Module 8--The Phantom Tollbooth: A Review

 

MODULE 8:
THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH:

by Norton Juster

Juster, N. The Phantom Tollbooth (1961).  New York, Alfred A. Knopf

I had heard of The Phantom Tollbooth, but kept getting it confused with the silent film The Phantom Coachman (which is a classic horror film).  Tollbooth, Coachman...it isn't too much of a stretch.  The Phantom Tollbooth I think is one of the greatest books I've read, a sly, witty masterwork where words (and numbers) are used in a clever and fantastic way.

Milo is a young boy who "regarded the process of seeking knowledge as the greatest waste of time of all".  As such, education is not worth the effort.  The very next day, a box arrives and with a little assembly, Milo has a phantom tollbooth.  He takes his small electric car, pays the toll, and decides to use the map included to go to a place called Dictionopolis.

Once he goes, he finds himself in the most fantastical world imaginable: the Kingdom of Wisdom, which is surrounded by the Sea of Knowledge.  Dictionopolis is a city ruled by King Azaz the Unabridged, where words are the commodity.  On his way to Dictionopolis, Milo meets Tock, a watchdog in the purest sense: literally a dog who has a large watch as part of his body.  In Dictionopolis, he sees the word market, where letters and words are bought and sold for all occasions.  He also meets such creatures as The Spelling Bee (a large bee that spells and gets occasional work in bonnets) and the Humbug, a most loquacious creature prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

King Azaz holds a feast where the guests eat their words, and informs Milo and Tock that things have been off since the banishment of Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason, the sisters of both King Azaz and his brother, the Mathemagician.  The brothers, angry at Rhyme and Reason's ruling that words and numbers were of equal worth, banished them to the Castle in the Sky.  Since then, the world of Wisdom has been out of whack.  King Azaz appoints Milo, Tock (who ironically goes 'tick'), and the Humbug to rescue the Princesses, but they must get the agreement of the Mathemagician, and the two brothers never agree on anything.

It looks like an impossible task, but Milo agrees, beginning a great journey that takes them to such places as the Island of Conclusions (which you can get to only by jumping), the Point of View (where a man can be the tallest midget, the smallest giant, the thinnest fat man, and the fattest thin man---and be the exact same person), the twin cities of Reality and Illusion (not particularly nice places to live in) before reaching the rival city of Digitopolis.  The Mathemagician won't agree to Azaz's idea, but Milo points out that they've both agreed to disagree on the matter of the Princesses, and no matter how the Mathemagician sees it, Milo is correct.  Like Azaz, he gives the travelers gifts to protect them as they travel through the Valley of Ignorance, where they must face demons like the Everpresent Wordsnacher Bird (who takes words right out of your mouth), the charming but dangerous Terrible Trivium (demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs), and the Senses Taker (who not only takes your physical senses but your sense of honor and worth and who is brought low because he couldn't take their sense of humor).

They finally arrive at the Castle in the Air, where the Princess Sweet Rhyme and the Princess Pure Reason have been waiting for them.  They believe it is time to return, but with the Castle cut off how to get back.  Well, time flies...and since Tock is a watchdog...well, there's logic in that.  They are chased by other terrible demons, like Gross Exaggeration, the Threadbare Excuse, and the Overbearing-Know-It-All, until the joint forces of Wisdom come at the foot of the Mountains of Ignorance and scare them away.  With Rhyme and Reason returned, Azaz and the Mathemagician hold a joint feast and pledge to work together to defeat the Demons of Ignorance.  As Milo leaves sadly for his own world, he hears the two rules begin to slowly argue over primacy.  Sadly, the next day the Phantom Tollbooth has disappeared, sent off to other boys and girls that will require its services.  As for Milo, he now saw the world in a different way: all that he failed to notice suddenly became sharp, and he saw books all around his room, which could take him anywhere, help him create anything, discover new places, new sights, new sounds, and realized he would like to return to the Kingdom of Wisdom, but he has so much to do now where once he had nothing to do.

