Sneetches learn a lesson at least.

The Zax is about inflexibility in one’s ways and what happens when you meet your match. The North Going Zax and a South Going Zax intersect and are so immoveable from their positions that they stay apparently forever. It’s a cartoon allegory version of this Mr Show Sketch: Fucking Zax!

Too many is about a woman with 23 kids and named them all Dave, and how bad of a choice this ended up being.

What was I afraid of? Pants with no one in them.

Dr Seuss’s Sleep Book

From 1962 – “A small bug yawn spreads contagiously and though various creatures, including two Foona Lagoona Baboona, the Collapsable Frink, the Chippendale Mupp, two Offt, and the Curious Krandles.”

The news just came in from the County of Keck that a very small bug by the name of Van Vleck is yawning so wide you can look down his neck.

This is almost Dr Seuss metafiction, with an awareness that the point of his books mostly is for a bedtime story. So he writes one about sleep. There’s not really a story in this one, except as much as telling about a lot of fantastical beings from around the world and their sleep habits, are circling back round to ask you, the reader, about going to sleep too. The book is better than it has any right to be given the subject, in part because it’s treated like one of the older reader books instead of one of the juvenile books. It’s also more or less like an exploration of the Butterfly Effect with the bug beginning a yawn that makes it way around the world which is interesting because that metaphor is from 11 years later. Did Dr Seuss invent chaos theory? Well, no. Actually it’s closer to the theory of small things adding up like Leo Tolstoy talks about in War and Peace.

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MsWas on This was a hot, sloppy mess.WOW, thank you for this impressive comment on @narfna's review. I love it! Sorry it got stuck on first post, I've approved it (and fixed...
Soul on This was a hot, sloppy mess.I meant Neil always knows about being sober. I forgot to say the name*
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Emmalita on A great debut novelThis sounds amazing. I would listen to Adjoa Andoh narrate just about anything.

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