Maurice Sendak, Ruth Krauss, and Childhood Philip Nel Max Has His Roots in Ruth Krauss
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112 Maurice Sendak: A Tribute [ PMLA Wild Things, I Think I Love You: Maurice Sendak, Ruth Krauss, and Childhood philip nel Max has his roots in Ruth Krauss. You know, her “It Freed Me”: What Maurice Sendak phrase that kids were allowed to be as cruel and ma- Learned from Ruth Krauss niacal as she knew they were. Studying them at Bank Street, she knew what monstrosities children are. [T] he series of books Ruth [Krauss] and I collaborated —Maurice Sendak, telephone interview (2001) on, eight in all . permanently inluenced my talent, developed my taste, made me hungry for the best. —Maurice Sendak, “Ruth Krauss and Me: Sendak’s work creates a Rorschach test for A Very Special Partnership” (1994) theories theories methodologies and critics, who inevitably feel compelled to ex- plain what his books tell us about what “the child” is like, can understand, must fear, In an ot- quoted remark (serving, e.g., as an will enjoy. This is because his books chal- epigraph of Neil Gaiman’s recent novel, he lenge people’s assumptions about what chil- Ocean at the End of the Lane), Maurice Sen- dren’s literature is or should be. As John dak observed, “In reality, childhood is deep Cech eloquently notes, Sendak’s work has and rich. It’s vital, mysterious, and profound. addressed subjects considered taboo for I remember my own childhood vividly. I knew children’s books: “explosive anger, frustra- terrible things . but I mustn’t let adults tion, the polymorphous realm of dream and know I knew. It would scare them” (Spie- psychosexual fantasy, intense sibling rivalry, gelman and Sendak). This comment about existential angst, death” (7). Sendak’s acute “vital, mysterious” childhood appears in the understanding and vivid evocation of the 27 September 1993 New Yorker, the sole issue emotional landscape of childhood tend to of that magazine to feature a cover by Sendak. produce an emotional response in readers. In On it he has drawn homeless children from an efort to contain that response, critics— his recent book, We Are All in the Dumps with including Bruno Bettelheim, Maria Tatar, Jack and Guy (1993), two of whom draw com- Geraldine DeLuca, Jennifer R. Waller, and fort from Ruth Krauss’s books. A boy uses A Kenneth Kidd—try to place Sendak in one Hole Is to Dig as a pillow. Standing beneath a category or another, oten by trying to draw makeshit shelter is a girl with Krauss’s dark boundaries around childhood and his repre- curly hair. She is holding a copy of Krauss’s sentations of it. I Can Fly. Her eyes are closed, as if she is The tendency to discover one’s preoc- dreaming of flying. Krauss had died two cupations in a text seems especially true in months earlier, at the age of ninety- one. analyses of Sendak. I mention this, irst, to It’s apt that Sendak should talk about his acknowledge my own culpability, as Ruth sense of childhood in the pages behind this Krauss’s biographer, writing in this essay image because his irst ictional children come about her inluence on Sendak’s understand- from Brooklyn, by way of Ruth Krauss. In ing of childhood. Second, there are good 1951 she had gathered material for A Hole Is reasons that scholars of children’s literature to Dig, a book of children’s deinitions: “Mud in general and of Sendak in particular ind is to jump in”; “A whistle is to make people it hard to avoid their afective relations with jump”; and “Rugs are so dogs have napkins.” the work. Though A Hole Is to Dig would become the © 2014 philip nel PMLA 129.1 (2014), published by the Modern Language Association of America 129.1 ] Maurice Sendak: A Tribute 113 most inluential book written entirely in chil- ing from her, Sendak based his protagonists theories methodologies and dren’s words, initially no illustrator thought on real children. In the irst three books he it could become a book at all. Fortunately, both wrote and illustrated, Kenny, in Kenny’s Krauss’s editor, Harper and Brothers’ Ursula Window (1956), originates from himself and Nordstrom, believed in the project and in from the therapist Dorothy W. Baruch’s case Maurice Sendak, then a twenty- three- year- history One Little Boy (1952), and a Brooklyn old F. A. O. Schwarz window display artist. kid named Rosie inspired Martin in Very Far hus began what Sendak considered his ap- Away (1957) and the title character of The prenticeship in the world of children’s books. Sign on Rosie’s Door (1960 [Kidd 119; Sendak, Beginning with his work on A Hole Is to Caldecott 181]). Dig, he spent weekends in Connecticut with More important, working with Krauss Krauss and her husband, Crockett Johnson, affirmed Sendak’s impulse to draw on his both of whom, he said, “became my week- own childhood experiences and inspired end parents and took on the job of shaping him to give voice to the fears, joys, anxi eties, me into an artist” (Nel 124). When A Hole Is anger, and yearnings of very young chil- to Dig became a popular success, Sendak quit dren. Observing Ruth also helped liberate his job at F. A. O. Schwarz, becoming a full- him, emotionally: “She taught me how to say time freelance illustrator. During the 1950s ‘Fuck you.’ I never said things like that until he illustrated as many as nine books a year. Ruth said them, and she said them with such Eight of those were by Ruth Krauss. For their a joie de vivre. But it’s not arbitrary. It second collaboration, A Very Special House was that it freed me” (Telephone interview). (1953), he won his irst Caldecott Honor. he children in the Sendak- illustrated Krauss A Very Special House is in some ways an books and in his own books don’t curse, but early rehearsal for Where the Wild Things they do use language forcefully and freely. Are. Both books feature an unruly boy who What children lack in size, they can make imaginatively transforms domestic space, as up in volume. Max tames the Wild Things George Bodmer notes (181). Both books also by shouting, “be still!” Just before landing have a protagonist whom Sendak has identi- in the night kitchen, Mickey shouts, “quiet fied with Ruth Krauss. He said that A Very down there!” (Where and In). Like Krauss’s Special House “perfectly simulates Ruth’s ictive children, Sendak’s are emotionally lib- voice. If I open that book, her voice will erated people. laugh out to me” (“Ruth Krauss” 289). He so he third and inal important inluence of associated the book with her that he brought Krauss was versatility. hough Max has come Max back as a character when in 2005 he re- to symbolize the Sendakian child, there is no illustrated her 1948 book Bears, dedicating it single Sendakian child, no uniied- ield theory to “Ruth and Dave” (Crockett Johnson’s given of childhood that emerges from his work. he name was Dave). hese books represent a key experimentation and energy are part of what lesson from Sendak’s apprenticeship with nurtured Sendak’s artistic lexibility (Bodmer Krauss: children’s books can and should con- 183), but so are the many types of children vey some of the wildness of childhood. (observed in real life) and the fact that both he second vital lesson Sendak learned Krauss and Nordstrom required him to work from Krauss was the idea of basing his char- in diferent styles: “Change and change and acters on real children. With A Hole Is to change it, change the form, change the form, Dig, Krauss began using children’s words in beat the material until you make it scream but her work. She sat with children, listened to give to you what it’s all about. Don’t assume them, and wrote their stories down. Learn- anything” (Telephone interview). 114 Maurice Sendak: A Tribute [ PMLA “On Familiar Terms with Disrupting In his works Sendak explores that fear Emotions”: Affective Relations with and anxiety, documenting the sharp, turbu- Children’s Books lent, powerful feelings of early childhood. I don’t write for children. I write, and some- Told that his books do not reassure readers, body says, “hat’s for children.” I didn’t set out to Sendak was unapologetic. He oten recounted make children happy, or make life better for them, the story of a mother who said, “I’ve read or make life easier for them. Where the Wild hings Are ten times to my lit- —Maurice Sendak to Stephen Colbert, tle girl, and she screams every time.” He asks “Grim Colberty Tales” (2012) why she keeps reading the book to her daugh- ter. he mother responds, “But it’s a Caldecott Sendak’s versatility—something to which he book, she ought to like it.” Sendak thinks this theories theories methodologies and consciously drew attention, oten mentioning attitude is ridiculous: “If a kid doesn’t like a the inluences in his ever- expanding literary book, throw it away” (Lanes 106). However, and artistic pantheon—can distract critics’ as Maria Tatar points out, “Sendak seems un- attention from the fact that “emotional truth” wittingly to acknowledge adult control even was more important than style (Marcus 19). as he repudiates it” (225). She makes an excel- Intertextuality is a comfortable area for crit- lent point. While some children might be able ics; admitting that emotions inform our re- to toss Where the Wild hings Are aside, small sponses is less so.