Many Moons Ago In A Far Off Place...

Many Moons by James Thurber

Ah, James Thurber, you toy with my heart.

I still remember the fluttering of that beating organ as I read The Thirteen Clocks. It was love at first sight. I was charmed by your heroes, hypnotized by your lyrics, and entranced by that oh-so-sexy originality. In short, I swooned.

So you'll understand my racing pulse and sweaty palms as I pulled Many Moons from the shelf. It was even crowned with a Caldecott Award seal-though you were not the illustrator of it, Louis Slobodkin was. Given your immense talent as an illustrator, I suspect that by 1944 your failing vision made it too much of a challenge.

I got the book home and eagerly embarked on our second date. (Third, I suppose, if you count your adult work-but those were merely the dalliances of acquaintances, not the torrid romances inspired by your juvenile fantastical tale.) Something was amiss, though. Many Moons lacked the melody and the read-aloud ease of our previous encounter. The pages sometimes had strange breaks, causing uncomfortable silences in the conversation. Where was the music? The fireworks?

On this second encounter, you seemed more ordinary, less blazingly original. Oh, those dear and beloved quirks were still present. You still made me chuckle with the amusing antics of your creations both dull and clever.

Could it be that the dazzle had worn off?

I closed the final page with disappointment. I'd even had moments during this much-anticipated date where I found myself bored and eager for the narration to be over.

Later that day, as I washed dishes, I listened as my husband read Many Moons aloud to our son. I listened as he found the rhythm and lyrical quality that I had missed. He gave voice to the king's anxious worry over his daughter's illness (from a "surfeit of raspberry tarts"). I listened as Princess Lenore asked for the moon to make her better again. My husband breathed foolishness into the bumbling advisors who proved unable to help the king fetch the moon for his daughter. Finally, the jester appears and is able to triumph where the Lord High Chamberlain, magician, and mathematician had failed.

As I listened, I found my appreciation returning. It was unfair of me to expect the same love-at-first-sight emotion to constantly overflow. Many Moons is a different sort of story, one that is comfortable because of its familiarity. It fully exercises the maxim that three times is funny. It increases the charm through repetition and the laughter comes because you can foresee the bumbling of each advisor.

The pictures are very much in your style, Mr. Thurber, though they retain their own distinctiveness. The pencil drawings have shadings that suggest rather than detail. Almost like one of those long gowns that inflame desire by what they hide rather than what they reveal. Images and icons fly in and out of the page, bringing to life our imagination rather than force-feeding us the illustrator's personal vision.

I must apologize. My impatience was that of one who thinks that every experience must be the same. That the moon must be of a single size and substance-that it is merely one distance away. I'll sit myself at the feet of your jester and relearn the task of looking through eyes that see the invisible and hearing with ears that pick up the silent.

And once I have been properly schooled, perhaps I might be so bold as to suggest a continuance of our romance. I hear The Wonderful O is quite dreamy.

Many Moons was re-released in 1990 with Marc Simont as the illustrator. I have not seen that version and so cannot comment on his illustrations. The version winning the Caldecott was the 1944 version with Louis Slobodkin's drawings.

It may seem to some a bit necrophilic that I suggest a romance with James Thurber. After all, he's been dead since 1961. I pray you'll pardon the poetic license.

--B. Redman