Faber, Stein and Writing for Children

[steepholm]

I'll be interested to read Sylvia Plath's children's books, but I'm puzzled as to how they can be appearing in a series called "Faber's Children's Classics". I see no sense in which these obscure works can be called "classic" children's books, except that they're written by a "classic" author for adults. They may become classics in time, perhaps deservedly so, and the new publication may help them along that path - but let's not jump the gun.

Perhaps I'm being snobbish - but I suspect the snob is Faber. Anything a famous writer for adults deigns to write for children must be a classic, ipso facto. We should crown them by acclamation.

Faber have form in this area. It's always bothered me that the Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot disdains to include what are probably now his best-known poems - those from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Being written for children, they are beneath notice. I remember I wrote to Faber to complain about this some thirty years ago: I'm still awaiting their reply. (I will add, though, that the more recent Complete Poems and Plays does include them.)

Sometimes, a poet known as a writer for adults may be shown to best advantage in their work for children. For example, perhaps the best thing Gertrude Stein ever wrote was The World is Round (1939). (It is also a far more enjoyable book to my mind than the outwardly-similar The Little Prince, which it predates by four years.) Here are the opening lines, to give you a feel:

Once upon a time the world was round and you could go on it around and around.
Everywhere there was somewhere and everywhere there were men women children dogs cows wild pigs little rabbits cats lizards and animals. That is the way it was. And everybody dogs cats sheep rabbits and lizards and children all wanted to tell everybody all about it and they wanted to tell all about themselves.
And then there was Rose.
Rose was her name and would she have been rose if her name had not been Rose. She used to think and then she used to think again.

Suddenly, instead of being irritating, Stein is revealed as a really good children's writer. Every picture is enhanced by the right frame - and for writers, the frame is genre.

Is The World is Round included in The Collected Works of Gertrude Stein, you ask? No, it is not - but perhaps only because, as far as I know, no such book exists.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Faber also had form for being monumentally pricey when I was an undergrad and it was amazing how many Faber books one was expected to acquire.

Just been reviewing a Brill publication for SCJ. 175 Euros? WTF?

Academic vanity publishing is alive and well! :oS

[steepholm]

I hope it's a good book, at least!

[cmcmck]

I wasn't all that polite- some diabolical translations from the Spanish and even worse ones from Hungarian. Trouble is that Brill is a Dutch publishing house and their translators and copy editors leave a lot be be desired- like someone to do it for them!

[kalypso]

Interesting, I never really thought of Old Possum as being for children. Just for everyone.

It's clearly nothing like, but your Gertrude Stein extract made me think of Archibald Marshall's The Princess, absolutely my favourite story in the Puffin A Book of Princesses which I was given when I was six. Do you know it? It starts:

"Once there was a Prince who went to his father and said I want to marry Rose.

His father said who is Rose? and he said she is the girl I want to marry.

And his father said why do you want to marry her? and he said because I like the shape of her face.

So his father said well you can't, and he said why not?

And his father said because I have just arranged for you to marry a very nice Princess.

And he said what Princess?

His father said I forget her name but she is the daughter of a King who is very rich and I owe him some money."

I did get hold of a collection of Archibald Marshall stories a few years ago, but nothing seemed to approach the genius of The Princess.

[steepholm]

I agree about Old Possum, but it's usually classed as children's poetry. For example, Faber have put it in the same Children's Classics imprint as the Plath books. I think its being comic verse is another black mark in the view of those who keep their brows propped high on principle.

I must have read the Marshall as I have the Book of Princesses somewhere, but I had forgotten it. I shall seek and reread.

[kalypso]

I think its being comic verse is another black mark in the view of those who keep their brows propped high on principle.

How do they cope with Byron?

[steepholm]

Well, quite. (Actually, I think there's another post in this...)

[kalypso]

PS The World is Round appears to be available within a collection called Gertrude Stein: Writings 1932-1946. It's not one of the titles mentioned on the front cover, but one of the descriptions on Abebooks lists the full contents.

[steepholm]

Thanks - that's good to know!

[sovay]

She used to think and then she used to think again.

That's fantastic.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's a lovely book. I only have the 1993 reprint, which has illustrations by Roberta Arenson, not Clement Hurd's originals, but is still rather pretty and, at 2"x3", very portable.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I think writing for children uses different muscles. Some people can do it easily, some do it well, with effort. Many writers cannot do it at all.

It is not a lesser art. Children's books, the good ones, stay with you always. You can come back and love them later.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Stein also turned out to be a strikingly adept librettist for proto-minimalist operas.

Re Eliot's supposedly Collected Poems, I had the same complaint when I reviewed (http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/peake-collected-poems/) the book of the same title, with the equivalent flaw, of Mervyn Peake's, and the comparison with Eliot was inevitable.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I suppose they could argue a distinction between "Collected" and "Complete", in that not all collections are comprehensive. But in practice "Collected" is usually set in contrast to "Selected". Thanks for the link to the Peake review!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I am allergic to Stein, I am afraid, and your excerpt hasn't changed my mind. She makes me say peevish things like "No, she isn't rose, because she aten't bread dough."

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"No, she isn't rose, because she aten't bread dough."

The Unleavened World would be a very good name for a book.