   
I had never read The Phantom Tollbooth until now, but I don't think I have enjoyed a book as much as I did this one.  This is the first book to make me laugh out loud as I read it since I read a Jeeves and Wooster book by P.G. Wodehouse.   The Phantom Tollbooth is a word-lover's delight, full of witty puns all around.  If you 'leap to Conclusions', you are likely to meet the figure of Canby (as in "can be"), someone who is 'as brave as can by, and as cowardly as can be'.  You might find yourself stuck in The Doldrums, a world where the slow and uninterested Lethargians live.   In Dictionopolis, Milo is taken to the banquet by a special vehicle, where everyone must remain silent because it's one that 'goes without saying'. 

At this banquet, the King admonishes Milo for being so ordinary.  He tells them of his Cabinet's many tales: making mountains out of molehills, splitting hairs, leaving no stone unturned, but the poor Undersecretary hangs by a thread.  In Digitopolis, the numbers are mined, and if a number is broken, no worries: they use them for fractions.  If you want to walk across a large room quickly, just draw a straight line (since it's the shortest distance between two points).    

I also find The Phantom Tollbooth to be extremely quote-worthy, a valuable tome where its wit and wisdom shine through.  In Dictionopolis, Milo meets King Azaz's Cabinet: the Duke of Definition, the Minister of Meaning, the Earl of Essence, the Count of Connotation, and the Undersecretary of Understanding.  They each serve to provide synonyms to their individual statements.  Their job is to make sure all the words sold in the Word Market are proper words.  "But we never choose which ones to use, for as long as they mean what they mean to mean we don't care if they make sense or nonsense".  Alec Bings, whom they find at the Point of View, informs them that "the way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from".  Truer words...

After Milo meets the .58 child (since families average 2.58 children) and fails to reach the Point of Infinity, he tells the Mathemagician how he finds much of this world hard to understand.  "You'll find that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort". 

The Phantom Tollbooth is so remarkably clever and witty, and quite punny if you get what is being said.   For me, The Phantom Tollbooth is on the same level as Alice in Wonderland and/or The Wizard of Oz.  Both are about children travelling to a strange world where all sorts of impossible things and being are.  Both the main characters are rather shocked by everything because it goes against their common sense.  However, in both Wonderland and the Kingdom of Wisdom, there is a logic to everything and everyone (even if that logic is a bit bonkers). 

We also have some familiar fairy tale elements.  The rescue of a princess (or two), travels through dangerous worlds where they must face off against formidable opponents.  A triumphant return where the hero wins the day.

BRIEF REVIEW DISCUSSION

I simply loved The Phantom Tollbooth, so much so that I hope to reread it and get my own copy to which to highlight all the wonderful phrases that I think should serve as words of Wisdom for everyone to live by.  Michael Chabon, a respect author himself, commented on the wit in The Phantom Tollbooth, that while the lands and characters were allegorical, the book "manages to surmount the insurmountable obstacle that allegory ordinarily presents to pleasure".  In other words, one can learn without being overt about it.  You can read it on a surface level, or on a deeper level about the importance of learning. This ability to work both as the story you are reading as well as a deeper story is what to my mind makes The Phantom Tollbooth one of the best books I've ever read.  I will treasure this book and know that I will be revisiting it in the future.  I loved it so much I'm tempted to give it to friends and family as gifts and have recommended it to a friend in South Africa. 

PROGRAMMING SUGGESTIONS

A great program would be a Costume Party where you dress as a pun: A Spelling Bee, a Listening or Computer Bug, a Book Mark (great for boys named Mark) or a Cutting Remark.  One can create a Tollbooth where children must pay a 'fare' (maybe a set number of books checked out or read) to enter, or the crowning of a Princess of Pure Reason and Sweet Rhyme.  Finally, have students travel through the library to find such places and objects as the Valley of Decision and the Wheel of Fortune.

