Interview with
Norton Juster
Interview by RoseEtta Stone
There is only one universally acknowledged fact which is undeniably, indisputably, unequivocally, and incontestably true. This fact, of which there is not the slightest doubt, is that the entire world is divided into two distinct halves. To qualify for membership on either side of this great divide one must either be a HAVE or a haven't -- have or haven't read "The Phantom Tollbooth," by Norton Juster, that is.
If you've never even heard of the book, then "Shh, cause it goes without saying," that we know which group you belong to. "The Phantom Tollbooth," as we HAVES have always known, is the quintessential book for children of all ages, and the language lover's delight for the child in every adult.
Being a literary journalist obviously has its perks. One of them was the privilege and honor I had recently of interviewing Mr. Juster. He offers advice, suggestions and tips for writers about writing, based on his own experience, in this section of our discussion. The reminder of the interview can be read in the X - Rated Childrens' Books Newsletter (See information below).
RoseEtta Stone: If your publishers had had their way and edited the book as they thought it should be written, do you think it would have become the beloved classic that it's been for the past 40 years, and still is?
NORTON JUSTER: I'll tell you something. The publisher did not ask to change or reedit it, or anything. I worked with a single marvelous editor at Random House. He had a million suggestions and we talked them all over. None of them really addressed the issue of simplifying or "dumbing down" the book. When I wrote the book I really didn't write it with any sense of mission. I wrote it for my own enjoyment. The book in no way was written to any sense of what it was that children needed or liked. It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers -- for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.
I didn't even know who it was for. I mean, I vaguely knew it was a childrens' book. But when I brought it to the publisher and they mentioned, "Well, what age group do you think this is appropriate for?" I really had no idea. I was a babe in the woods. I didn't know anything about childrens' books. Or rules for writing them. Or how they sold. Or what the situation was in the childrens' book world. So I had really no expectations other than the vague one of, "Gee, I hope someone likes it."
RES: Your interview with Laura Miller of Salon (http://www.salon.com), contained advice based on your own experience, and a number of useful suggestions for writers, such as, and I'm paraphrasing now, the book that turns out to be successful should be the book that you weren't supposed to write. Would you explain that please?
JUSTER: (With a big laugh), I find - this is a very personal thing. But I find the best things I do, I do when I'm trying to avoid doing something else I'm supposed to be doing. You know, you're working on something. You get bugged, or you lose your enthusiasm or something. So you turn to something else with an absolute vengeance. You throw every bit of your attention into it because you're trying to avoid in any way getting back to that other thing. So that was a kind of facetious remark I made to her.
RES: You also spoke, in that interview, about initially submitting a grant to write a childrens' book about urban aesthetics.
JUSTER: Oh yes. That's the book that I wanted not to do. That's why I wrote "The Phantom Tollbooth."
RES: I think I speak on behalf of the entire planet in saying that we're so glad you changed your mind! I wondered though, and maybe other writers would too, whether or not the grant you applied for came through? And what happens in the event that one gets a grant for a specific purpose, then winds up using it for another purpose entirely? In this case for writing a different book?
JUSTER: Well that was on my mind, of course. So I sent a copy of "The Phantom Tollbooth" to the Ford Foundation, so they'd understand. And explained to them that I had not done the book that they had given me the grant for. I did this, and in all truthfulness, a number of things that were in "The Phantom Tollbooth" were generating some things that I'd been thinking about because of my work on the grant book.
One were the Cities Of Illusion and Reality - the cities disappear but people don't notice it. There were several things that came directly from things that I was either thinking about, or had done research about for the book on cities. Anyway, I explained all this and I never heard from them. But at that point I had my entire grant. So I had some money and the money did provide the time for me to do the book I wanted to write. So I hope they're not upset.
RES: Never having applied for a grant, I had no idea how it all worked.
JUSTER: Oh, neither did I. I was terrified! My sense is that when you give a grant - I mean, I have no experience so I'm now talking off the top of my head. But it seems to me, I think you have to be prepared for the idea that something will be generated that may not be exactly what you anticipated. But that's fine because the whole idea of giving someone a piece of time to pursue something, is that that pursuit might lead to something unanticipated. And that's great. So I don't think you can be that product oriented. I mean, there's a difference between taking a grant and squandering it or taking it fraudulently and not doing it. That would legitimately upset someone. But this is a different situation. It's one of the things that's very nice about the McArthur genius grant, which I have never gotten (Juster chuckles), I'm afraid. And I don't anticipate getting it. But one of the things I've always admired about that setup is they give the money and say, "Okay, this is to give you the time to pursue what you want."
RES: Tell us, if you will, how you managed to incorporate this language lover's delight into not only a fun-filled adventurous novel, but also one in which Milo, the hero, even has a quest or mission to fulfill?
JUSTER: God, I don't know whether I can really answer that. Some of the questions you're asking sort of imply that that's what I was trying to do. And I was really messing around with what I thought was a little story. And when I started writing it, it was as a recreation from something else I had been doing. And it just grew. And I also wrote different sections - I didn't write it totally sequentially. I'd write a piece. And another piece. And I just sort of set them aside. And after a while I began setting things together. So there's not a lot of sort of predetermined idea of what's gonna happen.
And when I'm writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don't necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I'm working on, because they're simply my way of getting to know the characters. And one of the nice things that happens -- it doesn't happen that often when you're writing, is that when you're writing a scene, say between characters, where you can get the feeling that all you're doing is eavesdropping, and the characters are doing the talking. And you're just jutting it down as fast as you can -- you're not making up dialog. The characters have a life and they're talking, and you're just recording. Now, again, that doesn't happen that often. But when it does it's a marvelous moment -- when you'll be able to do that.
