Let The Wild Rumpus Start!
One Man’s Journey Through Lit 436
By: Max Arcand
Literature 436
Michael Sexson
January 11, 2010, 11:00 am
Walking into my first class of my final semester in college, I was dreading it. Not only because it was the very first class of the semester, on the very first Monday of the semester, but because of the reading list I had been emailed for “Emergent Literature” just hours before, when I sleepily opened my laptop. The list read like a who’s who of literature, “Finnegans Wake (Joyce); 3 Novels by Samuel Beckett; Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Rushdie); The Following Story (Nooteboom); The Skin of Our Teeth (Wilder); The Tempest (Shakespeare); The Alchemist (Coelho); The Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot).” Another reason for my dazed and halfhearted energy for the class was simply that when I had registered for class, I thought I had registered for Emerging Literature instead of Emergent Literature. Words cannot describe the anticipation I felt about Emerging Literature; finally, after three and a half grueling years of English classes, we get to read contemporary novels by living men and women. Alas, it was not to be, as I settled into my front row seat, my palms began to sweat with nervous energy as I awaited the arrival of this Michael Sexson I had heard so much about.
Walking out of that first day of class, I think I was in worse condition then when I entered. “This class is about anything and everything,” our professor proudly exclaimed before he began to expound upon the value of highbrow and lowbrow literature, in terms I could hardly understand, referencing books I had never heard of. My mood had drastically declined from the bright promise of a fresh semester as my head spun with abstract notions of what I once believed to be great works of writing, and now understood to be “lowbrow”, also known as “crap.” As I heavily dragged on my cigarette, inhaling as much of the toxic, tar filled joy as was humanly possible, I contemplated if this was really the class for me. Would I be able to keep up with the reading load? Would I be able to keep up with the blogs? What the hell is a blog anyway? But the most important question which seemed to suppress all other thoughts and drive out all other notions of hope: am I even going to understand anything said in class? With an exhausted exhale of smoke, I made the decision to stick with Emergent Literature, see what the future held for me, and pray to God that I would see it through until the end…anyway, I needed it to graduate with a writing minor.
This paper will be an examination of my journey as a student of literature from that tense first day of class, until the final bell has rung, and I have once again returned to where I began four years ago: eager, a tad naive, and brimming with optimism for what the future holds. As I frame my own experiences through the lens of “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, examine Joseph Campbell’s characteristics of a journey, and reminisce about some of the books we have read in class, I hope to instill upon the reader what I have learned about myself throughout this journey as well as what I have learned about the nature of stories.
“The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind, and another. His mother called him “Wild Thing!” And Max said “I’ll eat you up!” So he was sent to bed without eating anything.”[1]
Joseph Campbell’s first characteristic of a journey is “separation.” In “Where the Wild Things Are”, Max is sent to bed, away from his family, without his supper. This is essentially separation at its most basic level. Being sent away from those you love, from those who love you, until you are alone within your own being. My first task, if I was ever going to survive Emergent Literature, was to separate myself from anything I had previously known. I had to experience kenosis on a metaphysical level. In order to successfully empty myself out, I began with “Haroun and the Sea of Stories,” and went from there. Although Rushdie wrote this for his son, Zafar, and it is considered to be a children’s book, I realized that I very much enjoyed this type of writing. The main character, Haroun, was forced to separate himself from not only his father, but from every notion of the limits of possibility in this world and another. “Although it seemed obvious to Haroun that these magical creatures were so small that they couldn’t possibly have carried so much as a bitten-off fingernail, he decided not to argue.”[2] Haroun and I had to take everything at face value, believe in ourselves and those around us, and delve deeper into the unknown.
“That very night in Max’s room a forest grew, and grew- and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around. And an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are.”[3]
Max’s journey through the vast jungle in his room, and later through the deep ocean, “in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are,” can be interpreted as more than just his emotional and physical separation from the life he left behind. Max was forced to make a conscious separation away from his family and home. T.S. Eliot, in his definitive book, The 4 Quartets, writes “To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not/ You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy./ You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance./ In order to possess what you do not possess/ You must go by the way of dispossession./ In order to arrive at what you are not/ You must go through the way in which you are not./ And what you do not know is the only thing you know.”[4] Max, the wild thing, and I, are both forced into a precarious position. We must both forget what we know to be possible, forget what we believe to be true, and almost forget who we are in order to complete our journey. It will, for the most part, not be filled with happiness and elation, but will be excruciating in some places, tolerable in others, and ultimately beneficial in the end. In a sense, he and I will remain as a single being throughout our journeys; only his vessel will be an actual boat, dependent on its durability and that of its craftsman, and mine shall be my judgment, intelligence, and capacity. As is illustrated in Maurice Sendak’s words, this journey will not be short. It will be both long and arduous, and the final outcome will be completely dependent on the effort which is put into the task.
