Talk, Talk

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Dublin, says John Kidd, director of the James Joyce Research Center at Boston University, “has become a James Joyce theme park.”

  How hungry we are to walk with book people.

  Doing so adds a dimension to reality.

  A writer of books for children heightens reality for readers when he gives them place names to dream about. I know that Dickens and Mark Twain did that for me. And so did Kipling. And I am positively thrilled when I get letters from kids who tell me that they have visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and to them it is not only the home of Rembrandt, Renoir, and Raphael but also the home of Claudia and Jamie Kincaid.

  There are these books that I need as a reader—the books that create a reality before we discover it for ourselves. But there is a second kind of going-home book that I love just as much, and that is the kind that makes us discover a reality that we already know.

  This is a breed of book that is home in the sense that we say an arrow hits home. We say, after closing the covers of this special kind of book, “That book, that chapter, that character sure struck home.” These are the books that have passages that you have underlined before you send a paperback copy to your sister in Ohio.

  Passages in this kind of book also evoke some place you’ve been, not a geographical location but an emotional state, or someone you’ve met—most often yourself. These on-target, at-home books produce that welcome shock of recognition.

  Home can be a small place.

  Once it was a guest editorial in Newsweek magazine in which Cyra McFadden described her reactions during a three-hour class in CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation. I smiled as I read, thinking: So did I. Oh! I thought as I read: Yes, yes, how embarrassing that had been. Then I clipped the article and routed it to the other members, the alumni, of my CPR class. It was marvelous. We all ended up feeling a sort of conspiratorial communion with Ms. McFadden, and seeing our reactions in print gave our experiences in the CPR training class a heightened sense of importance and reality.

  We returned to our feelings in the classroom. We returned to our alma mater. To home.

  What that on-target, hitting-home article did for me and the other members of my CPR class—giving us a heightened sense of importance and reality—certain books do in a deeper and more personal way. These are the books that reflect us, that distill our lives into paragraphs and give us essence. They are not the same for everyone because, obviously, we do not all come from the same place. Some great, universal books are apartment houses where there is a room for everyone. Some great books like Anna Karenina or The Red and the Black are so big that they have at least a room or two in them where anyone can feel at home.

  Others are small, detached dwelling places where we enter and immediately recognize everything and everyone described therein. Reading Mrs. Beneker by Violet Weingarten was this kind of going home for me. It is the story of a middle-class, middle-aged suburban woman with grown children, who is slightly baffled but never defeated by the life she leads. This book was going home for me in the same way as reading The Happy Hooker would—I imagine— be going home for certain ladies to whom a house is not a home.

  Years ago, The Catcher in the Rye was a going-home book for me. Later, it was for my older son, my daughter, my younger son as each of them read it. And five years ago, when I reread it and met again and was charmed again and laughed again at Holden Caulfield, it was once again a going-home book.

  And before The Catcher in the Rye there was Junior Miss by Sally Benson.

  And before Junior Miss there was Little Women.

  And before that there was nothing.

  Nothing and nothing and nothing.

  As I was growing up, I never found the kind of going-home book where I could recognize the heroine as me. I could identify with lots of heroines—with The Little Princess, say, or with Mary Poppins— but I never enjoyed the shock of recognition that going-home books afford. And I missed them. And just imagine all the African-American children and all the Mexican-American children who missed them for a long, long time after I did.

  Now I thank goodness that there were no going-home books for me when I was a child. Because I worried that my own three children would miss them as they started growing up, and I began to write so that they would have a book that was on target for them, a book that would reflect their kind of growing up as books had not reflected mine.

  What kept me from finding myself in books as I was a little girl growing up in small towns in Pennsylvania? Why would it happen that when I picked up a book that promised me that I would meet typical children in a typical small town, I would read about someone named Betsy who took naps, for God’s sake, and who had a patient mother and a maid. I lived in small towns where the mothers hired out as maids, not where they hired them.

  Were books that happened to be a true reflection of life in a small town, the touching books, the on-target, the going-home books, just not being written, as my children say, “back then”?

  Maybe they weren’t.

  Maybe.

  But I don’t think so.

  I think that there were writers who were going home, but I think there were, back then, editors who didn’t like to think that home could include quarrels among siblings and cross mothers and bathrooms.

  These editors are a dying breed. Dying but not dead. They live! They live, not in the trade book divisions of publishing houses, but in the textbook divisions. Of certain publishing houses. And they exist because they still don’t want to face the fact that we all go to the bathroom, and we don’t take doing so very seriously.

  They do, though.

  I would like to share with you a three-way correspondence concerning me, my editor, and some editors of a certain textbook publishing house. It begins with this letter to me from my editor, Jean Karl.

  Dear Elaine:

  We have had a request to adapt material from THE MIXED-UP FILES ... for a textbook. I am enclosing the’ material that came from the publisher. Do look it over and see what you think. If you don’t like it at all and don’t approve of what they are doing, just say so and I will tell them.

