[Reading Notes] Letter from the Editor of Where the Wild Things Are to the Painter

The Chi­nese ver­sion was released in June 2014

http://landaishu.hi2net.com/home/upload20083/200812148353701.jpg
1998 orig­i­nal US edi­tion cov­er
The cov­er illus­tra­tion was drawn by Sendak based on a pho­to­graph of Ursu­la
 
 
 I was very for­tu­nate to attend a lec­ture by Mr. Chen Jiang­hong on the evening of Decem­ber 2 (2008). At that time, the painter strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed a book to every­one: Ursu­la
Nord­strom’s Dear
Genius. Chen Jiang­hong said she was an amaz­ing edi­tor and his biggest regret was not hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with her even once.
   So I bought this book.
 
 This book is a col­lec­tion of let­ters writ­ten by Ursu­la (1910–1988) to her writ­ers and painters. Most of them were writ­ten dur­ing her tenure as the head of the chil­dren’s book depart­ment at Harper’s Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny in the Unit­ed States from 1940 to 1973. The names of these writ­ers and painters are real­ly amaz­ing (the most famous mas­ter­pieces they col­lab­o­rat­ed on are in paren­the­ses): Mau­rice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), E.B. White (Char­lot­te’s Web), Lau­ra Ingalls Wilder (The Lit­tle House series), Mar­garet Wise Brown (The Run­away Bun­ny), Shel Sil­ver­stein (The Giv­ing Tree), Gus Williams (illus­tra­tions for Char­lot­te’s Web, The Lit­tle House, etc.), Mein­dert DeJong (Wheels on the School Roof), Kroger John­son (Arrow Has a Col­ored Pen­cil), Ruth Kraus, Char­lotte Zolo­tov, etc. I have only list­ed some of the ones I am famil­iar with. From these let­ters, you can seeUrsu­laHow did she grow up with her genius­es? No mat­ter when they were unknown or when their fame was at its peak, she was so enthu­si­as­tic, patient and kind in cor­re­spon­dence with them, talk­ing about cre­ation and pub­lish­ing, or just chat­ting about fam­i­ly mat­ters. She had an extra­or­di­nary abil­i­ty to dis­cov­er genius­es, cul­ti­vate genius­es and pro­tect genius­es. Her genius­es got what they need­ed most from her and regard­ed her as “big sis­ter, close friend, good teacher, and even moth­er” (a
bul­ly, a best friend, a teacher, even a moth­er).
   Recent­ly I have been sort­ing out Where the Wild Things Are (Where the Wild Things
Are), so I was par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in the cor­re­spon­dence before and after the book was pub­lished. I made some notes below to share.
[To Sendak, April 15, 1963]
   From the notes, we know that Sendak had already drawn a draft as ear­ly as 1955, and delib­er­ate­ly made up a pseu­do­nym (prob­a­bly because he did­n’t want oth­ers to know it first) called “Where the Wild Hors­es Are” (Where
the Wild Hors­es AreSendak believed that his works could only be regard­ed as “illus­trat­ed books”.
He want­ed to make this book a true “pic­ture book” in which text and pic­tures were inex­tri­ca­bly inter­twined.
   Ursu­laI under­stand Sendak’s pur­pose very well and called this book “Your 1963 Pic­ture Book”.
book). The begin­ning of the let­ter,Ursu­laShe said she had called Sendak repeat­ed­ly but could­n’t reach him, sug­gest­ing he must be in a par­tic­u­lar­ly good mood, enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful weath­er. She explained that the book took time to form in her mind, so it would like­ly take longer once it was on paper. She asked Sendak to share any inspi­ra­tion he had.
   Then she talked about Moon, a pic­ture book that Sendak had recent­ly illus­trat­ed for Jan­ice May Udry.
While prais­ing the graph­ic style of Jumpers (which won the Calde­cott Medal), she sug­gest­ed that Sendak con­sid­er writ­ing a short, poet­ic text sim­i­lar to that of Jumpers. She men­tioned that Sendak was writ­ing anoth­er sto­ry, Old
Pota­to believes that if the text were short­er and less psy­cho­log­i­cal, it would be bet­ter. How­ev­er, she still high­ly appre­ci­ates the unique psy­cho­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions in Sendak’s writ­ing, believ­ing that the abil­i­ty to con­tain as much mean­ing as pos­si­ble in a short text is Sendak’s most dis­tinc­tive fea­ture in his writ­ing.
 
