Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth. New York: Scholastic, 1961.

A classic from my boyhood. I don’t recall exactly when I read this book, but I’m quite certain I borrowed it from Joann up the street. Let’s say around age eleven. I adored it then, and still do, but reading it now I see right through its blatant agenda.

To be quick: TPT is about “a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always” (9). Milo comes home from school and finds a package in his room, which turns out to be a car and tollbooth that carry him to the Lands Beyond, where he runs into a kooky kast of krazy karacters, including King Azaz of Dictionopolis and the Mathemagician of Digitopolis. Turn out the Lands Beyond are all out of sorts ever since the twin princesses Rhyme and Reason were banished. It quickly becomes Milo’s mission to rescue them and restore order.

I’d loathe this book if I were an ignoramus, the way I imagine I, as I am now, would loathe any kind of Christian allegory, like Everyman or something. This novel’s a very transparent Rationalist allegory. You get a lot of passages where things like this happen:

“You know something, Tock?” he said as he wound up the dog. “You can get in a lot of trouble mixing up words or just not knowing how to spell them. If we ever get out of here, I’m going to make sure to learn all about them” (65).

A line that makes even me cringe. I read that and I immediately think of its parochial analogue: “You know something, Myrrh?” he said, rubbing the silky hide of the dog. “Sinning leads people into very bad places. If we ever get out of Sodom, I’ll be sure to confess every one I can think of.”

You do, though, get lines like this as well:

“A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect,” roared the Humbug, waving his cane furiously (54).

Yes, it’s spoken by a character called the Humbug, who, yes, is a large beetle-like insect in fancy gentlemen’s garb, but I imagine it’s a sentiment not entirely at odds with Milo’s, above.

I wonder if I should quote this Humbug at the beginning of my next comp-class syllabus.