  Best wishes, etc… Jean Karl

  The letter she enclosed was as follows:

  Dear Mrs. Konigsburg:

  I am writing in the hope that you will allow us to use an excerpt from FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER in the revision of our sixth grade reader. There are two reasons why I am very anxious to use this particular piece. First it is a representative selection of a delightful book that I want to share with our readers. Secondly, I am planning to follow your story with a photo essay/article on a very exciting Children’s Museum in Connecticut. It is my hope that the two pieces taught together will give children a new, more positive approach to museums, both traditional and experimental. I hope they will be inspired to explore museums and your other works with equal fervor.

  Due to space considerations, I have been forced to cut several passages from Chapter Three. Your suggestions and criticisms on the editing would be greatly appreciated.

  Very sincerely ... etc… Editor, Reading Basics

  Chapter 3 of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler deals with Claudia Kincaid and her brother Jamie who in running away from home have arrived in New York City. They have come to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they intend to live in comfort and a bit of luxury. They take a map from the information stand, and Claudia selects where they will hide during that dangerous time immediately after the museum is closed to the public and before all the guards leave. She decides that she will go to the ladies’ room and Jamie will go to the men’s room. She instructs Jamie to go to the one near the restaurant on the main floor. Thereupon, they have a brother-sister discussion.

  Jamie: “I’m not spending a night in a men’s room. All that tile. It’s cold. And, besides, men’s rooms make noises sound louder.”

  Claudia explains to Jamie that he is to enter a booth in the men’s room, “A
nd then stand on it.”

  “Stand on it? Stand on what?” Jamie demands.

  “You know,” Claudia insists. “Stand on it!”

  “You mean, stand on the toilet?” (Jamie needed everything spelled out.)

  “Well, what else would I mean? What else is there in a booth in the men’s room? And keep your head down and keep the door to the booth very slightly open,” Claudia says.

  Jamie: “Feet up. Head down. Door open. Why?”

  Claudia: “Because I’m certain that when they check the ladies’ room and the men’s room, they peek under the door and check only to see if there are feet. We must stay there until we’re sure all the people and guards have gone home.”

  That passage is part of chapter 3, and chapter 3 is what the publisher wanted to use for its new sixth-grade reader. I looked over the materials they had sent via my editor and sent the following letter:

  Dear Jean:

  Enclosed are the materials from the textbook publisher. I think it will be fine for them to use part of my book FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES … if they use the material as I have edited it per the request in their letter. I have cut out as much as they have in the interest of space without destroying the characterizations of the two children and without leaving information dangling in the manner they did on pages 3 and 6 of their copy. If they should decide that the material needs further editing, I would like to see it before it goes into print.

  Sincerely … etc.

  Next in this saga comes a letter from my editor at Atheneum.

  Dear Elaine:

  I am enclosing material included in the letter that came from the [textbook] publisher today. I think this is ridiculous. I would say to them to “Go fly a kite.” Do let me know what you think.

  Sincerely … etc. Jean Karl

  The letter she wanted to tell them to go fly a kite about is as follows:

  Dear Miss Karl:

  I’m so sorry to trouble you again—I’d hoped we were through with FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER. But alas, standing on the toilets just didn’t make it through editorial conference last week.

  Would Elaine Konigsburg be kind enough to take a look at our deletion? Manuscript page attached.

  With thanks … etc. Rights and Permissions, Department of Reading Basics.

  I reread the standing-on-toilets section that I’ve just presented, and I didn’t think it was so very bad, so I wrote the following letter directly to the rights and permissions editor of the Department of Reading Basics.

  Dear Mrs.[Editor]:

  During the past year I have appeared on several different talk shows, some TV, some radio—local productions in various parts of the country: the South, the Midwest, the West. Last spring I was interviewed on one of New York City’s public radio stations. Something happened at that session that I would like to share with you.

  My editor and I arrived early, even before the interviewer got there. The lady who produces the show met us in the studio where the interview was to take place. She was a native New Yorker; she knew that I had arrived from Jacksonville, Florida. She explained to me that the interviewer would concentrate on questions about my newest book and would in no way embarrass me by asking personal questions such as how many times I was married and/or divorced. I realized that she was trying to put me at ease; she couldn’t know that it has been a long time since I have experienced any nervousness about public appearances ... I listened to her politely and smiled a great deal. I have very large front teeth, and sometimes my smile appears overabundant and anxious. The producer then attempted to reassure me further by telling me that the interview would be on cassette and, thus, anything embarrassing that I might accidentally say could be edited out.

  I smiled my long-tooth-smile again.

  The producer fixed her eyes hard on me and repeated, “Cassette.”

  ... I repeated my nod and my smile.

  “You know cassettes?” she asked.

  I couldn’t believe that she would think I didn’t, so I returned a puzzled look.

