Tuesday, May 08, 2012

He's gone to where the wild things are

Via Aisha, the sad - but surely not shocking? - news that Maurice Sendak has died.

A friend gave the kid Where the Wild Things Are when he was a couple of years old and we've both loved it ever since. Often our battle cry has been the gleeful

Let the wild rumpus start!  

(Sometime we will say 'begin' instead of 'start', but hey.)

And though it slipped under my radar, I feel I must somehow get my hands on Bumble Ardy now.

Sendak said in an interview last year to the Guardian,  "I refuse to lie to children, [...] I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence."

And that's why I love Max. There's rebellion there; all the control he lacks over his world can be exerted over the world of his imagination. And of course there's loneliness. But also the hope of return and the certainty of an adult's love for a child - this child in the book. And it's done so delicately - an adult would see it; but a child would, I think, understand it.

RIP, Maurice Sendak. Whereever you are, let the wild rumpus start!


ETA: Sorry. Like all my friends, I'm reading everything Sandak-related and of course much of it is quotable, but this is more that that. This is...here - judge for yourself.


 
Found on Letters of Note, via Din

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