Stories I Would Like to Have Written #2
‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak’s ‘Where The Wild Things Are‘ was published sixty-one years ago this week. Not a significant date it’s true—I’m one year late for the sixtieth anniversary party—but still a tweet today (from Barnes Children’s Literature Festival) commemorating the book reminded me how much I loved it and here we are, thinking about it again.
Three hundred and twenty-seven words of perfection. And twenty-nine of the most gorgeous, articulate illustrations.
For those who haven’t read it—where have you been?!—please allow me to summarise:
After putting on his wolf suit, a young boy Max overdoes the role play and gets sent to bed without his supper. A forest grows in his room and he travels across the sea to an island inhabited by fierce but endearingly dumpy monsters. He tames these ‘wild things’ and they make him their king. Then the famous wild rumpus begins. After which he sends the creatures to bed without their supper. Although they love their new kind, Max feels lonely and when he smells “good things to eat” he decides to get back into his boat and go home, where he finds his supper waiting for him in his room.
It’s tempting to headshrink this story, but I’d prefer to say it can barely contain the boy. Excess energy spills off the page, effortlessly spining themes of power, agency, imagination, aggression, friendship, play, and appetite. Ultimately, it comes down to food denied and food provided.
On reading it again, I have to ask myself if this wasn’t an influence on ‘a boy in a park.’ I certainly didn’t pick it as a reference as I was writing and yet, as a childhood favourite that I still own, I perhaps should have reached for sooner.
I don’t describe the boy in my stories (much), nor give him a name, but if I were to do so his name would be Max and I’d put him in a wolf suit—I could have some fun with that. (There’s an idea! Mmmm.) The two boys share the same solitary nature, inclined to fantasy, often frustrated, angry, seeking to assert themselves somehow, though the boy has notably less success than Max. The forest, the sea, the island, these are the parks. Like Max, the boy has his feet in the real world and his head in fantasy, but the boy’s real world is one of struggle and deprivation, tenuous and vulnerable. Max is fortunate to be able to return to a comfortable home and the love expressed in a hot meal.
What would happen to Max if his boat were scuttled and there was no way back?
