Having read this classic book aloud at bedtime (at a conservative estimate) three thousand times, it has lodged itself in my brain in ways few other titles have managed. It deserves its success: the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book of all time, apparently. From Wikipedia I learn the following:
The vocabulary of the text consists of just fifty different words. Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss's publisher, wagered Seuss that he could not write a book using only fifty different words. The bet came after Seuss completed The Cat in the Hat, which used 225 words. The 50 are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.There: I have in effect quoted the entire book (though not in its original order). I wonder if that constitutes a breach of copyright? If I published an alphabetical list of all the words in the Harry Potter books, would Rowling take me to court?
I digress.
Anyway, reading it to Dan tonight for the three-thousandth-and-first time, I was struck, as if for the first time, by this thought: why is Sam so very insistent that the unnamed central character eat from his plate of unappetising, unkosher food? What's in it for him?
Why is he so persistent? Presumably one of the things that's going on here is a kind of inversion: the unnamed main character is tall, old, grumpy: parental, in a word. Sam is young, small, energetic, won't take no for an answer, full of bounce and optimism -- a kid. Of course in the real world, it's adults who nag kids to eat their 'greens'; and kids who go to ridiculous lengths to avoid eating them. But in this Seuss-inversion, it's the kid who nags the grown-up; and the greens are not spinach and broccoli, but unhealthy-though-delicious ham and eggs. (There's another, localised irony in the fact that Dan loves this book as much as he does: it so happens that his stomach won't abide egg, and he throws it up again if he eats it. Plus, as a Jew, he's not supposed to eat ham of any colour). But kids love playful inversion; it's the world turned upside down, a see-how-YOU-like-it shoe-other-footishness for grown-ups.
Still, I can't help feeling there's something almost Beckettian in the way this matter is pursued in the book. It's partly the remorselessness with which the central conceit it pursued (like a Terminator, Sam can't be bargained with, can't be reasoned with, doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear and he absolutely will not stop, ever -- until you have tasted his green victuals). But it's also the implications of the worldbuilding, a clown dimension where Sam has two huge pointing hands on sticks at his disposal (very odd props to carry around with you); cars have secret goat-filled compartments. the railway lines are supported in midair by Daliesque props and run steam trains and carriages filled with people directly, and deliberately, into the sea; and where disaster (for instance, the collision of said train and boat) occasions only smiles from everybody concerned. The final irony, for me, is the thought that, after all the running around in the open air, followed by immersion in sea -- or perhaps lake -- water, the fried eggs and broiled ham that the named protagonist must eat will surely be stone cold. Yummy.
9 comments:
Doctor Seuss is quite popular in Israel, but I don't believe there's ever been a translation of Green Eggs and Ham, and my mother never read it to me. It actually came as quite a shock as an adult to discover that there was a canonical Seuss work I'd never heard of.
How fascinating! Because of the titular ham?
My adult poetry is still more affected by Dr. Seuss than anything else. Not that this is an indication of quality. But there are aspects to this book-as-poetry that are worth appreciating -- the repetition, the unfailingly apt use of meter, the way he effortlessly gets whimsy and intelligible story into his confined word set and rhyme scheme. I know that it's supposed to be bad to admit to a young child's book as an adult influence, but this is the first archetype of the word, at least for me.
Also, the greenness. I always wondered, as a child, about how the ham and eggs became green. I decided that it must be food coloring, but my first idea was that they were green because they were moldy or decayed. Thus Sam-I-Am was asking the other person to try something really dangerous, even sinister.
"I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order." - Eric Morecambe
Adam: almost certainly. It's less prominent now (especially since Russian immigrants brought their love of pig products to the country in the early 90s) but there used to be an almost visceral reaction to pigs and all foodstuffs derived from them, to the extent that there was an attempt to outlaw pig raising, even for export. I suppose the translator could have changed the meat to something kosher, but the combination of meat and eggs, especially as a breakfast food, is quite foreign in Israel, where breakfast tends to be a dairy meal.
Ooh - when I was a primary school teacher I used to read this to my class (7 year olds) and it was one of their favourite books, constantly requested and much loved. Also by my own children too. It's language-play and naughtiness at its very best - and it's certainly my favourite Dr Seuss.
Rich: like you, Seuss (and Sendak, and Tintin) have sunk very deeply into my creative self. And, yes, I suppose to the extent that I thought about it I assumed the greenness was a function of decay. It only occurred to me very recently that it must be the abject, inedible greenness of green vegetables, transferred onto an otherwise edible foodstuff.
Abigal: that's really interesting. I think, because my wife's not orthodox, that I don't get a sense of how hard-core Jewish practice can be.
Kit: As a grown-up I like the Cat in the Hat, and the Road to Solla Solew (although even there, the simplicity of Green Eggs and Ham probably does give it the edge); but as a kid I'd say my favourite Seuss was The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Thesis Writing
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Why is he so persistent?
After reading it the other night (for only the second hundred and fortieth time), I began to wonder if it is because He does not like that Sam-I-Am. Why? We don't know. It might be because of the brief bursts of speechless speed we see, or we might be dropped in media res and that's just the latest of a long campaign of annoyance. But Sam's insistence on trying the jamon avec les oeufs vert surely can't be unconnected with his being rejected.
To that end, the child's delight in hearing the story isn't just that He had to eat his greens. It's that He started not liking Sam-I-Am and ended up thanking him.
PS - I know it was probably merely a joke, but no, if you published an alphabetical list of all the words in the Harry Potter books, Rowling would not, could not take you to court.
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