Chillin' With Your Favorite Author

Dear Maria,
I'm not even in your poetry class, and I'm just as angry that your prof doesn't consider him a poet. Dr. Suess is a prime example of someone who plays with language and defamiliarizes the familiar in order to give it a new angle. That's part of the brilliance of his work--instead of preaching to children to "try new things," he gives us "Green Eggs and Ham." How the Grinch Stole Christmas teaches about love and the impermanence of material goods. All grand themes, presented in a delightful way.

So why it's not considered worth studying, I don't know. Perhaps people look at children's literature and Pshaw it as something they could easily write in five minutes. Or, if at first glance, it doesn't make them question the universe, it's deemed completely useless. Things that are written in a joyous manner often seem less sophisticated because joy is more closely related to naivté. That in itself is a naive assumption, but one that many people take.

But the joke's on everyone else, because Dr. Suess knows his audience, and is able to call up his childhood self and find ways to convey large themes to children. That is absolutely brilliant. This idea came to me while I was struggling through some Derrida deconstruction theory, and as I lamented "bad writing" to my father, my dad negated my claim by saying "Derrida's is writing to people with a philosophical background, to people whose thinking is already elevated enough to understand his points. It would be like if you or I had to talk about love...we could express it in terms a five year old would understand, or we could write to our peers." Oftentimes, it is easier to write to your peers because you're already in their mindset. It takes great psychological understanding and patience to explain big concepts to small people.

And remember, "a person's a person, no matter how small."

So now that we've debunked the claim that Dr. Suess is not a poet, I'd like to discuss something that the formalists would cringe at, but that I've been struggling with nonetheless: the author himself (or herself!). While I see the genius in Dr. Suess' (or Theodore Geisel) work, I wouldn't necessarily want to grab a burger with him. He was un-motivated in school, and blunt to the point of brutality. He was a bit of a recluse, and brushed off having children, claiming "you have 'em, I'll amuse em" (Harper). He threw out most of his writing, and in his everyday life, he acted a bit unstable. Obviously this has no effect on the light hearted books we know and love, but it still sucks out some of the magic of innocence his stories brought me. To know that a curmudgeonly old man was scribbling out my childhood is bit of a disappointment.

Holden Caulfield, another literary favorite, claims "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it." There's something about knowing an author that makes that story that much more special, like they're speaking directly to you. There are some authors that remain faceless after I finish book, and that's alright because I can just let my imagination tell me that so and so "likes long walks on the beach and all things chocolate." But once you get some concrete background that suggests the author is a bit of a dick, that's when you start to feel betrayed.

Take Daniel Handler, for instance. He wrote A Series of Unfortunate Events under the alias Lemony Snicket. Like Dr. Suess' works, Handler's series made up my childhood. I lived through the Baudelaire siblings, and felt their despair as if it were my own. Handler always presented Lemony Snicket as being very mysterious, so my second grade self could revel in filling in the personality traits I wanted him to have. But as I grew up and realized that Lemony Snicket was also a character, I investigated further on Daniel Handler. After I read Why We Broke Up, I concluded that the author was, in fact, me; there just wasn't any other way this book could be published if he wasn't actively spying on my life. I was so excited, I wanted to hug him, and talk about everything ranging from childhood woes to adolescent heartbreak. Then I saw this:

I mean, he goes from brash to simply rude to self-righteous and back again. And I don't know why, but it felt like a personal attack. I understand the rule of separating the author from the text, but sometimes it's like "why did you trick me like this, why???"

Then you go eat a pint of ice cream and pretend the interview never happened. 

Don't get me wrong, I still love Handler's books. And I still read them with the utmost enthusiasm. But there's still that nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe the author really doesn't believe what he's writing; maybe he's messing with all of our heads.

Writers are the best tricksters of all. 

It's especially hard in the world of social media. As a nerdfighter, I see how closely this huge community watches John Green's life. We feel like we can identify with him, and like with any youtube video, we feel as though the vlogbrothers are speaking directly to us. When I read John Green's books, I could hear his voice saying "I go to seek a great perhaps," and it personalized what was already an emotional book. Green seems so outgoing and friendly on the internet, but he has said countless times that he is an introvert and that the touring events intimidate him. My summer roommate once told me that she met John Green in real life (completely jealous here), but that he was actually kind of rude. Now, I wasn't there to defend or deny this statement, but often introversion is mistaken as rudeness or lack of caring. Still, when you think an author has poured their entire heart out to you and you alone, the poignancy of a less-than-emotional encounter can hurt a bit.

So my question to you is, how might you suggest better separating the text from the author? Should we just go in with the assumption that they're complete assholes? Or should we do some background research on the author before reading? 

I've never met John Green. So I can still pretend that upon our encounter he'll tell me "DFTBA" and let me rant a little about Hazel and Augustus.

Peace and Ponies,

Kira