SUPPOSING a nasty old fortune-teller told me I was going on a journey and just to spite her I stayed home for the rest of my life ...
When I was six years old, my mother gave me a book that (I'm pretty sure) changed the way I looked at the world.
"Supposing" was written in 1960 by a British poet named Alastair Reid, and it's the kind of book that probably wouldn't get published at all these days (in fact, it was never published again after its first run). It's just too wrong. "Supposing" taps into all sorts of secret childhood desires, from defying authority to being orphaned to just plain being right (I'm serious about the orphan thing, by the way - it's young kids' #1 fantasy).
I read "Supposing" over and over and over again, year after year. I'd re-read the text and stare at the weird pictures and get totally lost in the fantasy being proposed. In some ways, I swear it was like kiddie pot. It blew my mind.
The fortune teller was one of my favorites. On the one hand, I thought it was hilarious. But I also remember actually contemplating the notion of staying home for the rest of my life just to make a point. It may have been the first time I realized there was a price to be paid for taking a stand.
SUPPOSING I were a famous scientist and knew all about the stars and looked through my telescope and saw that the world was going to end next Sunday, and told the newspapers and government and everybody and they all made fun of me, and when Sunday came I had a big dinner with all my favorite foods and then sat at my telescope and just as I said the world ended ...
I'm sure the astronomer panel appealed to me because, as the only child of two professors (okay, and maybe because I was - and I repeat, was - a bit of a spaz), I almost never got to be right. I had to settle for having the best eyesight in the house ... whenever we were driving, and looking for a place or a sign or something, I'd be the one to spot it first. Mom would call me "eagle-eye." It always felt good. Then there was the whole "world ending" idea to consider ...
Left: SUPPOSING I had fur instead of skin ...
Right: SUPPOSING I looked in the mirror one day and saw someone who wasn't me at all and I said "Who are you?" and he said "Mr. Endicott ..."
The fur panel was wacky to me - and I loved the picture - but the Mr. Endicott business pretty much freaked me out. I distinctly remember looking into mirrors and being torn between desire and fear - did I really want to see someone else's reflection staring back at me? Kind of, yeah. The subject matter came up again years later when, as a 12 or 13-year-old, there was that whole "Bloody Mary" game (though not a game at the time, really) where you'd stand alone in a dark bathroom (your friends were in the next room) repeating words into the mirror that were meant to evoke some evil mirror spirit. Oy.
SUPPOSING I had a twin but we never told anyone and only went to school half the time each ...
A twin to go to school half the time for you?? Come on - who didn't have that fantasy!
Left: SUPPOSING I telephoned people I didn't know in the middle of the night and practiced my horrible sounds over the phone ...
Right: SUPPOSING I had a great house with valuable paintings and furniture and things and I came home one day and it was all blazing and burned down and people came rushing up to me crying and being sorry for me but I just laughed and took off my clothes and threw them into the fire ...
Regarding the horrible sounds: Yes, I have made prank phone calls in my day. Yes, this panel may have contributed. Yes, I probably would have made them anyway. No, I don't do it anymore. (Well, not often, anyway.)
Regarding the Right Panel: I still think that's one of the coolest human responses to tragedy I've ever seen in my life. I know - it's fake and it's a cartoon. But still ...
Left: SUPPOSING I read a book about how to change into animals and said a spell and changed myself into a cat and when I climbed on the book to change myself back I found I couldn't read ...
Right: SUPPOSING a very beautiful lady fell in love with me and wanted me to marry her but I just yawned and said "Maybe" ...
I read "The Chronicles of Narnia" about a thousand times when I was a kid (who knew they were religious?), so I always had fantasies about either talking to animals or becoming a talking animal myself. This taught me an important lesson: Memorize the return-to-human spell before you start the process. In fact, it's something I keep in mind to this day ... just in case.
As far as yawning in the face of a beautiful woman's desire, well, I still haven't got that one down. I'm working on it.
Left: SUPPOSING I told an inquisitive woman on the train that I was an orphan and had no family and when I got off the train and went over to where our house was, there was nothing but trees and nobody had ever heard of me ...
Right: SUPPOSING I stole old hair from a barber and sent it in parcels to people I didn't like ...
The Right panel - sending old hair to enemies - well, that's just too bizarre not to love. Even as a kid I thought it was a really strange thing to put in a children's book. Of course, that made it all the better.
The orphaned child ties with the fortune teller as my favorite supposing in the book. It wasn't that I wanted to be orphaned so much as I was both fascinated and terrified by the idea that we could control our own fate like that. Granted, I wouldn't have put it in those terms as a kid, but I definitely got that I needed to be careful what I wished for.
Those are just a few of the 30 or so panels in "Supposing" - and don't think I wasn't tempted to put every single one in this blog entry. The mere fact that a copy will run you $60 on Amazon bums me out (you can get a really banged-up one slightly cheaper on bookfinder.com). For a while now, I've been thinking about getting some color copies made and encouraging my students to create their own "Supposing" panels.
SUPPOSING I tried to write a blog entry without a final line that wrapped everything up ...
7 comments:
Thanks for this post. Great lessons for a child of any age.
M
I think the one I relate to the most is Mr. Endicott. Just because, well, where did that name come from? And why is he in the mirror? But he's there, and he's so final in his response to you, and his look in that panel is so peevishly defiant. "I'm Mr. Endicott! Who else would I be? How dare you even ask?"
My favorite book as a(n even smaller) "The Kid" was "The Monster at the End of this Book," narrated by Grover. Grover sees the title and starts freaking out, because there's a monster at the end of the book, and you keep turning the pages getting closer! He tries everything, from pleading on his knees to tying the pages down with ropes, but you prove to strong for him. Finally, he admits defeat, and when you reach the end of the book Grover discovers that the monster is really...himself. He is the monster at the end of the book. How fucking deep is that?!?! Talk about never getting published today.
Absolutely my favorite book. Mine is rather tattered. I lost a page and taped in another with my hand drawn version of the orginal.
Very good quality versions are selling for over 150$ these days. Yiikes.
My favorite page says....
Supposing there were 12 of me...
Desparate to find a copy that won't break the bank!
"supposing a great rude librarian threw me out of the public library for cracking nuts, and I put on a big overcoat and a false beard and went back and asked him to get me a book on bats that was in the very bottom cellar, and he brought it up, and I looked at it and sniffed and said " No they are the wrong kind of bats, " and asked for the book next to it...."
p.s.
Supposing you and I both read a book as children over and over again, and after it got lost, one of us googled it on Amizon and discovered that a used copy sells for $150?
Um, I realise this is four years too late but I just read your post about 'Supposing' from a link on another which is currently up.
You write very well. What's happened? Have you given up the blog?
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