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The Wonderful O James Thurber Marc Simont 9780440405795 Books

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The Wonderful O James Thurber Marc Simont 9780440405795 Books

James Thurber wrote four modern fairy tales. (I am not counting here his numerous Fables for Our Time.) They are: _Many Moons_(1945), _The White Deer_ (1945), _The 13 Clocks_ (1950), and _The Wonderful O_ (1957). All of these tales are beautifully written, and I suppose which ones you favor comes down to a matter of taste. Some critics who love traditional fairy tales tend to favor the first two stories. I prefer the madcap inventiveness of the last two, along with their marvelously unrepentent villains who spice up the action.

_The Wonderful O_, like _The 13 Clocks_, is illustrated by Marc Simont. Often, we tend to think of Thurber illustrating his own tales. But Simont's washes are just right for this fable-- dark during times of censorship, and bright when the wondorful "O" returns.

We are introduced to two villains at the outset of the story. The first is called Littlejack. "He carried no crutch, for he had two legs, and he rolled like a goose when he walked" (2). He soon meets the pirate named Black, captain of the ship _Aeiu_. "It's all the vowels except the O," Black said. "I've had a hatred of that letter ever since the night my mother got wedged in a porthole" (4).

Littlejack and Black go sailing in search of treasure at the island of Ooroo: "I hate the name," Black says of it. "It sounds like the eyes of a couple of ghosts leaning against an R" (4). They have little luck with treasure, but the captain soon comes up with a more dastardly plan:

"I'll get rid of O, in upper case and lower," cried the man in black. "I'll issue an edict. All words in books or signs with an O in them shall have the O erased or painted out. We'll print new books and make new signs without an O in them." (9)

And so a locksmith becomes a lcksmith, books become bks, and Robinhood becomes Rbinhd. As more O's are removed, "the cw jumped over the mn, and the dish ran away with the spn, and the clockshop became a clckshp, the toymaker, a tymaker" (9-10).

Assisted by the sleazy lawyer Hyde, the madness continues. Violins, cellos, trombones, horns, oboes, piccoloes, banjoes, and pianos are banished from the orchestra. All animals with O's in their names are banished. (A poodle is saved because his quick-thinking owner calls him a _chien_.) The island of Ooroo becomes the Isle of R. Otto Ott can only stter his name, and Ophelia Oliver is ashamed to say hers.

Simont has some marvelously comic illustrations of what an "O"-less orchestra would look like on stage and of the exodous of the O-animals, including a cobra with the O on its hood removed. Not to mention the altered nameplate on Ophelia Oliver's doorway.

Eventually, there is a revolt led by the virtuous Andreus and Andrea. You may be sure that in the end, the villains get their just desserts. We are told that there are four O words that the islanders refused to relinquish. Three of them were hope, love, and valor. And the fourth? Ah, you must read the book to find that one out.


Tags : The Wonderful O [James Thurber, Marc Simont] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Confusion reigns on the island of Ooroo when the letter <IT>O<RO> is banished. By the author of <IT>The 13 Clocks.<RO> Reprint.,James Thurber, Marc Simont,The Wonderful O,Yearling,0440405793,General,Fantasy.,Children: Grades 4-6,Fantasy,Juvenile Fiction,Juvenile Fiction General

The Wonderful O James Thurber Marc Simont 9780440405795 Books Reviews

I did not know that Thurber ever wrote children's books. My daughter (English Teacher) made me aware and I bought the book for my grand daughter. It is slightly advance for her, but the subject matter is wonderful. I recommend it to all.....
Beautifully-written, witty and meaningful. Among Thurber's best. It should be better known, because it's suitable for kids and clever enough for adults.
My mother used to read this book to me when I was little. We lost it, but for years we've been quoting it at each other for one reason or another, such as when we grab our hat and cat and go ut. It has a quirky humour, and beautiful poetry to the writing rereading it as an adult paid off, because some of the more advanced wordplay goes over children's heads. This is a fun and memorable book, and the moral is important without being too in your face about it.
I purchased this book as a birthday gift for my wife, Stephanie, at her request. She had previously read it, but lent and lost her copy of this out-of-print book. Of all the books she's ever read, she says this is the only one that would be impossible to read aloud. Though it might seem to be a book for children, both young and old, especially word-lovers, will love this lovely, extremely clever and imaginative product of the mind of Thurber. The story, so amusingly told, teaches valuable and memorable lessons and can be read in one sitting by avid readers. There is nothing like it--a classic, a little masterpiece! My wife is thrilled that this book is now restored to her home library. The book arrived promptly in very good condition, although without the dust jacket that her previous copy had.
The Wonderful O, by long time New Yorker magazine writer James Thurber (1894-1961), was published over 50 years ago (1957), and the fingers of history leave smudges on the pages of this fanciful tale of a violent and dictatorial Captain Black and his partner Littlejack wreaking havoc when they outlaw all things "O".

The story line is relatively straightforward In search of jewels, Black and Littlejack, backed by a pirate ship crewed by violence-prone henchmen, take over the government of an island. Black, whose mother was once stuck in a porthole, has what would almost certainly be dubbed PTAD (Post-traumatic Alphabetical Disorder) today, and hates all things with the letter "O". He bans the letter, and even bans objects that contain the letter O. By teaming up with a lawyer (Hyde), legal decisions blunt some of the more disastrous potential effects of the new edicts. Cows, for example, do not need to be eliminated if they are referred to as cattle; geese are okay as long as an individual doesn't leave the flock (becoming a goose).