Norton Juster
Born 1929

REFERENCES:

Chabon, M. (2011) The Phantom Tollbooth and the Wonder of Words [Review of the book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster].  Retrieved from http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/apr/21/michael-chabon-phantom-tollbooth-wonder-words/

Module 4--A Wrinkle in Time: A Review

MODULE 4: A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle

L'Engle, M. (1962). A Wrinkle in Time.  New York, Square Fish: An Imprint of Macmillan.

A Wrinkle in Time has achieved both legendary status and controversy due to the same issue: the mystical/religious aspects of the book.  Some have found in A Wrinkle in Time too much religion, particularly Christianity, and some the opposite: too much occult/anti-Christian material in it.  I was pretty surprised at how open the book was in acknowledging the existence of God and Jesus in the world of fantasy.  This was neither a negative or selling point for me, as I found A Wrinkle in Time a good read, though a bit rushed for me.

Meg Murry is a pretty typical fourteen-year-old girl.  She has braces and glasses, and is carrying a lot of anger within her.  Her father, a scientist, has disappeared and rumors are going around that he ran off, maybe with another woman.  Mrs. Murry, a scientist in her own right, tells Meg and her other children: twins Sandy and Dennys and Charles Wallace, a five-year-old genius whom the town thinks is an idiot, that Mr. Murry has not abandoned the family but he has disappeared due to his work.  Charles Wallace is visited by the first of three figures he met while going to a 'haunted house': a figure dresses in many scarves and coats who calls herself Mrs Whatsit.  Mrs Whatsit is also seen by Meg and Mrs. Murry, who tells the latter that 'tesseract' is real.  This shocks Mrs. Murry.

Charles Wallace and a very reluctant Meg go to Mrs Whatsit's home, where they find Calvin O'Keefe, a thin redheaded freckled-faced boy, slightly older than Meg, who is a star athlete but from a troubled home who like Meg feels out of place.  Calvin senses that he has been 'invited' to go to the house, and the three of them next meet the second mysterious figure, Mrs Who, who speaks in phrases of various languages.  They and Mrs Which, the third figure who can never fully materialize but who has enormous spectacles and who speaks by elongating every word, whisk the three children off to help rescue Mr. Murry.

Here, the three children go to various planets as they prepare to fight the dark force holding Mr. Murry prisoner.   The first planet is the beautiful Uriel, where they discover angelic voices singing excerpts from Psalm 96 (Sing unto the Lord a new song...) and get a glimpse into a Dark Being in a vision.  They visit The Happy Medium, a figure in turbans with a crystal ball who shows them Earth, a world half in darkness half in light that has been fighting the Dark Figure with such figures as Jesus, Bach, Gandhi, and Buddha among others.  They also learn that these beings, former stars, are able to travel quickly from one point in space to another thanks to tesseracting (or the ability to bend time to get from Point A to Point B through the fifth dimension).  This is what Mr. and Mrs. Murry had been working on, and which caused Mr. Murry's disappearance.

Now, with words of wisdom, the gift of Mrs Which's glasses, and warnings that they must all stay together, the children are sent to the planet Camazotz.   Here, everyone is literally the same: the children all act the same, the parents all act the same, there is total uniformity.  The children decide to go to the CENTRAL Central Intelligence Center.  Here, they discover the Man With the Red Eyes, an evil being who has the power to hypnotize everyone and bend them to his uniform will.  Charles Wallace's high intelligence makes him vulnerable to the power and he becomes enchanted. 

He is really working for IT, a powerful brain that controls the group-think of Camazotz.  Meg and Calvin do discover Mr. Murry, who is held prisoner there because he refuses to succumb to group-think; with the Man With the Red Eyes growing in power, Mr. Murry tesseracts the two of them to another world via Mrs Which's glasses. 

The trip nearly kills Meg, who is angry that her beloved father couldn't rescue Charles Wallace and left him on Camazotz.  On the new planet of Ixchel, Meg is nursed back to health by Aunt Beast, a seemingly frightening-looking creature with four arms and tentacles but who is really gentle.  The Three Ws reappear, and give Meg the task of rescuing Charles Wallace.  She has one thing IT does not have, and back on Camazotz the normally kind Charles Wallace is sarcastic towards his 'dear sister'.  Finally, Meg realizes what she has that IT doesn't have: love.  Her love breaks the spell on Charles Wallace, and they all escape back to Earth by being tesseracted by the Three Ws. Calvin and Meg have fallen in love, and it adds to the joy of the family reunion where the Murrys are brought together at last.

