The Voice of the Children's Author

One of my chief pleasures in reading children's books is the authorial voice (or the book's storyteller voice), which tends to be different from adult books. I've examined a few favorite books to help nail down what it is.

Funny/Odd Character Names:

In Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the grandparents' names match: George and Georgina, Joe and Josephine. In Neil Gaiman's Coraline, we have Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. Sometimes the other characters have odd names but not the protagonist.

A Childlike Voice of Amazement

The voice may use "huge" or "very" (Neil Gaiman in Coraline) or otherwise verboten adverbs and simple words of aggrandizement (Dahl again):

"The house wasn't nearly large enough for so many people, and life was extremely uncomfortable for them all.... The bed was given to the four old grandparents because they were so old and tired. They were so tired, they never got out of it."* [emphases mine]

*The Absurd, Odd or Surreal Not Remarked upon

Note there's one bed for four people, two married couples in one bed in which they stay all the time for being tired. I first noted this in L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz as a child. Why isn't the character or storyteller more amazed?:

" 'Over to those trees, to see if I can find some fruit or nuts,' answered Dorothy. 

"She tramped across the sand, skirting the foot of one of the little rocky hills that stood near, and soon reached the edge of the forest. 

"At first she was greatly disappointed, because the nearer trees were all punita, or cotton-wood or eucalyptus, and bore no fruit or nuts at all. But, bye and bye, when she was almost in despair, the little girl came upon two trees that promised to furnish her with plenty of food. 

"One was quite full of square paper boxes, which grew in clusters on all the limbs, and upon the biggest and ripest boxes the word "Lunch" could be read, in neat raised letters. This tree seemed to bear all the year around, for there were lunch-box blossoms on some of the branches, and on others tiny little lunch-boxes that were as yet quite green, and evidently not fit to eat until they had grown bigger. 

"The leaves of this tree were all paper napkins, and it presented a very pleasing appearance to the hungry little girl."

Stating the Obvious (or the Obvious from a Childlike Perspective)

Sometime the voice tells us what we already know (Neil Gaiman in Coraline), which is part of the charm (is it because nothing should be taken for granted?):

"It was a very old house--it had an attic under the roof and a cellar under the ground."

 Here's a famous Lewis Carroll line that some may or may not take to be true, yet it has a certain ring of truth even if you don't agree:

" 'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversations?' "

 ***

I doubt this is any way complete, but it's what strikes me on a quick revisit of old favorites.

Review: Mark Twain's Medieval Romance and Other Classic Mystery Stories

Mark Twain's Medieval Romance And Other Classic Mystery Stories Otto Penzler, editor Open Road Media

Would a reader choose to read a book of mysteries that included that included some of his all-time favorites:  Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, and Mark Twain, yet it's theme is based around a puzzle story he absolutely loathed:  "The Lady or the Tiger?" by Frank R. Stockton?

Imagine being left there without an answer.  Are you biting your nails, anxious with anticipation?  If so, run out and buy this collection.   If you like solid closure, however, these may not be the mysteries you are looking for.  Penzler selected these riddle stories to stump confound readers.

The answer to the previous riddle is yes, apparently.  I picked this up, thinking, "Yay! Mysteries! Great authors!  I'll bite the bullet on the Stockton tale."

In case you haven't come across the Frank R. Stockton story before, it treats a young man who, after dallying with the king's daughter, is faced with picking two doors:  one he marries the lady behind it, the other he feeds his body to the hungry tiger.  The king's daughter knows which door has what behind it.  There the tale ends.  The author leaves it to you to decide.  How you think the tale ends shows what kind of person you are.

Unfortunately, if we don't the characters well enough to know what they'd do, it's not a very well written story, in this humble reviewer's opinion.  You, dear reader, are free to disagree.  Whether you agree or not show what kind of reader you are.  Nonetheless, some of these stories are more sophisticated than Stockton's.

The first two are not especially sophisticated yet clever.  Stanley Ellin's "Unreasonable Doubt" presents two young men who go to trial.  When one is on trial, the other takes the stand to confess himself the guilty party.  S. Weir Mitchell's "A Dilemma" has a poor young man receive a box of jewels that's wired with dynamite to blow should he try to open it.  However, this one has a clever  out on it's final scenario.  It asks a final question--using a key word--that adds a thin veneer of moral complexity to his characters, not present in Stockton's.

Roald Dahl's "Nunc Dimmitis" is ambiguous but in a good way.  The narrator, Lionel Lampson, is told that his girlfriend, Janet de Pelagia, thought he was a bore.  To get back at her, he has a famous artist paint her.  But the artist has an unusual method of painting:  he paints them in the nude and adds layers of clothes, so that no one know that underneath the clothes is a nude.  Lionel scraps off the paint and presents the painting to all of their friends.  Lionel's girlfriend does not respond how he expects.  However, her reaction may not show her true feelings.

Of course, Stockton's original is here, plus his own sequel, "The Discourager of Hesitancy."  Being enamored with his previous scenario.  He repeated the performance.  This time a man has married a woman, but he doesn't know which of forty beautiful women.  Is it the one who frowned or smiled?  This is slightly more sophisticated in how it presents the male's common conundrum when interpreting women, but it is essentially the same.

However, Jack Moffitt answers Stockton in "The Lady and the Tiger" in a surprising if gruesome way.  Interesting work although the many narrative layers seem unnecessary.