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» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » Higher Criticism: One F***, Two F***, Red F***, Blue F***

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Source: (consider it) Thread: Higher Criticism: One F***, Two F***, Red F***, Blue F***
Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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(Complete text is here; text with illustrations can be viewed here. Please note that due to Host-and-Admin-day whimsy, the word "Fi-s-h," so vital to this discussion, may appear on your screen as "f***.")

This, amongst all of the Geisel/Seuss oeuvre, cries out for the serious work of textual criticism. The naive reading is still prevalent among so many readers: the childlike acceptance that the entire text is the product of a single author with a single goal – to enumerate various improbable types of f***. But a more careful analysis shows several distinct voices and styles, which makes it appropriate, perhaps even essential, to question the textual history.

One could argue (as many scholars would) that the original “f***” storyline continues through to “the fat one has a yellow hat.” In this section, all the characters are f***-like, and each line, however improbably, is still a variation on original “f***” motif.

This section ends with the refrain-like pericope,

quote:
“From there to here, from here to there,
Funny things are everywhere”

This will, of course, recur at the end of the book.

It seems obvious that these two lines are the interpolation of a later editor, who attempts to unite the diverse images in the story by glossing them over with the generalizing term “funny things.” It’s a transparent attempt to tie the entire text together as though it is the work of a single author, but a careful examination of the text shows how false this is. Despite the title, the f***-motif disappears almost completely after this first use of “funny things.” Though some of the later illustrations feature vaguely f***-like characters, the word “f***” never appears in the text again, and the focus shifts entirely to a series of typically Seussian figures which are impossible to identify as any particular animal, united only by the fact that they are all clearly anthropomorphic.

The enigmatic Ned who does not like his bed; the Nook; the Zens; the Gox; the ceaselessly shifting voice that moves from third-person omniscient, to first-person, to first-person plural, the speaker sometimes identified and sometimes implied: the entire text after the initial “f***” section is a fascinating, chaotic polyglot chorus of voices, a truly postmodern text. What it is not, what it cannot be, is the product of a single mind, a single writer.

It occurs to me to ask if anyone has seriously proposed that Dr. Seuss is NOT, in fact, Theodor Geisel’s pseudonym, but actually a second author? Might it be possible to identify G-passages and S-passages, and whether two authors (with, of course, a later editor adding glosses such as “funny things are everywhere” to minimize the conflict between the two) are enough to explain the polyphonic nature of the text?

[ 18. September 2014, 08:33: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]

Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Chorister

Completely Frocked
# 473

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'The Lora*' is, of course, a perfect e*ample. Here, Dr. Seuss gives us an in-depth e*egesis of the book of Genesis, follo*ed by the book of Revelation. Obviously everything in bet*een is deemed far too difficult for the average Dr. Seuss reader to understand.

--------------------
Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.

Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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Indeed, the Lorax, Seuss/Geisel's apocalyptic vision, probably deserves its own thread. But bringing it up here raises the question of authorship: Could "The Lorax" and "One F***, Two F***" really have the same author? "One F***, Two F***" is much in the spirit of earlier Seuss works such as "To Think that * Saw it on Mulberry Street" -- an almost incoherent pastiche of incongruities, without a strong narrative thread to tie it together. "The Lorax" is generally deemed a late work, but the strong narrative line and didactic tone suggests that it is the work of a later Pseudo-Seuss who adapted the original writer's style elements of simplistic rhyme schemes and fanciful creatures, for an entirely different purpose.

What, after all, do we "learn" from One F*** Two F*** ... save that funny things are everywhere? This book, whether the work of one author, two authors, two authors and an editor, or an entire Seussian community, positively defies didacticism. It deconstructs the very idea that children's books should be instructive in nature, and invites us instead to laugh at (and perhaps weep with? For what tall person among us cannot empathize with Ned and his little bed?) the oddities all around us.

To suggest that that same author, a mere eleven years later, could construct a tale as structured and obviously didactic as "The Lorax" takes us, frankly, beyond the realm of the naive into the merely laughable.

--------------------
Books and things.

I lied. There are no things. Just books.

Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

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Ah no. Surely everyone knows the early Seussian community was instrumental in shaping these works? After all, the canon depends on the community. We must excavate the earlier threads of tradition if we are to understand the full import of Red F***, Blue F***. To the libraries!

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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* think that's a very likely theory, but if true, it would mean that the "Lorax" community had fundamentally very different concerns from that of the "One F*** Two F***" community. So much so, in fact, that it is hard to conceive of them as being part of the same movement. What kind of cultic group could have produced the irrational diversity of "One F***, Two F***"? What were their needs, their concerns, their goals (if any)?

This is an area where so much more research needs to be done.

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Books and things.

I lied. There are no things. Just books.

Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mamacita

Lakefront liberal
# 3659

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quote:
Crap spouted by Trudy Scrumptious:
What kind of cultic group could have produced the irrational diversity of "One F***, Two F***"? What were their needs, their concerns, their goals (if any)?

Clearly it was a community in upheaval, with the text suggesting a time of economic hardship (e.g. "my shoe is off, my foot is cold," or being forced to sleep in a bed that is too small) and oppression (Mike is doing all the work). The upheaval in their daily lives had led them to view life as utterly and existentially absurd.

Cultic practices may have involved speaking in tongues, as the text includes many words (wump, with var. whump, gox, zans, ying with var. yink)that are not to be found in other lexicons of the period.

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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
jedijudy

Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333

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My grave concern regarding
quote:
being forced to sleep in a bed that is too small
as our learned Mamacita put it, is that there is the merest danger that the Doctor was near to a procrustean train of thought. Is conformity the end goal? On first reading, * had thought not. However, upon studying the text, it seems not to be extolling the virtues and joys of individuality, but denigrating them and questioning the diversity of the poor f*** who aren't even told what the ideal might be.

This will not be reading material for my Granddaughter. * do not like it, Sam * Am.

--------------------
Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.

Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Autenrieth Road

Shipmate
# 10509

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* keep mistakenly reading the sacred asterisked word "eff eye ess aitch" as "fucks". It fits surprisingly well.

Of such confusion is textual degradation born and metamorphosis of yesterday's orthodoxy into today's heresy is brought about.

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Truth

Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Mamacita

Lakefront liberal
# 3659

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quote:
Crap spouted by Autenrieth Road:
* keep mistakenly reading the sacred asterisked word "eff eye ess aitch" as "fucks". It fits surprisingly well.

You're not alone. And then there's this (language alert).

--------------------
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
# 15978

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[Overused] [Overused] [Overused]

You're all too good.

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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged


 
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