A Child Stole His Children's Book

           

           

            On Tuesday, professor Baker came up to me before class and asked my permission to share an observation that I’d sent to her by email that relates Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” to Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” In Ransome’s book, a mother refers to her daughter’s as “My young wild things.”

As we were about to continue discussing “Where the Wild Things Are”, I moved back to the second row so I could look at the book on another student’s laptop. Brian was in the third row and said “hi”, and then he told me that his friend’s son had stolen his copy of “Where the Wild Things Are”. That seemed strangely appropriate, considering the unruly type of child that is the hero of the story. I commented, “Then a wild thing stole your copy of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’!”

            We went through the book page by page as Professor Baker fielded comments from us as to how we interpreted the artwork and the story.

            In the story, the protagonist, Max is wearing a white wolf suit and the hood part of it has very long whiskers coming out from the side that are more like those of a cat than a wolf. Also, the only kind of white wolf would be an Arctic Wolf, which is only found in Northern Canada and Greenland.

            Max is standing on two books, nailing one end of several tied together strips of cloth to the wall in order to hold up a tent he has made. He could have stood on the chair that is already in the tent but for some reason he’s chosen the books. He also looks really pissed off, for some reason.

            There is a teddy bear hanging pathetically by its arm near the other end of the cloth. It looks like a victim and perhaps is symbolic of Max’s innocence being the victim of his playing as an adult.

            In the next frame Max is seen bounding down the stairs with a fork in his hand and chasing the family dog, which is a terrier and which apparently was Maurice Sendak’s dog and which he injected into every story he illustrated, including the ones he didn’t write. I commented that the fork foreshadows Max’s threat to his mother that he would eat her up. It seems here that he is also playing at the idea of eating the dog.

            We only had a third of the class to discuss M.T. Anderson’s “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing”.

            The book pushes the envelope of what can be presented in a young adult novel, as there are some horrific scenes. These scenes are made even more horrifying because they are based on historical fact. The language is also very complex, as many people speak the way a classicist of the 18^th Century would speak. The author apparently read nothing but 18^th Century literature for seven years in order to absorb the language. The language is meant to create a distance between the reader and the story. Anderson has said of his novel that it teaches you how to read it.

            After class, I went to Robarts library to check the online catalogue in order to find out if any of the libraries have Thomas King’s “A Coyote Columbus Story”. There was a copy at the Faculty of Information Library, which is in the same building as the Robarts Library. I didn’t even know a separate U of T institution existed at Robarts. Apparently it’s the library of something called the “iSchool”. After entering, I went to the directory on the wall, to try and get my bearings. Almost immediately, a young woman came up and asked if she could help me. She took my up to the fourth floor to the library, but even she had to look up where the juvenile section is. So I was able to borrow the book and now I also know of another part of U of T.

            I went up to OISE to renew some books and then I rode up to Manor Road and Mount Pleasant, and then across to Bayview. It seemed to take forever to get there, as I turned south on each side street. Mount Pleasant and Bayview must tilt apart from one another as they go north. On the way back, I turned on Merton Street and saw the sign for a used clothing store for children, called “Once Upon a Child”. It seems poorly named, to my thinking.

            I watched a Buster Keaton silent short film called “Cops”. A rich man “loses” his billfold in Buster’s hands. Buster gets out of a taxi at a place where a large amount of furniture is sitting out on the street because the family is moving and is waiting for the wagon. A con man on the corner sees the wad of money buster has and tricks him into thinking that the pile of furniture is his and that he and his family have been thrown on the street. Buster buys the furniture from him and then buys a horse and wagon to carry it all with. It also happens to be the day of the policemen’s parade and so almost every cop in town is in one place. Buster ends up losing his way and riding in the parade, just as a guy throws a bomb over a fence to target the cops. It lands in Buster’s lap. He lights his cigarette on the fuse and tosses it aside. The explosion topples several cops and sends every cop in town after Buster.