Mere words can’t express the utmost joy I had reading this as a kid. For whatever reason, this hit all the right spots for me as a child. Bizarre situations, random geographical references (I’m a sucker for any sort of nonsensical obscure geography reference), and just general hipster shit all baked into a delicious meal.
Of course, the book came out (1982) long before hipsters were even a thing (Vice Magazine hadn’t been created, Williamsburg still was a scary place). That is what makes it work even decades later. Parts of this book, as I look it over now, seem almost like a word-for-word summary of what later happened in my life. Like the main characters, I “snarked out” and would just randomly hang out late at night, hoping for something interesting to happen. It never did, but that didn’t stop me.
Daniel Pinkwater wrote this in some sort of silly craze. Every bit of it is positively absurd, right down the town name (Baconburg) and a high school named after Genghis Khan. Perhaps it is this sort of weird naming scheme that made me later receptive to Pynchon’s penchant for using hopelessly unrealistic names.
The kids are bored. Life is boring. They try to make it interesting. Orangutans are involved, as is an evil scientist, Iceland, and the entire profession of realtors. All of these elements are combined in such an effortless but instantly funny way. I know that a criticism of a lot of writing is how many references authors like to throw off, but here it feels genuine, not forced at all.
Before I read this book, I had been introduced to lamer variations on this theme. The Wayside School series, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle all had tried and sort of missed their mark with me (though Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle did have moments I enjoyed). What happened with this one was truly wonderful. I think this was the first piece of literature I had really “LOLED” or “laughed out loud” at. Displaying a group of intelligent bored students seemed natural to a kid who felt very out of place growing up.
My parents gave it to me as a way of cheering me up. Around this time, I became pretty disillusioned. Dreams of designing cars started to recede far into the distance. Every year cars began to look more and more like bubbles with wheels. I wanted to create these beautiful contraptions that people could not only drive, but show a bit of pride in. Slowly but surely, my hope of bringing beauty to functionally got crushed as I saw more and more of these ugly things, these minivans, subcompacts, etc. Car design fell by the wayside as people began to accept the fact that function couldn’t coexist with style.
After reading this I really started writing a little bit, like a door had been opened for me. Something else existed that I could actually try to affect for the good. Most of this writing is long gone, but ever since I read this little gem of a story, I go through various fits of inspiration where I’ll simply write hoping that perhaps this time it’ll get a little better. Thankfully literature hasn’t headed the same way to mass conformity the way car design has.
If you want to give your kid a little bit of hope as their artistic chances feel like they are vanishing away, I couldn’t think of a better thing to give them than this inspiration.