Hail and Farewell: Maurice Sendak

I first encountered the Latin phrase Ave Atque Vale in a historical novel whose appeal (the novel’s, that is) was almost entirely nostalgic.  It means “hail and farewell,” a way of saluting the past while at the same time leaving it behind.  A valedictory is a farewell address, and right about now high schools and colleges are determining which high-achieving student will honored as valedictorian at graduation.  For a children’s writer, nothing could be more appropriate as a valedictory than his or her final book—which, whether they intended it or not, will hold between its covers a touch of sadness and regret.  Last year three pioneers in children’s literature passed on: Maurice Sendak, Russell Hoban, and Jean Craighead George—and all authored books that were published posthumously.  Many adult readers of today grew up with Max with in his Wolf Suit, Mickey in the Night Kitchen, Frances the Badger, Julie (of the Wolves), and Sam (on his Side of the Mountain).  Whether or not you were a fan of the author, when picking up one of these posthumous titles you can’t help thinking, This is the last book by_____.  There will never be another.  In later weeks I’ll look at the valedictory offerings of Hoban and George, but today:

My Brother’s Book, by Maurice Sendak.  HarperCollins, 2013, 31 pages.  Age/interest level: 15-up.

Even for a reader who knew nothing of Sendak or his death last year, a haze of sadness hangs over this book.  “I cry a lot because I miss people,” he said in one of his last interviews.  “They die, and I can’t stop them.  They leave me, and I love them more.”  Sendak characterized his childhood as “a terrible situation, haunted by the ghosts of extended family members who were slaughtered in the holocaust.”  That, and chronic sickliness all through his growing-up years, tinged much of his work with morbidity and foreboding, from Pierre Who Didn’t Care to resentful Ida of Outside Over There.  In his economy, love comes with a price tag and an expiration date. 

I first encountered Sendak as a child, in the Nutshell Library (where resides Pierre) and a series of humorous etiquette books called What Do You Do, Dear?  His heavy lines and dark-haired, serious children were unmistakable years later when I read Where the Wild Things Are to my children.  (They loved it, which is why I can still recite pages by heart.  With sound effects.)  Wild Things made his reputation; from then on he was an institution and could write and draw whatever he wanted, even if it was sometimes, as they say, “controversial.”  He drew heat with In the Night Kitchen, in which a madcap Max-like character wears no suit at all.  When challenged about what was appropriate for children, he replied that he didn’t write for children.  Or grownups either: “I just write.”  His morbid streak broke into print with Outside Over There, in which a jealous older sibling must search for her baby sister who’s been captured by goblins.  By then I was no longer reading picture books to my children, so we missed that one, but it’s considered a benchmark in his career. 

When his brother Jack (a children’s author in his own right), died in 1995, Sendak wanted to write a memorial for him, but the specific idea for such a book didn’t come until ten years later.  But in 2007, an interruption: his long-term companion, Dr. Eugene Glynn, passed away.  Sendak himself died almost exactly five years after that—May 8, 2012.  Since My Brother’s Book mentions a five-year separation, not once but twice, that seems a freaky coincidence. 

It’s not a children’s book.  My local library placed it in the literature section (DD 811), which seems appropriate.  It’s a poem–not a catchy rhyme, but demanding and often poignant,  with William Blake-inspired watercolors from which an occasional Max or Mickey face peers out.  The conjunction of the human and the celestial, also characteristic of Blake, shines out from the first page:

On a bleak midwinter’s night/ The newest star! –blazing light!/ So crystal bright! –eclipsing the moon,/ Scorching the sky,/ Smashed! –and heaved the iron earth in two.” 

As I said, not for the kiddoes.  The crash of a star into the earth separates brothers Jack and Guy, banishing the former to the icy underworld and grieving Guy to a battle of wits with a bear.  One echo jumped out at me, from Chicken Soup with Rice (which I read to my kids over and over): In February it will be my snowghost’s anniversary.  Besides Blake, there are very strong echoes of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, with its death-to-rebirth, sorrow-to-singing theme and, of course, its enigmatic bear.  The poem ends happily, in a sense:

And Jack slept safe./ Enfolded in his brother’s arms./ And Guy whispered, “Good night./ And you will dream of me.”

Maurice Sendak was a self-professed atheist whose life was haunted by the human capacity for evil and whose last years were increasingly bitter.  Not a likely description for the age’s most celebrated children’s author, but according to most critics, his bone-deep understanding of tragedy gave his books a mysterious resonance that kids responded to instinctively.  (Although that sounds a bit like critic-talk for We don’t have a clue.)  Though blessed with talent, highest honors, long life, and (apparently) loving relationships, there was a hole in his soul that his art could not fill.  Max, Mickey, and Ida were all allowed to go home after their dangerous  adventures.  The wistfulness of My Brother’s Book may reveal more than the author intended:  a longing for home, even though it could be no more than a dream.     

Next week, some words about Russell Hoban.  I compare Where the Wild Things Are to another picture book, here.