The Wonderful O is an adult parable rather than a children's book, though it is included in the New York Review Children's Collection. The complexity of the language and themes would challenge the great majority of children who read The Wonderful O, and the targets of Thurber's writing would likely remain opaque to them. What are those targets? First, a brief refresher of the mid-fifties.

When the Wonderful O was written, the national consciousness was still tuned acutely to war, specifically the memory of WW II and the Korean conflict. Joe McCarthy had finally been reined in only two or three years earlier, and though his rabid anti-Communism rants had lost credibility, the Cold War was in full ascendancy. The evils of totalitarianism, and the past brutalities of Stalin and Hitler were fresh in people's minds; Mao Zedong was well on his way to the excesses of power that would eventually kill over 70 million Chinese. Memories of collaborators that aided the Nazi occupation of France were still fresh. The excesses of dictatorial power that the free world witnessed were no less capricious, but considerably more tragic, than eliminating all things "O" from the world. Consciousness of what had already occurred, and fear of what might still happen, provided Thurber with virtually all of the warp, and a good part of the weave, in his literary tapestry about the letter O.

The resistance to evil, a prophetess-like figure named Andrea tells those with the courage to resist Black and Littlejack, revolves around four "O" words Love, Hope, Valor, and.....you'll have to read the book to find out! Citizens on the island occupied by Black and LIttlejack respond the way the citizens of France did when Hitler invaded, ranging from full cooperation with the tyrants to heroic resistance. Thurber's portrayal of the family and social choices that people must make in the face of tyranny is uncomfortably accurate.

Retrospectively, it's interesting that the word valor is specifically chosen over wisdom; one of Thurber's characters refers to the word wisdom as "too weak". It is also interesting to note that when the fourth "O" word is finally revealed, it turns out to be one that has been bandied about like a rugby ball for the last eight to nine years, often by those most abusive of it.

For those previously unfamiliar with Thurber's work (that would include me), his writing style is amazingly witty, and (appropriate for a friend of E.B. White) grammatically perfect, a combination of qualities that is a joy to experience.

One wonders, were Thurber alive today, if after the Vietnam War, the first and second Gulf Wars, and the current struggle in Afghanistan, he would still be willing to choose valor over wisdom as one of the four antidotal words to oppression. One wonders also if the fourth antidotal word, unnamed until late in the book, has been bludgeoned into triteness by overuse. One will never wonder, though, how Thurber would feel about impositions on one of our most important American rights that of free speech. Captain Black and Littlejack run seriously aground when they mess with natural law in the Universe of Thurber, specifically the law that allows free, unrestricted, and creative use of language.
James Thurber wrote four modern fairy tales. (I am not counting here his numerous Fables for Our Time.) They are _Many Moons_(1945), _The White Deer_ (1945), _The 13 Clocks_ (1950), and _The Wonderful O_ (1957). All of these tales are beautifully written, and I suppose which ones you favor comes down to a matter of taste. Some critics who love traditional fairy tales tend to favor the first two stories. I prefer the madcap inventiveness of the last two, along with their marvelously unrepentent villains who spice up the action.

_The Wonderful O_, like _The 13 Clocks_, is illustrated by Marc Simont. Often, we tend to think of Thurber illustrating his own tales. But Simont's washes are just right for this fable-- dark during times of censorship, and bright when the wondorful "O" returns.

We are introduced to two villains at the outset of the story. The first is called Littlejack. "He carried no crutch, for he had two legs, and he rolled like a goose when he walked" (2). He soon meets the pirate named Black, captain of the ship _Aeiu_. "It's all the vowels except the O," Black said. "I've had a hatred of that letter ever since the night my mother got wedged in a porthole" (4).

Littlejack and Black go sailing in search of treasure at the island of Ooroo "I hate the name," Black says of it. "It sounds like the eyes of a couple of ghosts leaning against an R" (4). They have little luck with treasure, but the captain soon comes up with a more dastardly plan

"I'll get rid of O, in upper case and lower," cried the man in black. "I'll issue an edict. All words in books or signs with an O in them shall have the O erased or painted out. We'll print new books and make new signs without an O in them." (9)

And so a locksmith becomes a lcksmith, books become bks, and Robinhood becomes Rbinhd. As more O's are removed, "the cw jumped over the mn, and the dish ran away with the spn, and the clockshop became a clckshp, the toymaker, a tymaker" (9-10).

Assisted by the sleazy lawyer Hyde, the madness continues. Violins, cellos, trombones, horns, oboes, piccoloes, banjoes, and pianos are banished from the orchestra. All animals with O's in their names are banished. (A poodle is saved because his quick-thinking owner calls him a _chien_.) The island of Ooroo becomes the Isle of R. Otto Ott can only stter his name, and Ophelia Oliver is ashamed to say hers.

Simont has some marvelously comic illustrations of what an "O"-less orchestra would look like on stage and of the exodous of the O-animals, including a cobra with the O on its hood removed. Not to mention the altered nameplate on Ophelia Oliver's doorway.

Eventually, there is a revolt led by the virtuous Andreus and Andrea. You may be sure that in the end, the villains get their just desserts. We are told that there are four O words that the islanders refused to relinquish. Three of them were hope, love, and valor. And the fourth? Ah, you must read the book to find that one out.