The Phantom Tollbooth, the beloved children’s book by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, turns 50 this year. There are two new 50th anniversary editions of the book. As Adam Gopnik notes in a New Yorker magazine article, the book is the closest thing American literature has to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Phantom Tollbooth”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Somehow until recently, I’d never read the children’s classic, The Phantom Tollbooth.
Grant, have you read it?
I have read it, yeah, a long time ago.
Well, because I love words, people, of course, have been telling me for years that I would adore this book.
It’s about a boy named Milo who drives a car through a magic tollbooth,
And then he wanders into all these strange lands,
And he meets strange characters like King Azaz, the unabridged, who lives in Dictionopolis.
I want to move there.
Hey, come to my house.
Yeah, exactly. You’re the king of Dictionopolis.
That’s a place where people literally eat their words.
They feast on goodies like synonym buns.
I did like that, synonym buns and ragamuffins.
It’s probably the closest thing that American literature has to Alice in Wonderland.
And I finally got around to reading this book just last weekend
Because I’d heard that there are two brand new 50th anniversary editions out.
One of them is an annotated edition,
And another one includes essays by notable people about the effect that the book has had on them.
And Adam Gopnik noted in The New Yorker that this 50th birthday of a good children’s book is really significant
Because it means that the book hasn’t just been passed down from parent to child, but from parent to child and on to child again.
He also in that essay notes something interesting that shouldn’t surprise fans,
Which is that the author, Norman Juster, grew up with the condition we were discussing recently, synesthesia.
Oh, really?
Where your senses kind of overlap to the point where hearing a sound makes you think of a color
Or seeing shapes make you think of a particular taste.
Right, right.
That explains a lot about this book because it’s pretty crazy, right?
So it’s either synesthesia or drugs.
Maybe both.
Maybe both.
But in any case, I really like the section where the characters literally devour words.
But you know what, Grant, my favorite passage wasn’t about words at all.
It involves this character called the Sound Keeper, and she’s a connoisseur of silence.
Here’s what she says about silence and why she loves it.
She says, do you know that there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds?
But sadly enough, no one pays any attention to them these days.
Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?
Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends?
Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked?
Or the hush of a country road at night?
Or the expectant pause in a room full of people when someone is just about to speak?
Or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re all alone in the whole house?
Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully.
It’s nice.
Isn’t that nice?
It’s beautiful.
I love that.
And The Phantom Tollbooth is this book about listening carefully and looking carefully.
And I just wonder how many of our listeners have read that book and have a favorite passage like that.
What part of it sticks with you?
Tell us about your favorite literature.
We really want to hear about the books that set you on the path for reading for life.
Or tell us in email who shared your favorite book with you.
