Sly dog
BRYAN ROBERTSON
Reaching instantly for my lethal, if only mental, machine gun, as I invariably do when confronted by intellectualised dissections of nice, easy, enjoyable things—analyses of most aspects of pop culture, for example, or, in
this case, children's story books with pictures— there are still occasions when it is impossible to do the subject justice or explain its flavour without sophisticated references, or at least a glimpse of the social context. I hope I may be forgiven, therefore, for treating Maurice Sendak's story and his own riveting illustra- tions with the seriousness that the book de- 'serves. A brief detour is required in order to arrive at his peculiar achievement.
Children's books are a whole world of pro- jected innocence and experience, constantly exchanging roles and always mutually reflec- tive. like images in facing mirrors. From Leslie. Linder's engrossing publication of Beatrin Potter's Journals, after he had so painstakingly deciphered her secret code, and from Margaret' Lane% biography, it was abundantly clear that the exploits of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Mr MacGregor were not quite as simple as their young public had believed. In this case, such trustfulness is not misplaced: the stories' and drawings have identical purity of purpose and visual depiction. An author's life, let alone case-history, is no concern of a child; nor need its presence be felt: the true work of art, like Alice, transcends all. But as children arc enthusiastically bashing each other up from the word go, a little violence now and again in their own literature is by no means unacceptable, though it should be their kind of explosiveness, not an adult's. Tales of a drily cautionary nature are tricky to get across unless the homily is enlivened occasion- ally by some form of extravagant outburst, preferably physical and familiar; unfamiliar- ity sprung in terms of violent action goes better with straight fantasy.
Maurice Sendak's story concerns Jennie, a Sealyham (a fact not referred to except in the pictures) who felt there must be more to life than having everything—in her case the usual canine requisites—and so sallied, forth into a distinctly odd world in search of that extra something. She finds the answer—wait for it —in achieving a role to play: as the star, no less, of a play called Niggle& Pigglety Pop! plit on by the World Mother Goose Theatre.
Jennie has to go through quite a lot to make it: her fulfilment in finding this role for her- self and the tribulations of the search are only too lifelike (by implication, that is, for the averagely battered adult reader). But Mr Sendak maintains a pleasing simplicity of narrative and event, even though the story hovers between the cautionary school men- tioned above and a very different vein of dead- pan fantasy. It is all pegged to a kind .of amiable cynicism which somehow manages to keep upright, moral and proper. It is Ameri- can, of course; and this brand of levelly de- livered cynicism can send a mere babe, with- out any experience of life's vagaries, into paroxysms of anticipatory delight and hilarity. Few of us can wait to crawl out of the nursery to get those first exhilarating thumps on the head so readily available from life. Jennie, however, is quite a sly dog.
Mr Sendak's style is certainly very Ameri- can in the knowingness and flip humour of its tone, not unlike that old 'mother bear, father bear, and a little baby bear by a pre- vious marriage' joke.. Precise in narration, it has also that calm, unsmiling inexorability so delicately implanted like smouldering fuse- wire throughout the best of Albee, or, in a more obviously satirical sense, in Terry Southern. The drawings by Sendak are quite masterly and bring Ernst's Semaine de Bohte or. Lion de Bellefort graphic work to mind, as well as Grandville .and Balthus in many, an ominous touch in the domestic scenes. Ail the drawings walk a tightrope—between formal exactness and spotlit detail on the one side, and that still and hallucinatory strangeness on the other, which, though satisfyingly mysteri- ous even in the sight of a staircase or a kitchen, could seem lonely except that its strength of mood forces the reader to become an explorer, a participant, and not just an isolated on- looker. As an object, the book has an appro- priate air of quiet charm, gravity and slightly mad decorum.
Previous page