  Then she repeated, upped volume, lowered speed, “Cassettes. You have cassettes?”

  Finally, I realized what she was asking. She wanted to know if I, having arrived from Jacksonville, Florida, had ever heard of cassettes.

  I politely reassured her that I had cassettes.

  Elsewhere, everywhere I have gone throughout the country, everyone has always assumed that I know cassettes.

  I fear that you are worried about receiving irate letters from people in the South, the Midwest, and the West concerning your excerpt from FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER. I can only ask you to trust us out here … Everyone out here assumes that everyone knows about cassettes, Sara Lee pound cake and flush toilets, and we all assume about each other that we use each as the occasion and/or need arise.

  Something in me does not want to believe that an editorial board at [your company] is as provincial as a provincial New Yorker.

  I stand with Claudia and Jamie firmly on the toilets in the booths of the ladies’ and men’s rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Won’t you please join us?

  Sincerely… Elaine L. Konigsburg

  There followed two phone calls.

  The first was from the woman to whom I had addressed the letter. She told me that they had had several conferences about the toilets, and they were afraid that they would get irate letters from people. It was such a short passage. Wouldn’t I consider letting them take it out?

  I said no.

  There followed that very morning a second phone call from the editor of the editor of the Department of Reading Basics. She said that there was a question of safety involved. That some child might read about standing on the toilets and try it and fall in.

  I told her that I didn’t believe that.

  I mentioned that the book has been read by hundreds— probably even thousands—of children over the years, and I had never heard of anyone’s falling into a toilet as a result of reading my book.

  I told her that I had been to places in Kenya and China where the only way you could use it was to stand on it.

  She said that she would confer again about the toilets and call me back.

  Well, she didn’t.

  Instead I got this letter from Jean Karl.

  Dear Elaine:

  You will be interested to know that since you will not allow the children not to stand on the toilets [the publisher] has decided not to use the selection. I think they are being absurd and hope it doesn’t bother you too much that they won’t be using it.

  Sincerely … etc. Jean Karl

  This particular publisher has a trade book division that has been a pioneer in bringing toilets into the living room—so to speak. But what keeps the textbook division back a whole generation?

  Fear.

  Fears not too different from the ones I wrote about in my letter to them, for they are lusting after state adoptions of their sixth-grade reader. Four states—California, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida-of the twenty-three that have state adoption policies control over 50 percent of the textbook market. Therefore, departments of reading basics desire not to reach home. They desire to reach a market. They do not want to reach kids. They want to reach committees. So, they reason, the textbook that will be acceptable in Northern California is not the same one that will be acceptable in Orange County, California, and is still different from the one that will be acceptable in Bible Belt North Carolina. So let’s just bland this up. Let our textbook be specific to no one, to nowhere. We’ll offend no one, but we will sell books. We will sell lots of books. Hundreds—hundreds of thousands—of books.

  So there is the editor—I hope a dying breed of editor—who can get between the hitter and the hittee in a book that is trying to reach home.

  There is also the book critic. Children’s books are in a special category because there are many more detours that a children’s book must take before it can get into the hands of the child.
This is changing with the increased availability of paperbacks, but the book critic still stands with the editor between the book and its reader. The book critic in the children’s book field for a long time has been the librarian or the teacher, someone who works with children. But, alas, that is changing. I say alas because I feel that when the critics become full-time, they lose sight of home.

  Let me explain.

  In the field of adult books, there are many critics who have long ago lost sight of the reader. They begin to review for one another. They have ceased being a service. They have become a self-service.

  For a long time it has been the opinion of these critics that serious writers will have nothing to do with plot. It is their further opinion that all serious writing must be solemn and needs only two elements: style and something called a point of view.

  Mr. Louis Auchincloss, defending The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles, wrote a reply to critics of the book that was published in the New York Times Book Review of February 1, 1970:

  I have always thought that one of the greatest problems a regular literary critic has to face is the effect on him of having to read more novels than could be expected of any normal man in his right senses. It seems to me that an almost inevitable consequence of this overdose would be to develop in him a greater need for innovation in the form of structure of the novel than would be felt by the lay reader. I am sure that if I had to read two or three novels a day, or even one, I would … [be] anxious to dispose of both plot and character as old fashioned devices.

  One of the great joys of writing for children has been that the reviewers of children’s books, unlike the reviewers of adult books, have kept in close touch with children, with readers who do not tire of plot and character. They have, in short, gone home to the reader to see if the book has been on target. And for a long time the same thing applied to people who serve on selection committees and award committees. But there is danger in the world of children’s books and the danger is that those who review may have stopped going home, may have stopped having contact with children who read and have contact only with books and with other people—grown-up people—who select them. The worry is the librarian who because she is good is chosen for one committee and then another and then another, and soon she has contact with committees and not with children. She becomes someone who ceases going home.