Andrew Burke wrote:
>>I don't particularly wish to be Verdi. I just wish to be 80 years old
>>and be able to compose _Falstaff_, and opera that sounds like it came
>>from the mind of a man of 35.
>>
>>Ken
>>
>>
>>
>You can do, you can do ... Just remember the Little Train That Could ...
>
>Happy birthday -
>
>Andrew
>
>
Chug-chug, puff-puff, ding-dong-ding-dong:-). Some of those children's
books are vastly underrated for their understanding of that vague
entity, Human Nature, if it even exists. I'm in a digressive mood--I
had to read tons of children's books to my kids, including the one who
did his Moms Mabley imitation on the phone yesterday. I just recalled
Maurice Sendak, whose work was perhaps more fun for me to read that it
was for my kids to hear...and I didn't read them, I acted them out as
much as possible. _In the Night Kitchen_ and _Where The Wild Things
Are_ were the obvious choices...the latter especially was a masterpiece
on the internal consequences of pique and defiance. But my favorite was
one called _Outside Over There_, which Sendak drew in a series of panels
evoking Mozartean characters or even, perhaps, Fragonard and Watteau.
It went over particularly forcefully with my older kid as he struggled
with his anger at his parents and his younger brother. The young girl
in the story is left by her sailor father in charge of her baby sister.
Much resentment. Then trolls steal the baby and substitute and ice
changeling baby. The older girl behaves like an epic character
descending into Hell--she goes into the earth where the trolls live and
takes back her sister. I doubt Sendak intended a Christian allegory,
but he young girl joins a line that includes Orpheus, Aeneas, Jesus, and
Dante the ultimate underground traveler...her quest seems to be to
reconcile her jealousy of her sister with her love for her. Love wins.
At the end the children sit and listen to their mother playing the
harpsichord as the older girl reads a letter from her father who is far
off at sea.
Strange footnote. I didn't own the book, and so went to the library to
re-borrow it. I got reamed out by the children's librarian. "Why, that
book is horrible! Sendak's books are horrible! We only have his work
here because he's won Caldecott medals! The little girl wants her
sister dead! It's sibling rivalry!" Duh, lady, and for this you had to
get an advanced degree? Did you read to the end? Were you able to do
that?....
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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