One thing that A Wrinkle in Time has as a positive is relatable characters.  Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace read as real kids. There's the angry and insecure Meg, constantly talking herself down.  There's Calvin, the outwardly outgoing star athlete who hides an unhappy homelife where he is basically ignored by his family and feels out-of-place himself.  Charles Wallace (he is almost always to by his first and middle name): the bright child-genius who accepts his gift with a certain nonchalance.  The relationship between Meg and Charles Wallace, and the one that grows between Meg and Calvin, are believable.

There is a great fantastical vision in A Wrinkle in Time.  You've got the funny Three Ws, who are all unique characters. They have their own characteristics that makes them easily identifiable.  There is the quest: the search for the father.  You have an overwhelming sense of danger and fear with The Man With the Red Eyes.

Where I think A Wrinkle in Time kind of went off for me was with IT.  The idea of a disembodied brain being the center of this dark world strikes me as almost funny.  Somehow, all the evil or totalitarian nature of Camazotz being brought on by a brain seemed a pretty odd figure.  Why not have The Man With the Red Eyes be the actual dark figure?

Also, after the rescue, Mr. Murry didn't seem to be that big a part of the story.  I think he is almost a plot device, a reason for the quest but who doesn't enter into the story itself.

These are really minor points because the description of Camazotz as this dark place where everyone is the same is frightening. The descriptions of the other worlds is also well-done.

I don't think A Wrinkle in Time is meant to be Christian allegory like C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.  We do have quotes from the Old and New Testament (Aunt Beast quotes a version of Romans 8:28--"we are called according to His Purpose", and Mrs Who quotes a version of 1 Corinthians 1:27--"He uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise").  There is the acknowledgement of evil and of Supreme Being (that being God in the Judeo-Christian tradition).  However, I don't read A Wrinkle in Time as symbolic of a Christian story (unlike Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which is symbolic of Christ's Death and Resurrection).  I don't think IT the brain is meant to represent Satan or Camazotz to be Hell.

Camazotz, however, could be something like Hell because the uniformity where everyone is exactly alike, all controlled by one being who decides all things for them and who punishes nonconformity, is a nightmare place.  Whether L'Engle meant to represent something like the Soviet Union or some other dictatorship I don't know.  However, it is open to interpretation.

BRIEF REVIEW DISCUSSION

A review for A Wrinkle in Time comments on how Meg's "refreshingly believable behavior resonated with" the reviewer, and I can see how that is possible.  The main characters are not perfect (they can be excessively self-assured or frightened and angry), but that's what makes them real.  I think young readers will appreciate that the characters were not perfect, in short, like them.   All the human characters are quite relatable, which works for the target audience.  The non-human characters are amusing or frightening when they have to be, and with some switches in perception (Aunt Beast being really kind despite her frightening looks) children will appreciate that judging by appearances is wrong.   I think that A Wrinkle in Time might make others want to read the other stories in the series.  I personally can take it or leave it, but wouldn't begrudge others who would like to learn more. 

PROGRAMMING SUGGESTIONS

I don't know what kind of program one could create for A Wrinkle in Time.  There might be a dress-up contest where children are invited to come as one of the Three Ws (Mrs Which would be the most creative since she never fully materializes) or Aunt Beast (which can lead to equally imaginative costumes).  We might sponsor a quiz-type contest to find the next Charles Wallace, and if one wanted to really frighten children, put in some Men With Red Eyes around the library for children to discover, maybe even have a staff member pop up with red eyes.  Hopefully though, they will find older children to scare. 

Madeleine L'Engle:
1918-2007

REFERENCES:

[Review of the book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle].  Retrieved from http://www.cmlibrary.org/readers_club/reviews/tresults.asp?id=1952