by the Night Writer
It may be hard to believe, but I initially didn’t like to read when I was a boy. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t catch my fancy despite encouragement by my mother and grandfather. And then one day — I think in the third grade — I checked a book out of the school library, the classic by Maurice Sendak, “Where the Wild Things Are”. From the opening lines and drawings I was captivated. Who could forget, “On the night that Max wore his wolf-suit, and made mischief of one form or another, his mother called him ‘Wild Thing’ and sent him to his room without any supper.” How cool would it be to have a wolf suit? I always knew my bedroom walls could turn into a forest! And those beasts with huge eyes and feet — they had to have stepped right out of one of my dreams!
I think the book was what connected my imagination to my adrenal gland. I don’t know how many times I checked that book out of the library before I got a copy of my own as a gift but I would read that book and feel myself walking into the forest just as Max did. And then, coming back to find his supper waiting for him after all…there was something about that last line that so simply, yet eloquently, demonstrated the power of fantasy and how deftly it could be turned back into reality: “And it was still hot.” Shivers, to this day when I think of the perfection of that last line.
Naturally, WTWTA was a staple around our home as the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly grew up. Both loved to be read to, and Tiger Lilly was especially taken with Sendak’s book. For a time her two favorite night-time stories were “Lawrence the Hedge-hog” and “Where the Wild Things Are.” Both were fabulous, but it did get a bit old to see her toddling toward me, holding one or the other book in her arms, wanting to be read to. One night, when she was two or maybe just turned three, she climbed up next to me on the couch with “Wild Things.” She wiggled in next to me and put the book in my lap and settled back. Upon opening the book, however, instead of reading, “On the night when Max wore his wolf suit…” I said, “If I were a brave hedge-hog,” thought Lawrence, “I would be at the Grand Hotel right now enjoying a piece of coconut-cream pie.”
Tiger Lilly immediately leaned forward, looked at the book, looked at me, and said, “NOoooo! Not Lawrence! Wild Things!” Another fan for life.
So there I was in a movie theater a month or so ago, about to watch the latest Harry Potter, I think, and suddenly one of the unmistakable wild things was larger than life on the big screen in front of me! My heart skipped a bittersweet beat. Immediately it was as if I was seeing an old friend, yet just as quickly cold fear set in as to what “they” might have done with “my” story. Was it a preview of a coming attraction or of coming angst? “Lord of the Ring” purists had nothing on me, except they were worried about what would be cut out of the bazillion page epic while I wondered what would have been added to the 40-some page touchstone.
Right now, that is unknown. But isn’t the unknown an essential part of any adventure?
I get goosebumps every time I see the trailer. I think it’s going to be AWESOME.
From what I’ve read it sounds as if the Wild Things are metaphors of Max’s emotions. He’s from a stressed home, is scared and uncertain, and acts out in a rage, prompting his trip through the woods to the island where he meets those big, ugly things and becomes their king. I’m also guessing that it won’t be quite that neat and tidy, though. Not your typical kid’s stuff, but neither was the book when it came out.
It was my favorite book when I was a kid, too. I am highly curious what they will do with it on-screen. The recently-released “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” didn’t have much to do with its story, apparently, but seems to have been reviewed well. My kids both liked that story,