“And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible claws; till Max said “Be Still!”And tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all, and made him king of all wild things.[5]
“Initiation,” the second characteristic of a journey according to Joseph Campbell. Just as Max the wild thing initiated contact with the scary and fierce looking animals, I needed to initiate contact with another crazed animal, highbrow literature. This particular literature took the form of Cees Nooteboom’s novel The Following Story. The first attempt at reading Nooteboom, through all 115 pages of this book, I struggled. Comprehension seemed to leave me quicker than Herman Mussert’s life, motivation and happiness took flight faster than Haroun when he was in the Twilight Strip, and confidence eluded me at every stage of the journey. But just as Max had tamed the savage beasts with his unwavering glare, so should I tempt the fates by perseverance. It was my personal legend, so to speak, within the context of this class, to decipher the words everyone else in the class seemed to easily understand. I understand now that what I needed to do, not matter how imposing and confusing it seemed to be at the time, was to put on a brave face and meet my enemy head on: first Joyce, than my old nemesis Shakespeare, and finally Nooteboom. If I were ever to understand what these stories were about, what the nature of these stories and their importance is, I would have to take that first step. Open The Book. Just as Max had become the wildest thing of all by taming those very beings which Sendak refers to as “wild things”, I had to tame my wild things and become their very antithesis – the wildest thing of all.
“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”[6]
This is the aspect of our journey where the main characters, Max and I, begin to enjoy our new surroundings and take comfort in the unknown and mysterious. We are beginning to experience plerosis. In Max’s case it is the joy and contentment which comes with the camaraderie of his wild partners. In Haroun’s case, it is the self-satisfaction he experiences by being brave and cunning while fighting against Khattam-Shud. In Herman Mussert’s case, it is the understanding that he has passed on” from one state of being into another,” brought on by his “mysterious mental maneuver.”[7] And in my case, it is the filling of happiness which blooms from the transformation, the metamorphosis, I have endured, and the understanding which emanated from my perseverance and deciphering of this literary code.
“Now Stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max the king of all the wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!” And Max said, “No!”[8]
At this stage in the journey, Max and I have become conscious of our metamorphosis into a being no longer resembling the form in which we began. We have actually altered our mental state to take on the new role as the king of all the wild things. However, here is where our two paths shall diverge, only to meet again in the future. As Max has become unhappy with the life he now lives and yearns to return from where he began, I have become empowered, and can no longer return to my original state. Even if I could, would I want to? I do not believe there is really an answer to this question, as the question itself remains implausible. I am like a newborn in that my eyes hurt, because I have begun using them for the first time. I can no longer be conscious of only that which surrounds me. From now on my mind immediately explores depths previously unknown and experiences altered states of being regularly as I travel through life. Haroun became equipped with this knowledge once he returned to Earth, remembering his sojourn to the second moon of Earth, Kahani. Mussert was able to rest peacefully after accepting and acknowledging his apparent demise. And I have emerged out of the chaos, to view my life not in a linear fashion, but now as a cyclical journey, and understand, as Borges said, we are all each other. In stories, I have lived as Haroun and Mussert, just as I have lived as their creators, Rushdie and Nooteboom. Such as Bill Murray was forced to relive eternally his life in one day until he got it right, I can now understand that this is the proverbial “nightmare of history.” Reincarnation in the form of another being, set to live out this lifetime in another form, over and over again.
“The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye. And sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him – and it was still hot.”[9]
Joseph Campbell sums up the characteristics of a journey with the final stage of “return.” Max returns home to find a hot supper and the love of family awaiting him. Herman Mussert finds peace and relief as he returns to death, and Haroun finds his happiness and mother awaiting his arrival at home. T.S. Eliot’s concluding statements read, “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.”[10]
April 21, 2010 11:00 am
Today I shall present my final paper to the class. It is supposed to be the sum of all that I have gained throughout my journey as a student in Emergent Literature. But what exactly is it that I have learned? Is it that life is no longer a linear motion, but remains cyclical, ever-repeating? Or that we are destined to live out our lives as another being, in another time? I think all of this and more is what I will be able to take with me away from my four years at Montana State University. I have learned that I can no longer remain stagnant while the world turns around me, but I must adapt and change to suit my surroundings. Just as Haroun and Mussert changed and evolved, so must I. As Johnny said in his paper presentation today, “I did not like Bob Marley’s music, because I did not listen to the words he spoke.” I can no longer afford to not listen; listening and understanding are one in the same, and if I ever hope to make it in this life or the next, I need to open my eyes, ears and heart to the world around me. I need to channel my inner Max and tame the wild things.
[1] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 1-3.
[2] Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, p. 64.
[3] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 4-8.
[4] T.S. Eliot, 4 Quartets, p. 29.
[5] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 9-13.
[6] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 14.
[7] Cees Nooteboom, The Following Story, p. 61.
[8] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 21-23.
[9] Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, p. 24-29.
[10] T.S. Eliot, 4 Quartets, p. 59.