   Brief Review: This book marks a turn­ing point in Sendak’s career. Pre­vi­ous­ly a remark­able painter, he became a remark­able writer. Ursu­la focus­es on dis­cussing his lit­er­ary tal­ents, high­ly com­mend­ing Sendak’s unique qual­i­ties while offer­ing sin­cere yet tact­ful sug­ges­tions. This is per­haps what a writer needs most at this moment.
To Sendak, July 3, 1963
   In the usu­al sense, this is a let­ter urg­ing the edi­tor to sub­mit man­u­scripts. The agreed pub­li­ca­tion date is approach­ing, and the edi­tor is nat­u­ral­ly anx­ious. But this let­ter is very unique.
   At the begin­ning,Ursu­laShe told Sendak she had called him today but could­n’t get through, and that she was about to take a train for vaca­tion. Sendak had already sub­mit­ted par­tial­ly com­plet­ed draw­ings, but the edi­tor, pre­sum­ably respon­si­ble for type­set­ting, told her it was use­less and that she could­n’t begin work until she received all the draw­ings. She told Sendak she had to give the edi­tor at least 10–15 days.
   but,Ursu­laShe advised Sendak not to rush. If he could sub­mit the man­u­script by August 15th, that would be excel­lent. If he wait­ed until Sep­tem­ber 1st, it would be a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult, but not a big deal. If nec­es­sary, Ursu­la could bind the thou­sands of books her­self, sewing the pages into the bind­ing cloth her­self (she claimed to be a very good seam­stress) and then per­son­al­ly tak­ing taxis to major book­stores in New York for stor­age.
   Ursu­la added that if you could fin­ish the man­u­script on time, that would be won­der­ful; if it did­n’t make it to pub­li­ca­tion this year, it would still be a mas­ter­piece of 1964. How­ev­er, she knew full well that Sendak want­ed the book to appear in the fall 1963 list, and she did too. She and her col­leagues would do their utmost to ensure this hap­pened. She had already arranged every­thing so that once the man­u­script arrived, the pub­lish­ing process would be com­plet­ed at full speed. So Sendak, please don’t wor­ry; just fin­ish the man­u­script, and they will take care of the rest.
 
   
Com­men­tary: What author would­n’t be moved by a let­ter like this? On the one hand, it tells the author they’re anx­ious­ly await­ing the pub­li­ca­tion, but on the oth­er, it asks them not to wor­ry too much, plac­ing almost all the pres­sure of pub­li­ca­tion time on the edi­tor, striv­ing to min­i­mize any pres­sure on the author. Such thought­ful­ness, yet such seri­ous­ness! Think about our cur­rent sit­u­a­tion: pub­lish­ers often put con­stant pres­sure on pub­lish­ers, only to have them “hand in” only to have it drag on for months or even half a year. Sigh.
[To Sendak, Sep­tem­ber 23, 1963]
   In this let­ter,Ursu­laThey told Sendak sev­er­al things: first, they had imme­di­ate­ly sent a past­ed copy of Where the Wild Things Are (what we now com­mon­ly call a “fake book,” a sam­ple book that was sim­ply bound before it was actu­al­ly print­ed) to George Wood, a famous book crit­ic for The New York Times. The review­er believed that this book could at least be ranked among the top ten illus­tra­tions of the year; sec­ond, there was a Spencer
Mr. Shaw was select­ed to join the New­bery Calde­cott Medal selec­tion com­mit­tee that year. He was high­ly opti­mistic about Sendak’s work and believed that the work had a good chance of win­ning the award.
   Ursu­laShe specif­i­cal­ly told Sendak that before send­ing him the sam­ple book, she had care­ful­ly reviewed the work and felt it was a “MOST
MAGNIFICENT”, the orig­i­nal text is in bold and cap­i­tal let­ters, how to trans­late it? Prob­a­bly it can be said to be “the great­est mas­ter­piece”. They are very proud to be able to edit this book by them­selves.
   Ursu­laA lov­ing note to Sendak: When you were young, with only a few works under your belt, I remem­ber every time you fin­ished a piece, I’d thank you for anoth­er “nice job”—or some sim­i­lar­ly sweet words of encour­age­ment. Now that you’re rich and famous, you prob­a­bly don’t need me to say that any­more. But I must say, after reread­ing Where the Wild Things Are, I think it’s absolute­ly bril­liant. The writ­ing is incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful and rich in mean­ing. It’s exact­ly the kind of book you want­ed to write, and you did just that!
   Ursu­laHe added the fol­low­ing: “Late­ly, with all the pic­ture books out there, I some­times feel a lit­tle down (for the authors, the illus­tra­tors, and, frankly, for the peo­ple who buy and review them!). But on this beau­ti­ful, bright Mon­day, look­ing at this beau­ti­ful book of yours, I feel so excit­ed! It reminds me of my love for cre­ative peo­ple and for pub­lish­ing books for cre­ative chil­dren.”
 
