Reborn to be wild

The Wild Things
by Dave Eggers
Penguin pp288
ISBN: 978-0-141-03713-4

Recollections of growing up do not need the carrot and stick of words to move to the front rows of our imagination. A photograph, a memory smoothened like a pebble by the passage of time, a smell or a taste – they all retell the experience of growing up without the need to use words.

Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are does just that. But what about the wordless memories, I hear you query. Of course, being a book, Mr Sendak’s classic does use words, but only nine sentences of them, and these, in turn, play fiddle to the wondrous illustrations. Where The Wild Things Are goes deeper than words – it doesn’t tell but rather evokes a feverish, ghoulish dream which delves into the dark emotions that bubble and trouble children.

It is this non-verbal quality that has made Mr Sendak’s book, first published in 1963, a timeless classic. Of course, the classic quality of the book has, especially in recent years, been milked and almost Disney-fied. There are advertisements, an opera, toys and exhibits. Some months ago, a specialty-clothing store in New York sold out all its adult wolf suits in the first hour they went on sale – they cost $610 each.

The latest retellings of Mr Sendak’s book are Spike Jonze’s film Where The Wild Things Are and Dave Eggers’ novel The Wild Things, based on the screenplay.

Rather than commercial ventures, these two works are an ode to the original. What is most interesting about Mr Eggers’ adaptation is that he has managed to turn a picture book with just 18 illustrations and a handful of words into a 288-page novel, without chipping at the original’s magic.

Of course, the two books differ, especially in the details. For instance, in Mr Sendak’s classic, Max dresses up in his white wolf suit and, after causing all sort of mischief, his mother sends him to his bedroom without any supper. Here, he uses his imagination to transform his bedroom into a magical land where the wild inhabitants make him their king. Like the mythical hero, he does make his return, when the smell of dinner wakes him up from his slumber.

In Mr Eggers’ version, Max, who is older than Mr Sendak’s Max, lives with his divorced mother, teenage sister Claire and Gary, his mum’s chinless boyfriend. Following an argument with his sister and his mother, he runs away to the neighbourhood forest, hops into a boat and sails to an island where he declares himself king over the wild creatures that inhabit it. His reign is a funfest of mud-slinging fights and fort-building. Yet there are other wild things which he cannot rule – those inside him.

The beasts are also, excuse the pun, different creatures. While Mr Sendak lets the reader flesh out the beasts, Mr Eggers adds the layers himself. He gives the seven creatures normal names like Carol and Douglas and characterises them with different traits – Carol is enthusiastic yet given to moody bouts, Katherine is a free, motherly spirit, Alexander is a sentimentalist while Judith is a cynic and, as Max sees her, a threat to his throne.

Yet, Mr Eggers’ variation is still true to the original’s essence, particularly the essence of being young, powerless yet imaginative. It is Max’s imagination that makes him king yet renders him powerless to his thirst for anarchy and destruction. And it is his emotional overload that makes Max, the boy in the white wolf suit, an Everychild.

• For Mr Borg, a book is everyone’s best friend.

The review copy of this title is the reviewer’s own.