Where the Wild Things Are

[osprey_archer]

When I was a child, I didn't like Where the Wild Things Are. Max was exactly the sort of boy I didn't like in real life, the kind who is always being loud and causing trouble and generally disrupting everything, and I didn't like the illustration style either. Too dark, too cross-hatched, and the Wild Things with their claws and horns and big teeth and giant mouths frightened me.

Looking at them now, the Wild Things seem weirdly cuddly despite their toothiness - they're all pudgy and soft and furry - but the world looks different when you're five years old.

I'm still not in love with the illustration style on a personal level, but I can appreciate the amount of skill that went into, say, crosshatching every single little leaf on each tree in the land where the Wild Things are. And - I just noticed this - Maurice Sendak uses quite a different style to illustrate the water in the ocean Max crosses in his boat, much more impressionist with great blobs of olive green and dark teal and white for foam.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Ha, wouldn't you know, there of course are cuddly Wild Things! ;-)

It's not my favourite style, either, but I don't think I encountered it in childhood.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ha, of course there are. A movie came out a few years back; the plushies are probably from that.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

I didn't love Where the Wild Things Are (I hated the way the kid walked with one leg way out and his eyes closed, and that's basically all I remember), but I pretended to like it more than I did because it was A Classic. I was a pathologically eager to please child. Maybe I'll look at it again sometime if I see it in a bookstore or something.

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly this.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Max's walk is so weird and stiff, it probably also disturbed me on a subliminal level. And then he sends the monsters to bed without supper! When all they ever did was exactly what he asked! He was such a mean little boy, it actually struck me as rather unfair that his mother relented and gave him his supper in the end.