   Brief com­ment: In 1963, it was alreadyUrsu­laThis is her 23rd year at the helm of Harper’s Chil­dren’s Pub­lish­ing, and her 53rd year in life. It’s tru­ly remark­able that she main­tains such pas­sion! Hon­est­ly, I’ve expe­ri­enced those moments of help­less­ness and despair myself. It’s pre­cise­ly because of these cre­ative cre­ators and works, and so many equal­ly cre­ative chil­dren, that we con­tin­ue on this jour­ney with such joy, singing and being enchant­ed along the way… It’s hard to describe how much I’ve learned.
To Mary V. Gaver, Novem­ber 21, 1963
   This Ms. Mary is a pro­fes­sor in the grad­u­ate school of library ser­vices at a uni­ver­si­ty.Ursu­laFrom the let­ter, we know that Ms. Mary gaveUrsu­laI sent my own review of the book, as well as the chil­dren’s brief reviews of the book.
   Ursu­laI expressed my deep grat­i­tude to Lady Mary. She not­ed that she was­n’t sur­prised that the chil­dren weren’t fright­ened by the beast in the book at all, with the excep­tion of one four-year-old girl who was already quite jumpy and had trou­ble sleep­ing at night. Ursu­la quipped, “I think this book could only fright­en a par­tic­u­lar­ly jumpy child or a par­tic­u­lar­ly jumpy adult.”
   Ursu­la said she was delight­ed that two moth­ers par­tic­u­lar­ly loved the book. In her opin­ion, most chil­dren under ten will react cre­ative­ly to mas­ter­pieces cre­at­ed by cre­ative indi­vid­u­als. It’s adults, even pro­fes­sion­al chil­dren’s book edi­tors, who tend to crit­i­cize such mas­ter­pieces based on their adult expe­ri­ence. “As a chil­dren’s book edi­tor, stand­ing between cre­ative artists and cre­ative chil­dren, I’m always afraid that my reac­tion will come across as that of a dull, tedious adult. Of course, I’m a dull adult from head to toe, but at least I try to keep that in mind! For­give my nagging—but it’s all real­ly fun!”
   Ursu­la said he thought Sendak’s book was extreme­ly good and would be immor­tal.
 
   Brief Com­ment:Ursu­laShe is a cre­ative per­son and has a great sense of humor. After she pub­lished Charlotte’s Web with EB White, an 83-year-old crit­ic wrote a long arti­cle crit­i­ciz­ing White’s new work. The most severe crit­i­cism was that Charlotte’s Web might cause young read­ers to con­fuse real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy. Because this crit­ic was high­ly respect­ed, it had a cer­tain impact on White’s mood and con­fi­dence. So Ursu­la imme­di­ate­ly wrote to White and told him: When Stu­art Lit­tle was pub­lished a few years ago, it was also thanks to this critic’s harsh crit­i­cism that the book sold very well. Now that I hear her words again, I can imag­ine that Charlotte’s Web will def­i­nite­ly sell even bet­ter! In addi­tion, there is anoth­er well-known crit­ic who high­ly praised Charlotte’s Web, say­ing that it is suit­able for peo­ple aged 8 to 80. How­ev­er, this old crit­ic is 3 years old­er, so he is just out of the game! Haha. — No won­der those tal­ent­ed writ­ers and painters like to work with artists so much.Ursu­laCoop­er­a­tion! How­ev­er, judg­ing from this let­ter to Mary, she is also a per­son full of wis­dom, because she is very good at self-dep­re­ca­tion and self-mock­ery.
To Gertrude B. Her­man, March 18, 1969
   
Ms. Her­man, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the library depart­ment of a uni­ver­si­ty, read an arti­cle by a psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor crit­i­ciz­ing Where the Wild Things Are. She wrote a counter-arti­cle and sent it toUrsu­laThe psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor’s crit­i­cism focused on the moth­er’s behav­ior in the book, argu­ing that her threat to with­hold din­ner from her chil­dren would have a neg­a­tive psy­cho­log­i­cal impact on young read­ers. Ms. Her­man coun­tered that the psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor had­n’t read the book care­ful­ly, nor had he exam­ined the chil­dren’s reac­tions to the book, and was sim­ply impos­ing his own opin­ions on the book.
 
