The Phantom Tollbooth
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The Phantom Tollbooth (1961, Alfred A. Knopf) is a children's book and a modern fairy tale full of wordplay. Written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, it tells the story of a young boy named Milo who drives through a magic tollbooth into the Kingdom of Wisdom, where he embarks on a noble quest and in the end learns a valuable lesson.
The Phantom Tollbooth has been compared to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Journey to the West, and the works of Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. Juster claims his father's fondness for puns and The Marx Brothers' movies as a major influence.
The book's creation
Juster wrote The Phantom Tollbooth (ISBN 0394815009) while he was living in Brooklyn, New York. He had received a grant from the Ford Foundation to write a children's book about urban perception—how people experience cities. After several months of work, he realized he was bored with that project and wrote The Phantom Tollbooth instead, primarily to amuse himself.
Feiffer was a neighbor of Juster's who lived in the same building in Brooklyn Heights. He started contributing illustrations while Juster worked on the novel. Feiffer's illustrations have been part of the book since the first edition.
The first edition of The Phantom Tollbooth was published in September, 1961. It hasn't been out of print since.
Plot outline
Milo, a young boy bored with school and just about everything else, comes home one day to find the titular Phantom Tollbooth waiting for him in his room. Assembling it, he drives past it in his small car and is carried to the Lands Beyond, where the Kingdom of Wisdom has fallen into disarray because of a feud between King Azaz the Unabridged of Dictionopolis, who considers words the apex of education, and his brother the Mathemagician, monarch of Digitopolis, a monomaniacal supporter of numbers.
Because of the ongoing words vs. numbers feud, the Princesses of Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason have been banished from the kingdom to The Castle In The Air, which is located high in the fearsome Mountains of Ignorance. Milo, with the help of two companions -- the steadfast watchdog Tock and the blustering Humbug -- must reunite words and numbers by returning the princesses to the kingdom.
During his travels throughout the Lands Beyond, (with stops at the Forest of Sight, and the Valley of Sound and an unexpected side-jump to the island of Conclusions) Milo meets a number of characters. Each of them represents a particular branch of knowledge or point of view, and many of them give Milo both something new to think about and a gift that comes in handy later on his quest.
Milo's quest concludes when he uses these various gifts to win his way past the demonic inhabitants of Ignorance, rescue the exiled princesses from the Castle in the Air and escape back to Wisdom. He and the rest of the kingdom realize that words and numbers are equally important subjects of learning. And Milo himself realizes that learning is not a waste of time—in fact, it's a joy.
Unfortunately, as Milo prepares to return home, Azaz and the Mathemagician seem to be renewing their quarrel.
After a day at school, Milo hurries home, ready for his next visit—to discover that the tollbooth has vanished. A letter explains that while he could have used it further, there are many others who could also. His gloom at this discovery is broken by the realization that he has a million things to fruitfully occupy his time without leaving his hometown or even his room, so that he does not know whether he would have the time for another trip.
Characters
- Milo, the protagonist
- Tock, a watchdog and loyal companion of Milo
- The Humbug, a large talking insect who acts as the anti-hero
- King Azaz the Unabriged, ruler of Dictionopolis
- The Mathemagician, ruler of Digitopolis
- Rhyme and Reason
- Faintly Macabre, the Not-So-Wicked Which
- Alec Bings, who grows until he reaches the ground and sees through things
- Chroma, conductor of the world's color
- Kakofonous A. Dischord, a fan of noise: the "A" stands for "AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!"
- Dynne, an emotional, noise-loving creature formed of blue smoke; an accomplice of Dr. Dischord. His grandfather was The Dreadful Rauw, who died of silence.
- The Soundkeeper, ruler of the Valley of Sound, and keeper of a large collection of previously-uttered noises; a stern woman who actually prefers silence, and at one point banned sound in her valley because she felt the locals had abused the privilege
- The Dodecahedron, an inhabitant of Digitopolis with twelve faces: one happy, one sad, one angry, and so forth
- The Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a monstrous filthy bird that anticipates everything you say and takes the words right out of your mouth; has ambitions of being a demon, but can only manage to be a nuisance
- The Terrible Trivium, a demon who seduces passers-by with mindlessly easy but pointless tasks
- The Demon of Insincerity, looks like a cross between a beaver and a kangaroo. He tries to scare Milo and his companions off their path through the Mountains of Ignorance by throwing half-truths at them, which are only dispelled when they see this demon for what he really is. (from Spark Notes)
- The Gelatinous Giant, is so huge that Milo first mistakes him for a mountain. He is the epitome of spinelessness. He hides in the Mountains of Ignorance and tries to look exactly like everything around him because he thinks it is "unsafe" to be different. (from Spark Notes)
- The Senses Taker, a demon who distracts passers-by by supplying them with illusions of things they would rather be perceiving
- Officer Shrift, apparently Dictionopolis' entire police force, who enjoys arresting and imprisoning people, but isn't concerned with keeping them incarcerated. He is taller sitting down than standing up, and is as wide as he is tall.
- The Whether Man, who tries to send travellers beyond Expectations, Milo's first stop on his trip
- The Lethargarians, whose regular schedule consists of dawdling and dillydallying, with a little timewasting every so often; their home is in the Doldrums
- The Spelling Bee, an expert at word-construction who quarrels violently with the Humbug
- The Half Boy, a boy who is only .58 of a person. He comes from the "average" family, which has 2.58 children. He is the .58.
- The Giant, the Midget, the Fat Man, and the Thin Man, all the same very ordinary-looking individual who explains that he is at once the world's shortest giant, tallest midget, thinnest fat man, and fattest thin man
- Canby, a frequent visitor to Conclusions who is both as short as can be and as tall as can be, among other things
Other versions
In 1969, animator Chuck Jones adapted The Phantom Tollbooth into a full-length feature film for MGM that combined live-action and animation. (Milo's life before traveling to the Kingdom of Wisdom is live-action; after he passes through the tollbooth gate, the movie becomes animated). It features the voices of Butch Patrick (who also plays the real-life version of Milo), Mel Blanc, Cliff Norton and Patti Gilbert. Juster had no input into the film adaptation, and has stated that he's not particularly fond of it.
In 1995, Juster adapted Tollbooth into a libretto for an opera version.
Various stage adaptations have been created and performed since The Phantom Tollbooth was first published.
External links
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