海角大神

鈥楤ecoming鈥� is the right descriptor for Theodor Seuss Geisel. The grandson of a New England brewer, he started out as a clever self-taught cartoonist whose comic touch with image and words was first fully appreciated in advertisements for bug spray and motor oil. 鈥溾�業 began to get it through my skull that words and pictures were yin and yang,鈥� he said later. 鈥業 began thinking that words and pictures, married, might possibly produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.鈥欌��

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904, he made his way after graduation from Dartmouth College to Oxford University, where he met Helen Palmer, the American woman who would become his wife, who was studying there. Geisel was already funny: 鈥淎lmost in spite of himself, he took an interest in the works of John Milton, and began illustrating 鈥榞reat hunks鈥� of 鈥楶aradise Lost鈥� 鈥� especially the places, said Geisel, where 鈥楳ilton鈥檚 sense of humor failed him.鈥欌�� Geisel decided he wasn鈥檛 a good fit for academia and left England without the Ph.D. that would have made him an actual 鈥渄octor.鈥� The couple lived and worked in New York City as his ad campaigns became popular in the 1930s, but he was always searching for a cause higher than consumerism.

The Geisels never had children, of whom, he often said, he wasn鈥檛 particularly fond: 鈥溾�業 would like to say I went into children鈥檚 book work because of my great understanding of children.鈥� 鈥� In truth, 鈥業 went in because it wasn鈥檛 excluded by my Standard Oil contract.鈥� He had, however, an incomparable knack for writing and drawing for children. He completely fathomed and cultivated their interest in playful phrasings and in his nonsense creatures: 鈥溾�楳aking up words is the simplest thing in the world. For instance, you draw something and look at it and it鈥檚 an obsk. There鈥檚 no doubt about it. It can鈥檛 be anything else.鈥欌�� He found his greater purpose in the fantastical stories and reading primers, most successfully 鈥淭he Cat in the Hat鈥澨齛nd 鈥淕reen Eggs and Ham,鈥�听which enthused and amused adults almost as much as they did children.听

Brian Jay Jones, the biographer of two other American entertainment icons, Jim Henson and George Lucas, admires Geisel and reminds us over and over that Geisel鈥檚 friends, colleagues, and editors regarded him as a genius. Jones only winces over the occasions when Geisel succumbed to the prejudices of his time: 鈥淔rom the stereotypical portrayal of the Japanese [in 1942] 鈥� to its underlying distrust of his fellow citizens, it鈥檚 one of the lowest moments in Dr. Seuss鈥檚 career. Further, it鈥檚 a shockingly tone-deaf message coming from Ted Geisel, who had experienced bigotry by association during World War I when he was pelted with coal and mocked for no other reason than a shared [German] heritage with the enemy.鈥�

It was joining the U. S. Army鈥檚 Film Production Section in World War II and making educational reels and cartoons for soldiers with the Hollywood movie director Frank Capra that got him interested in developing stories for children. 鈥淲hen Geisel was asked point-blank if he used those 鈥榩ropagandistic skills鈥� in his books, his answer was straightforward and unapologetic: 鈥極f course.鈥欌�� Yet after the war he trained himself, as Dr. Seuss, to aim his books first of all at entertainment that educated. And though he continually had axes to grind, he successfully restrained himself and focused his efforts on keeping children amused and excited as they learned to read. Though there were too many occasions where he drew stereotypical caricatures, almost听everything听he drew was a caricature, and he evolved into an irrepressible and influential advocate for people of all colors and creeds.听

Even given his self-acknowledged limitations, Dr. Seuss was certainly unlike any other children鈥檚 author for me in the 1960s and for my own children in the 2000s. His books created their own genre. (His word-play was so peculiarly American that the Brits didn鈥檛 much care for him.) 听

What this biography does best is account for Geisel鈥檚 demanding creative habits. He was dedicated to work and, when he had the power and leverage, he fussed over every detail of his books, from the size of the page and the font to the placement of text and picture. He insisted on the exact colors he required, and his longtime publisher, Random House, usually sensibly let him have his own way; his titles eventually sold in the hundreds of millions. He was as demanding of the writers he corralled into the Beginner Books imprint, which was under his supervision, as he was of himself.

After he and Helen made La Jolla, California, their home in the late 1940s, 鈥淭ed,鈥� as he was called by friends, worked an eight-hour shift up in his tower room almost every day when they weren鈥檛 traveling the world. Over their nearly 40 years of marriage, Helen, his constant and credited helpmate and fellow editor and first reader, had had various life-threatening ailments that forced her to undergo long rehabilitations. At the age of 69, in poor health and aware, seemingly, that her husband had fallen in love with one of her close friends, she committed suicide.

While听Jones takes pains to discuss and reproach听Geisel鈥檚 stereotyped depictions of Japanese people, he doesn鈥檛 seem to听want us to dwell听over this tragic incident. Geisel apparently did not want to either: 鈥淚f he felt even partly to blame for Helen鈥檚 death, he never said. There would be no self-reflection in public or confessions in private journals; that simply wasn鈥檛 Ted鈥檚 way.鈥�

He remarried seven months after his wife鈥檚 death, returned to his La Jolla tower, and continued producing books until his death in 1991.听

While Geisel joked about his unsophisticated creative talents, he also had a chip on his shoulder: 鈥淒espite all of his success 鈥� even despite a Pulitzer Prize [he won a citation from the Pulitzer committee for his special听contribution to children鈥檚 literature] 鈥� Geisel still believed his work wasn鈥檛 taken seriously. He badly wanted to be regarded as a Great Artist, on the same level as Picasso 鈥︹��

Oh, the places the ego will go! The great inspirer of children鈥檚 reading was, except in his commitment to work, no Picasso, but he remains, by most assessments, one-of-a-kind and distinctively American.