  Ursu­laOf course, we are deeply grate­ful to Ms. Her­man, and we also men­tioned that we were a lit­tle shocked and upset to read the psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor’s arti­cle. Because such an arti­cle can also be read by the par­ents and teach­ers of “nor­mal” chil­dren who love this book, such an arti­cle may real­ly upset these adults.
 
   
Com­men­tary: This also offers a glimpse into the inevitable process of skep­ti­cism and rejec­tion that a mas­ter­piece of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture inevitably under­goes, for it is des­tined to over­turn peo­ple’s self-right­eous “com­mon sense.” Accord­ing to Mr. Chen Jiang­hong, when “Where the Wild Things Are” was intro­duced to Europe, France was still pop­u­lar with sweet, adorable chil­dren’s books like “Mar­ti­na,” and most adults ini­tial­ly scoffed at it. How­ev­er, thanks to the enthu­si­as­tic embrace of those still cre­ative chil­dren, such works were final­ly accept­ed, becom­ing a mile­stone of a new era. As British writer Cham­bers put it: “With this book, pic­ture books have become adults!”
[To Sendak, Octo­ber 31, 1972]
   
This let­ter, writ­ten on Hal­loween Eve nine years after its pub­li­ca­tion, actu­al­ly dis­cussed the pric­ing of chil­dren’s books!
   
It turns out that many peo­ple in the Unit­ed States at the time also com­plained that “chil­dren’s books are too expen­sive.” Media out­lets, such as the New York Times, inter­viewed some peo­ple involved. When the New York Times reporter inter­viewed Ursu­la, she seemed to be the kind of inter­vie­wee who was not very “coop­er­a­tive.” There­fore, the news­pa­per quot­ed some of her seem­ing­ly “inap­pro­pri­ate” remarks, say­ing that she yelled at the reporter, say­ing that she defend­ed the high prices of chil­dren’s books and that this was the only way to help “pub­lish a Sendak and let him grow up” (“pub­lish­ing a Sendak and let him grow up”).
a Sendak and let­ting him grow”).
   
Judg­ing from this let­ter and the accom­pa­ny­ing notes, the aver­age price of a chil­dren’s book in the Unit­ed States at the time was $1.95 per copy. How­ev­er, Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are was priced at $3.50 when it was pub­lished in 1963, and this price rose to $4.95 in 1972. Clear­ly, many Amer­i­cans also thought this price was too high.
 
  Ursu­laShe wrote to Sendak pri­mar­i­ly to explain to him that the New York Times quote had delib­er­ate­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ed her mean­ing. First, she nev­er said any­where that “a
Sendak” (a Sendak or a cre­ator like Sendak), she would always say “THE
Sec­ond­ly, she explained to Sendak her real point of view. What she want­ed to say was that if a pub­lish­ing house dis­cov­ered a cre­ative cre­ator and pub­lished his work, but could only sell the work at the mar­ket price of $1.95, then it would be impos­si­ble to cre­ate a good envi­ron­ment to cul­ti­vate the cre­ator’s growth. What she hat­ed most was that par­ents would rather spend mon­ey on expen­sive toys and audio-visu­al tapes that would not last long, but were reluc­tant to buy mas­ter­pieces that would remain in their chil­dren’s hearts and accom­pa­ny them through­out their lives. She was indeed a lit­tle angry, but she def­i­nite­ly did not “yell” as the reporter said.
   
She told Sendak that she wrote this let­ter to him just to know if he was okay. She hoped that Sendak would con­tin­ue to cre­ate and that she would see new works from him. She remem­bered hear­ing Sendak talk about his ideas for cre­at­ing new works many years ago. She also remem­bered his voice and smile at that time. She sin­cere­ly hoped that his cre­ations would flow like a spring.
   
“Lots of love, she growled.”
 
