[OT] Dr. Seuss - What was he smoking?

OK, let me start by saying that I love Dr. Seuss. In fact, I think his mastery of the rhyme and the tongue twister sets him above most other children's authors, including the ones who published under his imprint.

Lately I've been reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to my daughter at night to get her to bed and it occurred to me that this book makes no sense whatsoever (my daughter is 2 and a half years old and refers to it as the Fishy Book).

It starts off talking about fish. That would make sense, given the title. Then it starts talking about strange creatures in bizarre situations, such as running, or walking for miles in their sleep, or getting visited by cats, dogs, and cows in their beds. Then after a while it talks about animals that serve as household appliances, and then finally just starts talking about strange pets.

WTF?? The book makes no sense! I swear Dr. Seuss must have been on some pretty good drugs when he came up with that stuff. The subject matter just wanders and wanders until it finally ends.

Apropos of not a lot of anything, I credit Dr. Seuss with inspiring one of the best high school projects I was ever involved with.

Senior year, and we were reading Dante's Inferno. At the beginning of the year, we'd each received a project, and mine was simply this: I had to do a videotaped version of one of the cantos of Inferno.

So a friend of mine and I got some of our other friends together, and filmed the scene.

Except we rewrote it first. In the style of the good doctor.

Every line of dialogue was in Dr. Seuss rhyme and meter. We had a soundtrack. We had special effects (mostly scenes of the arctic stolen from Superman, since the canto took place in Cocytus, the frozen layer). We had end credits. My friend even drew a 13th Century Fox logo.

This was 11 years ago. As of last year, the teacher was still showing it to her classes.

mouseferatu-

you rock!

high school video projects were the best!!

mouseferatu said:

Apropos of not a lot of anything, I credit Dr. Seuss with inspiring one of the best high school projects I was ever involved with.

Senior year, and we were reading Dante's Inferno. At the beginning of the year, we'd each received a project, and mine was simply this: I had to do a videotaped version of one of the cantos of Inferno.

So a friend of mine and I got some of our other friends together, and filmed the scene.

Except we rewrote it first. In the style of the good doctor.

Every line of dialogue was in Dr. Seuss rhyme and meter. We had a soundtrack. We had special effects (mostly scenes of the arctic stolen from Superman, since the canto took place in Cocytus, the frozen layer). We had end credits. My friend even drew a 13th Century Fox logo.

This was 11 years ago. As of last year, the teacher was still showing it to her classes.

Click to expand...

My friends and I did something similar with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

Which, of course, if you read it:


[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=-1]It is an ancient mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? [/size][/font]


you'll see it has the exact same meter as


Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip,
That started in this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.


Costumes were made, grog was consumed, and great fun was had by all. I was the Skipper.

I got a good laugh out of reading that as I've though the exact same thing about that book in the past few months! There's a guy on Monte Cook's boards that goes by "Zans for Cans" who has probably also had the same though.

One thing you have to give his books though is that I truly don't mind reading them over and over, outloud to my daughter. On the other hand I truly can't STAND some of the bland dreck they put in children's books these days. If it was just her reading fine, but I have to actually read though this crap again and again. I find myself hiding some of her favorites as I think I'll go crazy if I have to read them again... I think she is getting tired of the Seuss and Boynton that I keep pushing her on, though.

Some of Dr. Seuss' books were not meant to make sense. They were meant to be enjoyed by the children whose parents read them a few pages before bed. Take your example with One Fish, Two Fish. You can easily break the book into sections based on what Dr. Suess imagined a small child would remember (about 4-6 pages) at each reading. Granted, the break is not perfect, but there the book 'sections' would be remembered by even a 2 year old after a few readings. Method within the madness. Besides, young children (in my experience) do much better with 'suspension of disbelief' than do adults. Ask your child if pets could easily serve as household appliances. To you, or to most adults, the notion is silly and stupid. To a child, its possible. Dr. Suess was a master at giving children something to laugh at as well as sparking the more esoteric notions of creative thinking. As one ages, things like that make far less sense. But they make perfect sense to a child. For having the ability to know what makes sense to children, Dr. Suess was a wonder of his age, and ours.

Although I do agree, he must have been smoking something at times, even when writing books like the Lorax

It was the 60's!
He was high on life... man.

Actually I suspect after reading green eggs and ham he was ripped off his on something but I'd rather not know.

MeepoTheMighty said:

My friends and I did something similar with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

Which, of course, if you read it:


[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=-1]It is an ancient mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? [/size][/font]


you'll see it has the exact same meter as


Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip,
That started in this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.


Costumes were made, grog was consumed, and great fun was had by all. I was the Skipper.

Click to expand...

Did you know that you can set ALL of Emily Dickinson's poetry to "Gilligan's Island" as well? NTM "The Yellow Rose of Texas"

have you seen any of his erotic works?

huge monsters chopping the heads of of fully bloomed flowers with nude women resting inside the blooms.

'nuff said.

alsih2o said:

have you seen any of his erotic works?

huge monsters chopping the heads of of fully bloomed flowers with nude women resting inside the blooms.

'nuff said.

Click to expand...

Er... what?!? Link please!