And so when I started this book I had no outline. I had no idea what was happening. As I said, I didn't know it was gonna be a book. I thought it was just a little episode or a story. When it got going it began to sort of piece itself together. The whole thing happened in a very strange way. I would not recommend it as a way to write a book for anybody.
RES: It's said that writing is rewriting. Did you have to rewrite "The Phantom Tollbooth" many times?
JUSTER: I write in a very laborious kind of a way. I write and rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. Well, the thing of course is if you're doing it well, when you finish your 30th rewrite, or something, it should sound like you've just written it completely, freshly once. Because sometimes what happens when you write and rewrite and rewrite, is you suck the life out of something. It's difficult. But I find that I do that because it's amazing -- the rhythm of the book, or what I call the music of the book -- how you read it. How you're carried along by the words and the subject -- is as important as the meaning. In fact, you can't have one without the other.
It's one of the reasons that kids go with any book, because they can move through it in a way that's both acceptable and pleasurable for them. Not a conscious thing, I don't think. Certainly not with the kids. But I think it's very important. I mean, I'll work over a sentence or a paragraph where it's sometimes a matter of a word, a comma, in a certain place that will be very subtle in its difference. But when I get it to the point where I can say, "Yes that's it. That's the way it has to be," then I know I'm okay.
RES: A book as clever as yours can be categorized in the same class as Dr. Seuss' and Shel Silverstein's verses, in that they're all incomparably impossible to emulate. Could such works conceivably defeat aspiring childrens' book authors who don't think they can ever write anything even remotely similar? Or should they even try to?
JUSTER: That's a big question. I don't think you try to write a style or model it on something. There's no way you should do that. You have to start doing it just as you feel it, and see it, and hear it. The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way. I mean [with a message] underlying it, of course. That's one criticism I would make at a couple of points where I say to myself it's just too didactic. When you start to see it, or feel it, then you know you've overplayed your hand a little bit.
But I know that there are many books for children now -- the reason for their being is to deal with a problem, you know, whether it's adolescence drug abuse, or something. And in many cases they fail because they're so preoccupied with the idea of communicating a message that the situation and the characters become fairly wooden within them. Which is not to say that you shouldn't write a book in which these things exist, and are part of the story. But I don't think you start with the idea that that's the most important thing. The most important things are the characters and situations -- what happens. I don't know whether that makes sense or not.
RES: Yes it does. Of course it does. It also answers the question I was going to ask about message books.
JUSTER: I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not saying that writing books about these difficult subjects is wrong. Or it's not the way to do things. But I think if you write a book, the message, or whatever it is that derives from the truth of the characters and the situations you set up -- you don't start with the idea of this is the way it's going to come out -- this is the way I want someone to think about it. And then make all the characters and situations conform to that. There are many surprises in books. And I think almost any author you speak to will tell you that there are times when you start writing a story or book which you think is going one way, and the characters take off and go somewhere else.
RES: You also said, in the interview, that writing "The Phantom Tollbooth" was a lot of fun for you. That writing certain portions of it were even like playing a game. Is there any correlation between an author enjoying the writing of a childrens' book, and kids' loving the book he/she's written? Or, phrased differently, can it possibly be said that kids will enjoy, or be engaged with a book to the same degree that a writer enjoyed writing it? And that the reverse is also true -- if writing the book was sheer torture kids will hate reading it too?
JUSTER: I don't think you can make that connection as literally as you're posing the question. It's interesting because you may have misinterpreted, but I find that writing is a very bleak, and lonely, and stressful, and often unhappy occupation. And I find this is not only with me when I talk to other writers. First of all you eat it. You sleep it. You can't get it out of your head. You wake up in the morning constantly with this idea of staring at this blank page -- you've lost it -- you're never going to get what you know you feel.
What's most interesting is that, say that goes on for several months while you're working. That several months' period of time can be an absolute misery. At the same time, when you finish and you look back on that time it's somehow a very satisfactory -- if you can use the word happy, time. Because what has happened, of course, is that you have gotten into a situation where you are so much at risk, and so much testing yourself, and this thing means so much to you, like anything else you do, you're constantly on tenterhooks with this thing. So, I don't write easily. I know writers. I have friends who write fairly easily. I don't. And I don't view writing as the simplest thing -- a pleasurable experience. At the same time the whole process is one that provides a great deal of fulfillment and satisfaction. Now again, this might not make any sense.
RES: What I was referring to in the above question was your chapter about Milo's dinner with the city's dignitaries, at which I think he had to "eat his words." Writing it, I believe you said, was as much fun as playing a game. (That's not a verbatim quote).
JUSTER: Well, one of the things about my life is that I play games constantly. Not formal games. But little things throughout the day that help me deal with some of the more humdrum or trivial tasks of life. It's just a very personal way of dealing with things. So sometimes, yes, when you're working on something you have that aspect. I can remember there were times when I worked on the book where I could stop for a moment at certain scenes and say, "My God, I'm writing a monster," at this point. Because there was that kind of insanity that ran through the scene, and the characters and the dialog that ultimately produced its own kind of wisdom, if you know what I mean. And that's what I love.
I love Marx brothers movies. I still do. I still watch them when they're on or I'll rent one, or something. Because what they do, which is what this book tries to do -- they turn the world absolutely upside down, and look at things from a totally different way. And I guess that if there's any message in the book at all, and this is after the fact, I didn't start with this idea, it is that that's what you really have to do. You have to constantly look at things as if you've never seen them before. Or look at them in a way that nobody has ever seen them before. Or turn them over and look at the other side of everything.
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