   
Brief review: This year,Ursu­laShe was already 62 years old! Two years ear­li­er, Sendak had com­plet­ed the sec­ond part of his tril­o­gy, “Kitchen Night Rhap­sody,” and had won the Inter­na­tion­al Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award for his work and con­tri­bu­tions. True to her wish­es, Sendak con­tin­ued to cre­ate new works and con­stant­ly chal­lenge him­self. In 1981, he pub­lished the third part of the tril­o­gy, “In That Far­away Place,” which could be con­sid­ered anoth­er pin­na­cle of his cre­ative career. In 2003, Sendak also won the Lind­gren Award.

   
The pric­ing of chil­dren’s books is always a frus­trat­ing top­ic. The only thing that made me feel a bit bal­anced after read­ing this let­ter is that even in the Unit­ed States, a coun­try as wealthy as it is and with such a devel­oped chil­dren’s book indus­try, it remains a frus­trat­ing top­ic.
[To Sendak, May 20, 1974]
   
At the time of writ­ing this let­ter,Ursu­laShe has prob­a­bly tak­en a back­seat at the pub­lish­ing house, but it seems she is still in charge of edit­ing Sendak’s works.
   
This let­ter was main­ly to dis­cuss with Sendak whether to change a word. A new edi­tion of Where the Wild Things Are was about to be pro­duced, and they want­ed to see if a slight revi­sion was nec­es­sary. Judg­ing from the feed­back from all sides, many peo­ple were dis­sat­is­fied with the last sen­tence of the book, “it
The word “hot” in “was still hot” is ques­tion­able because some chil­dren (or their “rot­ten par­ents”) think that using “it
“was still warm” would be bet­ter, because chil­dren would not like “hot food.” Ursu­la want­ed to ask Sendak if he was will­ing to make such a change.
   
but,Ursu­laShe obvi­ous­ly thought that there was no need to revise it. She said to Sendak: You just need to tell us, if you don’t want to change it, I think it’s fine, and we edi­tors think it’s fine too. And I don’t remem­ber you ever say­ing at any time that you would con­sid­er chang­ing it to “still
warm”. But I hope you can leave a note or call me if you can to let me know whether this word should be changed.
   
at last,Ursu­laTalk­ing about Sendak’s health (for they had met not long ago): “Mau­rice, it makes me feel so good to see you look­ing so healthy and strong. When I hug you, it feels like hug­ging a sol­id rock. Yes, you were strong in the ear­ly years, but not as strong as you are now. What am I say­ing? My dear sir, I mean it as a com­pli­ment and as a sin­cere one.”
 
   
Brief com­ment: When I read the last para­graph, my heart was also warm. There was once a friend who was much old­er than me. When we were chat­ting, she said, “It was so good when we were young, but it’s a pity that we are “old and fad­ed” now — haha, I know that this is of course a kind of self-dep­re­ca­tion. I told her very seri­ous­ly that in fact, we often ignore the sea­son of growth. When we were chil­dren, we always want­ed to grow up quick­ly; but when we got old­er, we longed to go back to the past. Lit­tle did we know that peo­ple can be very beau­ti­ful in every sea­son of growth, because each sea­son has its own beau­ty. It all depends on whether we can expe­ri­ence and grasp it with our heart. Isn’t it? For exam­ple, when writ­ing this let­ter,Ursu­laShe is 64 years old and Sendak is 46 years old. Don’t you think they are so beau­ti­ful?
   I think Sendak must have pon­dered the ques­tion of whether to use “hot” or “warm” in his book. While com­mon sense sug­gests that “warm” is more in line with every­day lan­guage, Sendak’s choice of “hot” was like­ly moti­vat­ed by pro­nun­ci­a­tion con­sid­er­a­tions and a stronger emo­tion­al tone. How­ev­er, many peo­ple cer­tain­ly pre­fer “warm.” Inter­est­ing­ly, in Bar­bara’s
Bader’s Amer­i­can Pic­tre­books from Noah’s Ark to The Beast
With­in, a mono­graph on the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can pic­ture books, devotes a full chap­ter (30 pages) to Sendak’s work, and when cit­ing this book, it is actu­al­ly “it was
still
“Warm” may just be a proof­read­ing error, but it is very like­ly that the author also pre­ferred the word “warm” in his mind. How­ev­er, Sendak would nev­er agree. If he agreed, he would not be Sendak.
　
Com­piled and edit­ed by Argen­tine Primera División on Decem­ber 14, 2008