After nearly 50 years, author Norton Juster and cartoonist Jules Feiffer, his collaborator on The Phantom Tollbooth, have joined forces on a new picture book, The Odious Ogre (Scholastic, 2010), the tale of a terrible and vulnerable ogre with a good vocabulary.
School Library Journal recently sat down with the dynamic duo during the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, where the two 81-year-olds behaved more like twentysomethings.
How did this collaboration come about?
Feiffer: "What are you doing today, Norton?"
Juster: Jules was sort of down and out, on bad times. I had to give him something to keep food on the table.
Right. How'd it really happen?
Feiffer: We came together through a mutual editor, Michael di Capua. Michael and Norton decided to approach me. Norton sent me the manuscript. He had previously sent me his The Hello, Goodbye Window (Hyperion, 2005) to see if I wanted to illustrate it. I had said, quite properly, that it wasn't for me. It was too nice a book, and so it went to Chris Raschka. He turned it into a poem, a beautiful piece of work. When I saw it, I realized that I could never have done anything like it. He won a well-deserved Caldecott for it. But Ogre seems to be perfect for what I like to do. It was about people frustrated, people not connecting.
Juster: When you're rotten you do incredibly good rotten pictures.
What's the ogre's inspiration?
Feiffer: Many people have said it is Richard Nixon. I deny it.
I understand that the two-page spread of the ogre having a tantrum is a favorite for the both of you. Why?
Feiffer: I call it "Screaming in the Rain." It's sort of like Gene Kelly in "Signing in the Rain." Some people have compared it with my "dancer" (referring to his best known cartoon featuring a dancer in various poses). I feel that is misapplied in some ways. I was not thinking about the dancer when I did this. I believe it's the perfect representation on a child's level of all the relationship cartoons I have done over the years about men and women not understanding each other. Men and women get each other wrong—he assumes one thing, she assumes another. They try to have a connection that's bound to fail. This is what Norton does in this book and is why I think I connected so beautifully to it as an illustrator. Don't you think, Norton?
Juster: There's always a problem when someone else does the illustrations. One has an abstract version of what it should look like and that is never going to be. A good illustrator takes the text enlarges and enhances it and gives it life that it doesn't have on its own. There are not that many books that are illustrated with that kind of skill.
Librarians and teachers are going to love using The Odious Ogre to teach vocabulary. Why does this particular ogre have such good vocabulary?
Juster: Well, he happened to accidentally swallow a dictionary while eating the head of a librarian. You know librarians are quite tasty.
The illustrations in The Phantom Tollbooth followed the style of Edward Ardizzone. Does the ogre follow any particular style?
Feiffer: I couldn't find a style so the ogre evolved as I drew. I wanted to create the biggest ogre in children's literature. I tried to do ugly, and he ended up being quite adorable. I had never read Shrek (FSG, 1990) by William Steig, and I was happy I didn't. I didn't realize that the character Shrek was just a bit bigger than the townspeople.
In Jules's recent memoir, Backing into Forward (Doubleday, 2010), you both met for the first time as neighbors living in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, NY. Norton, is that how you remember it?
Juster: I want to set the record straight. I was taking out the garbage. Jules was looking for dinner.
Feiffer: Norton liked to cook, and I ended up drawing for my dinner.
So what's the real story with your collaboration on The Phantom Tollbooth? Jules says Norton ran down to his apartment each time he finished a chapter and encouraged him to do an illustration. Norton says Jules would run up to his apartment, read what was written, and begin to draw.
Juster: I lived above Jules, and I would pace the floor as I worked. He would hear the pacing and came up and read what I had written and began to draw. I think these versions are like the character Triple Demons of Compromise in Phantom Tollbooth. One Short and fat, one tall and thin, and the third just like the other two. I guess we are the first two demons and our third demon will be a compromise version of the two.
Do many of the illustrations from The Phantom Tollbooth still exist?
Feiffer: I felt I was unqualified to illustrate a book and in my desire not to spend too much money on this insane endeavor that was bound to fail, I did it all on tracing paper.
Juster: Cheap tracing paper.
Feiffer: Tracing paper does not last a half a century and tends to fall apart. There are only one or two drawings that were saved by framing. As I said in my memoir, Norton neglected to inform me when he gave me the book to illustrate that he was writing a classic.
Describe each other's talents.
Feiffer: Norton has a gift for language, puns, and wordplay. He is one of the few remaining children's authors who doesn't dumb down his text.
Juster: Jules is a master of understatement.
Where do you get your wit and talent for wordplay?
Juster: My father was very good with wordplay, and growing up, I was a fan of the Marx Brothers. I don't know if that contributed.
As octogenarians, do you have any advice for those approaching the big 8-0?
Juster: Don't do it!
Feiffer: I love it! I never liked young. When you're young you never have a conversation with the girl sitting across you. You're thinking, "Where is this going to lead me. Is this going to lead to the bedroom?" There's always a subtext when you're young. When you get older, you become too old or tired to have a subtext so life is much more open, more direct, and more placid. I'm ready for inaction.
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