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ubi sunt feroces
16 years ago
The latest The New Yorker has a short story, "Max at Sea," by one of my favorite writers, Dave Eggers.(*)
It's the story of a 9-year-old, boy, Max, living with single mother and her creepy boyfriend -- and to whom the white wolf suit he got for Christmas three years before, one night just beckons to be put on. Wildness ensues, with magical & bittersweet results. You know the rest of the story, more or less, because it's a retelling of Maurice Sendak's _Where the Wild Things Are_. A sacred text to me, but Eggers does it justice, mostly. Eggers knows the soul of the boy in distress, the well of violence and inchoate sexuality that mixes with magic and play, almost as well as Sendak. (Adults want to remember the magic of childhood and forget that disturbing other stuff. I love them both for not letting them get away with it.(**))
Which is why I'm glad that Eggers is the scriptwriter for the WWTA movie by Spike Jonze coming out soon. This short story is apparently a treatment or preparation for the script. I was worried about this movie; I mean it when I call WWTA sacred. Jonze himself, according to a piece in this weeks New York Times Magazine, toyed with making a film adaptation for years, but resisted the urge. When he decided to it, he phoned Sendak, who has evidently given his blessing. So it stands a good chance of not ruining Sendak's work. Actually, if it gets parents to buy the book for their children, great.
As a kid, I dreamed of having my own magic white wolf suit in the closet, ready to transform me, and spirit me away. To furrify me, and sail on the ocean of my rage to the island of the friendly monsters. I still dream.
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(*) Consider yourself obligated now to go and read some Eggers if you never have. I think you'll be pleased.
(**) If you've never seen it, try to find a copy of Sendak's _In the Night Kitchen_, once banned for its frank depiction of nascent sexuality (its hero Mickey falls naked into a bowl of milk, and really enjoys it, and spends most of book in a clad in a comfy suit of dough) and thinly-veiled Holocaust imagery (if you grew up Jewish, chances are you've had Holocaust nightmares; but you don't have to be Jewish to feel Mickey's dread of nameless adult-made horrors). It's just fantastic.
It's the story of a 9-year-old, boy, Max, living with single mother and her creepy boyfriend -- and to whom the white wolf suit he got for Christmas three years before, one night just beckons to be put on. Wildness ensues, with magical & bittersweet results. You know the rest of the story, more or less, because it's a retelling of Maurice Sendak's _Where the Wild Things Are_. A sacred text to me, but Eggers does it justice, mostly. Eggers knows the soul of the boy in distress, the well of violence and inchoate sexuality that mixes with magic and play, almost as well as Sendak. (Adults want to remember the magic of childhood and forget that disturbing other stuff. I love them both for not letting them get away with it.(**))
Which is why I'm glad that Eggers is the scriptwriter for the WWTA movie by Spike Jonze coming out soon. This short story is apparently a treatment or preparation for the script. I was worried about this movie; I mean it when I call WWTA sacred. Jonze himself, according to a piece in this weeks New York Times Magazine, toyed with making a film adaptation for years, but resisted the urge. When he decided to it, he phoned Sendak, who has evidently given his blessing. So it stands a good chance of not ruining Sendak's work. Actually, if it gets parents to buy the book for their children, great.
As a kid, I dreamed of having my own magic white wolf suit in the closet, ready to transform me, and spirit me away. To furrify me, and sail on the ocean of my rage to the island of the friendly monsters. I still dream.
__________________________________
(*) Consider yourself obligated now to go and read some Eggers if you never have. I think you'll be pleased.
(**) If you've never seen it, try to find a copy of Sendak's _In the Night Kitchen_, once banned for its frank depiction of nascent sexuality (its hero Mickey falls naked into a bowl of milk, and really enjoys it, and spends most of book in a clad in a comfy suit of dough) and thinly-veiled Holocaust imagery (if you grew up Jewish, chances are you've had Holocaust nightmares; but you don't have to be Jewish to feel Mickey's dread of nameless adult-made horrors). It's just fantastic.
FrogsBreath
~frogsbreath
I'm a little leery that they seem to have beefed up the story by giving Max a generic sad home life - divorced mom, douchebag stepdad/boyfriend, no one listens to him at school. But I really want to like this movie and I'm trying not to judge it by the commercials.
